Freshman Representative Opposes "TSA Porn" 620
An anonymous reader writes "Not content to simply follow the 'anything to protect American lives' mantra, freshman Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has introduced a bill to prohibit mandatory full body scans at airports. Chaffetz states, 'The images offer a disturbingly accurate view of a person's body underneath clothing ... Americans should not be required to expose their bodies in this manner in order to fly.' He goes on to note that the ACLU has expressed support for the bill. Maybe we don't need tin-foil sports coats to go with our tin-foil hats. For reference, the Daily Herald has a story featuring images from the millimeter wavelength imager, and we've talked about the scanners before."
Where's your savior now, leftists? (Score:1, Interesting)
It took a True Republican (not a Bush-era corporate shill) to speak out against this transgression of basic dignity.
And yet no statement from the Democrats. Ubiquitous monitoring fits Obama's Socialist agenda perfectly.
Millimeter waves? (Score:3, Interesting)
Millimeter-wavelength imaging, eh?
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/25/1330256 [slashdot.org]
The weapon focuses non-lethal millimeter-wave radiation onto humans, raising their skin surface temperature to an uncomfortable 130 F. The goal is to make the targets drop any weapons and flee the scene.
Just tweak the tuning knob a little bit...
Re:I was scanned in LAX (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a bigger problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Homophobes (Score:5, Interesting)
In Iraq, we used to make our homophobes sit in front of the scanner when we checked personnel requesting entrance to base. It was actually quite amusing to see them squirm.
Of course, when a woman would come through, we were required to find a female Marine to search/scan her. Though this would only happen once every month or two.
Re:I was scanned in LAX (Score:5, Interesting)
Music artists, movie stars etc don't seem to have any trouble getting all sorts of stuff into their hired planes.
Once you have a plane (with or without a "payload"), it isn't that difficult to take out multiple other planes in an airport.
All of this security theater is for show. To make people feel safer. Not to make them safer.
Nowadays if you try a 9/11 hijack, the odds of the passengers and flight crew taking out the terrorists are higher. Previously nobody bothered to risk their lives to do that since the unwritten rule was if everyone stays in their seats, nobody gets hurt. By breaking that rule, the 9/11 terrorists have "ruined the market" for other hijackers.
Making people feel safer (they're already fairly safe on planes anyway) can have positive economic benefits. However I'm not sure if the current methods are worth it.
Re:Homophobes (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, when a woman would come through, we were required to find a female Marine to search/scan her. Though this would only happen once every month or two.
(Not a troll, an actual question).
Is that sort of search/scan security the bailiwick of the Marines exclusively, or is it only the Marines that have enough women over there for you guys to be able to find one to do it? Genuinely curious.
I was scanned at SFO and it wasn't fast (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, the scan was "painless," as the parent says. As in, I didn't feel my skin tingling or anything. But "relatively quickly" is pretty goddamn relative.
Here's how it worked: As usual, I put all my metal items into the front pocket of my carry-on, took off my shoes, passed urine and blood samples to the TSA officer (just kidding -- or am I?), and put my bag onto the conveyor belt. Then I waited.
Station One was a line of three people (at the time). The front person in line was instructed to keep his or her feet behind a yellow line. Directly ahead was a big booth of clear plastic. We each waited our turn to get to the front of the line and wait for a TSA officer to instruct us to proceed to Station Two.
Station Two, you step up and into the booth itself. There are little feet marks on the floor of the booth that instruct you where to put your feet. You stand there, and you wait.
Station Three, after a minute or two, a TSA person comes along and instructs you that you may now put your hands on two hand-marks on the wall. Basically, you're now in a position not unlike how you stand when you're being frisked by a cop. Once the TSA officer is satisfied that you're doing it right (it isn't hard), the officer walks away, and you wait.
After another minute or two and a couple of thumping sounds, the officer comes back and tells you that you can now step down out of the booth ... and over to Station Four. I now notice that I am AGAIN standing in line behind the three people who were in line ahead of me. AGAIN we have to stand behind a yellow line, and all of the officers are acting like that yellow line is a Really Big Deal. Each person waits a minute or two until the TSA officer reappears and instructs them, individually, that they have passed the test and may collect their belongings.
Except I didn't pass.
In my case, the TSA officer approached me and informed me that they would need to see what was in my left front pocket. What was in my left front pocket was, not totally without precedent, my wallet. As it turns out, while the old scanners required you to remove all metal objects from your person, the new scanners now require you to remove EVERY object from your person, no matter what it is. They can tell if you're circumcised or not, but apparently they cannot tell that an oblong, slightly curved object of porous, nonmetallic material carried in the pocket of a man's trousers might possibly be his wallet.
