Full Body Scanners Violate Child Porn Laws 751
gandhi_2 writes "The Guardian has a story about an ongoing legal battle over the use of full body scanners in the UK. The Protection of Children Act 1978, includes provisions in which it is illegal to create an indecent image or a 'pseudo-image' of a child... which a full body scanner does."
Government (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Government (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Government (Score:5, Informative)
If the government does illegal things (like using full-body scanners on minors) then other people may file a complaint to the police, or directly start a law suit. This happens a lot in civil cases where people or companies sue the government.
The government makes the laws, but is not above the law (at least not in most developed countries with proper separation of powers). Indeed the government can technically do whatever they like, as long as they first make sure their own laws allow them to do so. That's all.
Developed != Civilised (Score:4, Insightful)
In agreement with the parent, there are plenty of examples of governments making laws to sanction immoral actions; consider the apartheid regime in South Africa, where as the government 'needed' to do something illegal, e.g. force mass evictions based on race to provide new land for development of suburbs for whites, new laws sprang into place. A more recent example example would be the US and the patriot act. Granted, the introduction of laws that curtail civil liberties or are immoral had to be sneaked in, often on unrelated bills, but it is another case of a government making laws to suit it's own purpose.
Which brings me to my actual point. It's not only developed countries that have a proper separation of powers. Many developing countries have the same legal principles enshrined in their constitutions. It's just that those principles are often ignored (including in developed countries) by the corrupt. Corruption is a part of human nature, not a part of just 3rd world human nature.
Re:Developed != Civilised (Score:5, Insightful)
I totally agree with you. Many of these laws, and I have to say particularly coming out of the US closely followed by its lapdogs Australia and the UK, are quite horrible. However they all play on fear, and fear is a very powerful emotion. Western politicians are surely the best allies of Al Qaeda and related groups.
Now again the discussion whether the guy that tried to blow up an airliner should be considered POW or common criminal. This is a criminal and I think he should be tried for that, and put behind bars for a long time. It's not a POW, and I have to look it up but IIRC a POW also has lots of protection, including that a POW shall be released soon after a conflict has ended. And a conflict like this is not a war, it can not "end" like a war.
And airport "security". A miserable failure. I fly regularly within Asia and I do not feel unsafe because of terrorism risks. Common crashes due to pilot error or technical problems are much more common. Only once in Korea I had to take off my shoes, elsewhere not. Last week in Vietnam I walked through the metal detector which went off... then I told them "oh, must by my coat" (metal buttons), threw it on a box through the scanner, walked through the detector again, and was good to go. Not even having to take out my laptop from my bag. Quick and easy, just like 10 years ago. Except for liquids (I didn't try to take any).
London is the most watched city in the world - but I have never heard about a serious drop in crime rates. Or a serious increase in crimes solved.
And of course those privacy invasions only get worse, never better. No politician dares to remove those "security" cameras and other "security" measures.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
London had 300 knife incidents on the Underground in a week.
If you have a concealed carry permit, you are allowed to carry a gun on MARTA in Atlanta.
We have had no gun issues and no knife issues.
Re:Developed != Civilised (Score:4, Insightful)
London should let Americans carry guns on the Underground and should also prosecute any knife wielding criminals who somehow survive attempts to threaten the Americans.
Re:Developed != Civilised (Score:5, Interesting)
London had 300 knife incidents on the Underground in a week.
Given I've used the Tube nearly every day for the best part of 15 years at all hours of the day and have never seen a single incident, knife-related or not, you are going to have to back that claim up.
I'm not saying London is crime free, far from it, but I've lived here for 16 years and can count the number of things I've seen or even heard of affecting my friends on my fingers.
Re:Developed != Civilised (Score:5, Informative)
Murders rates for the most recent year I could find.
Atlanta: 129
[1] [fbi.gov]
London: 130
[2] [police.uk]
Yes, that's right, a city with 17 times the population has the same number of murders in a year. That's 17 times lower murder per capita. And the rates for murder are highest in London, they are practically zero elsewhere in the country. It's the same in any other civilised nation where the gun lobby doesn't have control of the legislature and gun laws are actually somewhat sensible.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Developed != Civilised (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm honestly not sure what is the point of letting someone out of prison only to exclude them from all reasonable paying jobs. What do we expect them to do? Since we won't let them work, they commit more crimes. Then, we use the recidivism rate as an excuse for not having hired them.
Re:Developed != Civilised (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet, oddly enough, this [wikipedia.org] page places the intentional murder rate in England at 2.03 per 100,000 vs. 5.4 in the U.S. Better, yes, but hardly a factor of 17 better. What accounts for the difference, do you suppose? It seems to me that you've either selected cities (Atlanta and London) that are not representative, or there's some other sort of slight-of-hand going on.
Look... I'm not gun nut, in fact don't even own one even though I'm a Southerner and my family always has. But I don't think blaming murder on guns is helpful. I think it's got a lot more to do with an ineffective social safety net, ineffective policing, and (in the case of places like Atlanta) the foolhardy "war on drugs" that uses drug money to turn inner cities into war zone.
Re:Developed != Civilised (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Developed != Civilised (Score:4, Informative)
I'm pretty sure you pulled those "statistics" out of your ass, or from an NRA newsletter, same thing.
Here's an article: Tube crime plummets with knife scanners at stations [thisislondon.co.uk]: "knife-enabled offences on the London transport network had fallen from a mid-2006 peak of about 70 a month to about 20 today." "300 per week" is 1200 a month. So you're exaggerating by a factor of 60.
And as for the "no issues" of MARTA, Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] mentions :"high-profile crimes on or near MARTA have created the impression with some that MARTA is unsafe and lacks a strong police presence, even though it has its own police department.[76] From 2005 to 2008, two homicides and one rape were reported on MARTA property. The most common crime reported was larceny. The most common area for crime was MARTA's rail service, followed by MARTA's parking lots. For fiscal year 2008, MARTA had a crime rate of 2.61 per 1000 riders (0.261%)."
So you're misinformed about that too. But don't worry about facts, you know you're right.
Gun nuts... gah.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And of course those privacy invasions only get worse, never better. No politician dares to remove those "security" cameras and other "security" measures.
Well, I guess it's more perceived safety than security, but one of our local councils has removed a bunch of speed cameras : Council ends speed camera funding [bbc.co.uk].
So it can happen, but it's almost impossible for an MP, Councillor, or other elected representative to have the backbone to stand up against any sort of "Think Of The Children" (TotC) style legislation because it may well curtail their tenure at the next election!
Easy solution... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, all criminal cases are "The Crown vs", not the Queen - the distinction I think is that it is the abstract office, not the person currently holding that office.
Besides, there is precedent that the monarch is not above the law [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What?
"Citizen's arrest" powers are naturally subject to the authority of law enforcement, because you're not a law enforcement officer.
Why this makes sense, consider this example:
Police and other emergency services are not bound by traffic laws during an emergency. This privilege can get abused. However, even if you think it is being abused, you could be wrong. Impeding an officer during an actual emergency is bad, and the average person isn't trusted to make that decision.
You have the right to a trial if y
Re:Government (Score:5, Insightful)
They are bound by traffic laws, even during an emergency, but they have the ability to use their judgement and training if they choose to break those traffic laws in order to fulfil their job (for example, not wearing a seatbelt just before a sting, going through red traffic lights with sirens on, breaking the speed limit, overtaking in otherwise dangerous places).
At all times they are responsible for their actions though, and in the case of an accident would have to justify their exceptions to the traffic rules - they can't just plough through a red traffic light without looking and say "sorry, police car on emergency call" even if they do have the blues and twos on - the driver must ensure that it is reasonably safe for them to perform that manoeuvre without slowing them down too much. If they are reckless, the public can provide evidence against them if a case comes to court requiring witnesses.
So, they don;t have a blanket pass on traffic laws, but they can break them at their discretion, as long as they feel it is safe to do so, with consequences if they cause an accident.
Re:FOR FUCK'S SAKE (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you hit the nail right on the head.