I was escorted to Station Five -- yes, that's right, YET ANOTHER high-security yellow line where I needed to position my feet -- where I was told to wait for a different TSA officer. No doubt this one had a higher security clearance of the type that would allow her to examine the mysterious object. I was instructed to remove the object from my pocket. I did so using my left hand, then rotated my hand slowly so that the object was visible in my palm, revealing that the object was some kind of flat, oblong device made out of black leather. Visibly alarmed, the TSA officer informed me that she would need to open the object for inspection. Disassembly of the device revealed a number of very thin, flat, rectangular plastic objects. Some of them were printed with the logos of major financial institutions. At least one of the rectangular pieces of plastic had my photograph printed on it. In fact, this was the same flat, rectangular piece of plastic that I had showed to a TSA officer about fifteen minutes ago, at Station One. Satisfied, the officer told me I could collect my things.
So all in all, my experience is that this form of security theater is not only LESS secure than the old system -- because it yields even more, and stupider, false positives -- but it takes longer. Compare to my flight home from Mexico on the same voyage. This was for a flight FROM Mexico TO the United States, mind you -- and yet the officers on the Mexico side practically waved us through the metal detectors. I swear I saw it beep once or twice and the officer just gave the pa
Re:Being a policeman is only easy in a police stat (Score:1, Interesting)
I dont care. Cops jobs need to be hard. and if I can make it harder I damned will.
"can I see in your trunk?" No, fuck off unless you got a warrant.
"empty your pockets." No Fuck off unless you got a warrant.
Cops are not your friend. Stop fucking treating them like they are doing something for you.
Re:Being a policeman is only easy in a police stat (Score:5, Interesting)
Good point.
Put the "back room" hundreds of miles away. Shouldn't be too hard with modern technology.
Re:I was scanned in LAX (Score:3, Interesting)
Security theater is most definitely not for show, and it is just as certainly not to make people feel safer.
Think about it: What does a politician or government agency benefit by people feeling more secure? Nothing. Scared people are more easily manipulated.
No, it's not for show or for perceived safety.
There's only one reason for security theater: CYA. It's so that the next time - and there will be a next time - some terrorist action takes place, the people in positions of power (who would clearly like to remain in positions of power) have ample opportunity for saying "We did everything we possibly could. We simply did not have the money/resources to protect against this. But with more funding...."
Pure CYA. Nothing more.
Re:I was scanned in LAX (Score:3, Interesting)
I was recently pulled aside for additional screening leaving Richmond, VA. I was given the choice of the mm scan or a thorough manual pat-down. I told the TSA guy I'd rather have the hand-job. He laughed, and proceeded to give me a very detailed metal detector scan and full-body pat down. Professionally done, and it didn't take that much longer than the mm scan. The scanned folks were asked to stand one way with their feet in the foot outlines, then turn 90 degrees and do it again. I noticed that there were a few cases of rescans while I was putting my shoes back on.
I chose the manual pat-down out of modesty and dignity - I _really_ object to being forced to appear nude in front of anyone.
Re:Being a policeman is only easy in a police stat (Score:5, Interesting)
You're crazy. I took some time off from coding to become a TSO just out of curiosity. Those people are horribly paid. I did the job for a few months and quit. Those people really annoy me and I wanted to find out why they're so annoying.
They hire a lot of ex-military and people who are training to become police officers. It's beyond "scan the chicks with big boobs".
People checking golf bags for the caddy tip, stealing bottles of wine/alcohol, stealing medication, jewelry and clothes. Tossing bags marked "fragile". Playing with laptops and guitars taken from bags when it's slow. Looking through laptops and digital cameras for porn to share with other employees. Waving sex toys and sex mags when they're found. Having dueling battles with dildos (at least that was funny, as well as disturbing, to watch).
When people made it obvious when they'd steal, they'd be arrested.
I made a detailed complaint, was brought in and told I was a bad employee, so I gave notice.
It's not a complete madhouse all the time, but it makes me want to move to another country and avoid the frat boy party police state.
Re:Porn? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's an interesting example. Here's another version of the same image:
Yours:
http://www.impactlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/body-scanners-372.jpg [impactlab.com]
Original:
http://osaka.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/pic_body02lg.jpg [miami.edu]
Now why would they feel the need to photoshop out they guy's junk like that?
Re:Being a policeman is only easy in a police stat (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes it is. See my post a bit below of the frat boy shenanigans when I was a TSO.
I worked in an international airport. The most professional you'll see TSOs are when they're working in public. What goes on behind closed doors is playing with plastic dildo light sabers and showing off laptop porn and digital camera porn, not to mention looking through photographs for porn.
Not everyone behaves that way but employees don't rat out other employees for the most part.
Did anyone stop to think.. (Score:3, Interesting)