Though, that is the whole issue. Why do we even have this debate? Why do we need these scanners in the first place. Simple answer: we don't.
All they will do is inconvinience and hassle anyone with some minor indiscretion to hide (like a few pills or a bag of pot), which will be essentially as close to 100% of the people going through as it gets. All to catch... well... who exactly?
We see one of these bomb incidents maybe once a year? Twice? Throughout most of the world? Then on top of it, a significant number of those, fail to even work, or are stopped on the plane by the now alarmed passengers. All this, without said scanners in place.
Seems to me all this is.... a huge waste of time and money.... all justified by dramatic images of families and children dieing in tragic plane crashes. Even though, its a farce. Those same children are WAY more likely to die in random car crashes, or from the flu than some terrorist act.
I keep seeing a room full of bearded turbin headed men exclaiming how wonderful it is that they don't even have to succeed in blowing anything up and the whole western world cowers in fear and runs around like a bunch of ninnies over it.
Re:Government (Score:5, Interesting)
5 Jan 2010 : Column 35 The issue of privacy will be important, but all the images are destroyed immediately and the person responsible for the scanning is in a completely separate room, as anybody who has seen the system in Manchester or the version in Glasgow operating will know, so there is no immediate contact between the person doing the imaging and the person being imaged. Privacy considerations are important, but I believe that we can ensure that those who have concerns can be satisfied. I do not foresee a situation in which people can simply object to a body scan. We need to use the scanners perhaps not as the first line of our defence but as the second line, on a random basis.
Now after reading that, two questions come to mind. 1. Why are anyone's images being stored anywhere in the first place, 2. What definition does the word "immediately" deleted mean, one second, one day, one week, one year? Knowing government, the longer the timeframe the better.
It sounds even worse, the person doing the scanning is a locked room by themselves, paedo heaven!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Government (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Government (Score:5, Interesting)
And they should have to be naked. It's only fair.
Re:Government (Score:5, Funny)
One thing is certain though - given the survival of the recent bomber, bombers should now think twice before hesitate stuffing explosives into their crotch area
Should, maybe, but won't.
If they weren't blazing idiots in the first place, they would be hesitating before stuffing explosives next to their balls BEFORE someone lit his own on fire.
I mean come on... Jihad is Jihad, but these are the twins we're talking about.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's not illegal if the government does it. Right?
In this case I think that is literally true. The CP laws in the UK have an exemption for those with a legal reason to possess or create the stuff (making a copy counts as "creation"). It was intended for lawyers and policemen who have to handle CP in the course of prosecutions, but it looks to me like it would be pretty trivial to extend it to the normal operation of full body scanners, just by having the home office declare this to be the case.
Besides, a nude image of a child is not necessarily CP. T
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt it. Did you see the pictures from the article? While people were clearly in the nude pornography is more than nudity and those pictures weren't that great in comparison to what someone with an Internet connection could probably get online much more easily.
So you're fine with me browsing the images of your hot wife/sister/daughter?
Re:Government (Score:5, Funny)
No sister, no daughter, and if you think my mom is hot, then there's something -really- wrong with you.
Re:Government (Score:5, Funny)
No sister, no daughter, and if you think my mom is hot, then there's something -really- wrong with you.
He said wife, not mom. You have issues ;-)
Re:Sent to prison for Cartoon Porn (Score:5, Insightful)
But even drawn pictures can have a sexual or erotic intention. A full body scan isn't in any way sexual. I find it odd if people define (child) pornography by the amount of visible nudity (and come on, a full body scan shows a real abstract image of your body). Pictures of genitalia in biology books or information booklets on STD's aren't considered to be pornographic either are they? I find the whole discussion to be really over the top and really strange that people even come to a conclusion like this. Over-sensitive idiots if you ask me.
Do note that I'm not saying that there is no privacy issue with a full body scan. It's just that jumping to the child pornography conclusion is absurd.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But even drawn pictures can have a sexual or erotic intention.
But nobody has been violated to create them.
(I won't get into whether a full body scan counts as violation. And of course not all nude images are automatically pornographic. What about holiday photos from naturists?)
Re:Sent to prison for Cartoon Porn (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is absolutely not the point.
The real point of the legal definition of CP should be: Something that hurts children, and therefore must be prevented.
But of course, right now, the real point is: Something that a politician thinks, the most extreme conservative groups might objet to, and therefore cost him votes, or will be picked up by the media, and so in the end costs him power.
They don’t fuckin’ care about children getting hurt. All they care about are their own asses. The whole idea of just forbidding to talk/see/hear anything about CP, instead of preventing the actual action that hurts children, is just sick. Because it protects CP. If accidentally stumbling upon a CP site and then call the cops to put them in jail, means that you will be put in jail, then CP is safer than it ever was!
And that is what ever people who got themselves raped as children say.
Besides: About full nudity of children:
I remember that when I was a child, we were at nude beaches in France, where parents and their small children run around completely naked. So what? They are children. If you see them, that caring instinct instantly kicks in. And if not, then still what’s so special about nudity?? I just don’t get it. It’s the freakin default. Being clothed is the weird thing.
You’re not a perv when you let them run around naked. That’s just natural.
But, you’re a perv, if your thoughts when you see them, circles around sex.
Also here in Germany, it’s nothing special to let small children run around naked at swimming pools (especially open air ones) in the summer. I think: How weird is it, that we aren’t naked too.
We did it for centuries. Millenia. Hundrets of ’em. Until that sick disgusting religious mind-twisting came around.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The concept of the kings not being above the law goes back even further - back to ancient times.
See: Deuteronomy 17
14 When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, "Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us," 15 be sure to appoint over you the king the LORD your God chooses. He must be from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite. 16 The king, moreover, must
coming to a airport near you... (Score:3, Funny)
Pedobear TSA edition!
From TFA (Score:4, Funny)
Note. This quote may have been altered for your safety.
Neat. (Score:5, Funny)
"Think of the Children" meets "Fighting Terrorism." Which one wins? News at 11.
Re:Neat. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Neat. (Score:4, Funny)
"It's not like they only try to blow up 'Adults only' planes."
There are "Adults only" planes? I'm asking my travel agent to book those!
Unstoppable force, immovable object (Score:5, Funny)
Two ridiculous hot-button topics with opposing aims.
Wow, this is kind of like when the unstoppble force meets the immovable object.
Re:Unstoppable force, immovable object (Score:4, Funny)
It is amazing what is going on. I personally don't care myself, If I get scanned or patted down. But I can imaging a a few folks who might. Pre-Op Transexuals for one.
I bet we catch more of those preops than terrorists with this new technology.
Re:Unstoppable force, immovable object (Score:5, Funny)
Hey! I insist in patting down! Seriously, if I didn't fly I wouldn't have any sex life, so please, you can't take that away from me!
Re:Unstoppable force, immovable object (Score:4, Insightful)
Hrmm ... interesting experiment.
Try your very best to 'flirt' with the person who's going to pat you down. Moan softly but audibly when they start. They start up high, so try to press your chest against their hand.
I'm very curious about the number of times, the pat-down is completed along with the distribution amongst gender, age groups and race.
Re:Unstoppable force, immovable object (Score:4, Insightful)
Supposedly, for now, they'll just stop scanning those younger than 18 years.
Which, given the age of maturity in the culture that supplies most terrorists today, is kinda pointless.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's generally pointless. If you present a loophole people who want to do something illegal will use it. If you do not scan a specific group of people and this is known, you needn't scan anyone. Because all materials you are looking for will be carried by a member of that group of people, if necessary one such person will be taken along for that single purpose alone.
False Dichotomy (Score:3, Interesting)
Ministers now face having to exempt under 18s from the scans or face the delays of introducing new legislation to ensure airport security staff do not commit offences under child pornography laws.
I somehow doubt that their choice is limited to those two options.
Re:False Dichotomy (Score:5, Funny)
I propose we invoke the law of the school yard which clearly states that if they're going to see ours they're going to have to show us theirs. That should put an end to that.
Re:False Dichotomy (Score:5, Insightful)
Broadly, speaking, those are the options.
They could rewrite the laws that define nude pictures of those under 18 as automatically pornography.
Ridiculous law (Score:5, Interesting)
This is ridiculous. Child porn laws need to differentiate between nude images and obscene/exploitative images. Hopefully this security debate will fuel a rethink.
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:5, Funny)
Security debates don't fuel anything to do with think.
Unless you count Doublethink.
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing could be more true. The damage the 'terrorists' have done is damn near zero. A few busted trains, a few blown up airplanes, and and few buildings? Pfft. It doesn't even rate as pocket change next to one hurricane in terms of costs. In terms of lives lost it doesn't even exist on the same scale as mundane boring shit like cold or warm weather, car accidents, the common cold, and other stupid shit no one gives two shits about. The "terrorist" have done so little damage as to not even register as a cost in terms of lives or cash compared to the normal boring dangers that we face without blinking every single day.
Well, that is true if you don't take into account violent government overreaction. The countless TRILLIONS we have spent in over reacting done VASTLY more damage than any terrorist can even begin to contemplate. We take a mosquito bite and respond by chopping off our own limb. Who to blame? Well, I blame two groups. First, I blame the brain dead masses who can't get it through their thick fucking skulls that they are more likely to be struck dead by a lightening bolt than a terrorist, and who squeal to be striped of liberty and dignity to prevent an absurdly rare way to die. Second, I blame the utterly spineless politicians who play into this fear. I would have had infinite respect for a politician who responded to a terrorist attack by shrugging and suggesting that the best course of action is to invest in lightening rods, because they are a shit ton cheaper than this mindless security theater and will save more lives with a billionth the cost. Even better, spend one millionth of the cost we were going to spend on stripping every single citizen naked who gets on an airplane and dump it into fighting a real threat, like the common cold, the flu, and choking on medium sized objects.
Anyone who would rather see their wife or daughter get stripped naked in front of machine rather than endure the nearly incalculably small risk of a terrorist attack is a spineless piece of shit. I can't decide who pisses me off more, the wretched spineless cows who whimper to politicians to strip them of their money, liberty, and now their fucking clothes, or the bottom feeding piece of shit politicians who agree to do it.
Bah. This whole 'debate' (if you can call such inarticulate babbling from politicians "debate") pisses me off to no end.
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm tempted to agree with you... really strongly tempted.
But but but:
1) Your argument relies on the countermeasures (the government's reaction) having no impact, ie absent the countermeasures, terrorism would not be substantively more prevalent than today. You have only to look at Israel to see that countermeasures are able to have a discernible positive impact in reducing terrorism. If there were no countermeasures, then it is likely that there would be substantially more terrorism, and the chances of being harmed in a terrorist incident would increase accordingly.
2) Your argument also assumes that terrorists will never gain the means or the opportunity to carry out attacks that harm very large numbers of citizens (I presume you will agree that they have the motivation). I'm in no position to carry out a realistic threat assessment, but I'd be surprised if that were the case.
All that said, I still agree that these scanners are a ridiculous intrusion and will not help solve the problem. I'd far rather see more behaviour-based profiling.
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:5, Interesting)
That's funny. Some things (greek art, for example) lead me to believe that this isn't a universal truth, but rather a social construct.
I recall when I was 12, all nudity was sexual, precisely because I was never allowed to see any "naughty bits". As an adult, there are plenty of naughty bits to be found if you know where to look and so it's not so thrilling any more.
Perhaps this is simply a construct of the fact that child nudity simply can't be found anymore, anywhere, so people who are attracted to it have a lower tolerance for stimulus.
This is also in light of the fact that from my understanding, the image of "dirty drooling pervert" isn't quite as accurate as most people would like to believe. Of course, your work in prisons may lead you down that path to some extent, but I would hate to think of the conclusions of a sociologist who was only ever allowed to study the prison population of the culture he was trying to understand. :-)
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, your work in prisons may lead you down that path to some extent, but I would hate to think of the conclusions of a sociologist who was only ever allowed to study the prison population of the culture he was trying to understand. :-)
This sounds an awful lot like how people who spend all day working with drug addicts in rehab tend to have this image of all illegal drugs as horrible and talk about how the majority of drug users are broken worn-down people, they just see that all day and never see the girl smoking a joint at a party, or the friends who take some ecstacy at a rave and then go home to sleep it off, they just see the guy who smokes 5g of weed per day, the habitual coke-head and the heroin addict who's ruined his life and base their image of drug users on these people while not realising that the average drug user is a fairly normal person with a regular life...
(This was not meant to be in the defense of child molesters but rather as an example of a similar situation in which it is easy to get a warped view of reality based on a poorly chosen sample group)
/Mikael
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, generally speaking most people who develop problems with substance abuse tend to either be genetically predisposed to easily develop addiction problems ("addictive personality") or they have other underlying problems (this is also a large factor in why many drug addicts also have mental health problems (although many of the most rabid anti-drug advocates like to pretend that the drugs were the cause of the mental illness and not the other way around)).
/Mikael
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:5, Funny)
Bestiality is illegal. Let's outlaw all images of naked animals; the logic is the same, unfortunately.
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:5, Funny)
Bestiality is illegal.
Not here in Brazil, bitches. You will have to pry Mumu from my cold dead hands
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it isn't.
First of all, an animal won't care, as it grows older, that there is a picture of its genitalia, or it being involved in a sex act to which it did not consent, extant in the public space. Or even just lying there, exposed. People -- they generally will care. That even applies to baby pictures. Parents think they're cute. The subjects, not so much.
Secondly, the real issue here is that the problem law is one that outlaws not images of real people, but any rendering, artistic or otherwise, of a real or imaginary young person.
As far as the airport scanners go, (1) inform the public what they face, and (2) they can choose whether to submit. This is very harsh, but it still allows for privacy and most liberty, excepting that travel using someone else's privately owned conveyance has preconditions no sensible person would put up with (and hopefully, that will kill the air travel industry, finally teaching the idiots in government a lesson.)
It is much more disturbing that art and less-than-art expression, harming no individual, utterly victimless, is being cast as criminal activity. That's straight up repression, censorship, and foolish to boot.
Here, it would be straight up unconstitutional. Which is not to say, of course, that they wouldn't make laws against it anyway, they've stepped on eight of ten of the bill of rights amendments as it is, not to mention other parts of the constitution. But at least you'd have a leg to stand on to object.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because someone finds it arousing doesn't make it porn.
I'd offer up a counter-argument here and suggest that, like Art, Porn is in the eye of the beholder (should that be "hold of the beholder"?).
Sure, there's a variety of legal definitions, but they are, to all intents and purposes, to be used as yardsticks - indeed the (legal) definition of Porn is different in different countries (hell, probably different in different states in the US!) and has (and I'm sure will) change over time within a country.
Remember that Legal Definitions aren't Fact. You only ha
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:5, Funny)
Child porn laws need to differentiate between images of voluntarily nude children in the bathtub and children forced to show their privates to strangers so that they can fly to visit grandma.
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it even more amusing that there is no worry about the privacy of adults. Isn't their privacy being abused by these full-body scanners? Won't 99.99% of cases be that guards screening this would get a kick out of seeing an adult nude and not give two hoots about naked children? Does anyone have statistics on what percentage of the population are pedophiles? I'm willing to bet that it's a pretty low number.
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:5, Insightful)
As an adult male, I know that when I go out in public I act coldly and hatefully towards children.
It's the only way to keep people from calling me a pedophile! Being nice to them just makes people scared of me!
Presume guilty except in explicit evidence of innocent. And even then, question exactly why an innocent person would need evidence of innocence.
Wait, no damn! That means I should stop hating kids because it looks like I have something to hide! Is there any way to prove the absence of something? Science gave up trying to do that with God years ago!
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't go so far as to act coldly to them, but I've noticed the same thing. I grew up heavily involved in the local soccer program and have refereed and coached for years. I'm a single guy in my mid twenties, so I'm also around the age where I'm thinking about settling down and having kids of my own.
As a result of the above, I've become used to dealing with and being friendly with children. Young children especially should be exposed to friendly social interaction for their own mental development. However, because of the overreaction by some parents just because I've SMILED at their child, I no longer feel completely comfortable in my role as a coach and mentor, despite the nice things my players (and their parents) say to me.
I was even asked to join the board that runs the program and said no, partly because those same people can't understand why a single guy would be involved in a volunteer-run kids' program other than to take advantage of children.
It's a sad state of affairs when you're no longer encouraged or even allowed to be involved in your community. If I were a religious man, I'd pray to the flying spaghetti monster or whatever equivalent for people to get their heads on straight. Since I'm not, it seems far more likely that I'll end up giving up on a sport I love and a program that desperately needs volunteers just so I can stop feeling weird and guilty about it.
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone hand that guy an insightful mod, he's got it. I was pondering all the time what bothers me about this, and this is it!
Pedophiles are a minority. Well, most likely. Let's not assume this is somehow a world of the Paranoia RPG where everyone hates mutants and everyone is one and tries to hide it. Yet we're afraid of a secret pedo sitting behind those scanners and seeing kids nude. We're not worried about him seeing adult females (or males, hey, ya know, some swing that way...) nude, despite the chance of him being (sexually) interested in seeing that being magnitudes higher.
That doesn't bother us? Well, it might not bother our politicians, I don't even WANT to picture them nude, not to mention having to look at them that way because it's my job (shudder!), but it certainly should bother any halfway attractive person on this planet who plans to take a flight.
Re:Ridiculous law (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a good example of a world gone mad. Since when is every individual a suspected terrorist? Terrorists are an absolute, absolute minority.
FTFY.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Think of the children (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this is an excellent idea: I would engage the right thoughts to get wood as I passed through, and recommend all others do similarly. It would be a silent yet dirty protest of the modern era.
When they march into your town, do not look away as if you have something to hide, but stare straight into their eyes so they can see your hatred.
So, pat down for childs! (Score:5, Interesting)
Body scanners are optional, if you refuse, you get a pat-down search. :)
But some pat-dows may constitute sexual assault:
http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/inappropriate-pat-down-searches-during-an-airport-security-screening.html [legalmatch.com]
This may be a catch-22 for TSA
Solution: exempt children (Score:5, Insightful)
"But back to those privacy concerns. Some lawyers believe having a young traveller pass through the full-body scanners could violate child pornography laws. As a result, Canada is exempting passengers under-18 from the new measures."
from http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/01/06/f-rfa-common.html [www.cbc.ca]
Personally, if I were asked to go through one I would opt for the pat-down instead. Want to get your rocks off feeling my rocks? Go for it, but I won't have my naked image stored in a computer that politicians claim is hack proof and will get deleted right after.
Agree, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's indecent, and I am principally against it. It's attacking the integrity of the human body, and a number of other basic human rights.
In The Netherlands, some person from the PvdA political party called it totally acceptable to introduce body scanners as flying is "voluntarily", and thus you would not be able to refuse it once you bought a ticket and boarding the plane. That person probably has no idea that a significant number of flying-hours is made by business travelers who are not doing that voluntarily, and cannot refuse (lest be fired).
A lot of stupid arguments are floating around in these days why the body scanners are OK, but every one of them can be refuted by a simple - but basic (like human rights) - counter argument...
Let's hope the political process works and we can indeed always opt for a pat down (or more, if suspicion arises *after* the pat down and normal security screening - that failed for Schiphol), or we have hundreds of thousands of people added to a virtual "no-fly list" as per arguments above...
Re:Agree, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want my naked image to be seen by anyone
It's not like the stuff under your clothes is a mystery to anyone. Get over it. Do you also think it's indecent when a doctor asks to see your naked body?
My problem with body scans has nothing to do with nudity-- it's that we're being driven toward it by a knee-jerk reaction. Before we dive into body scanning everyone, we need to ask whether we are more likely to catch terrorists this way, and whether it is worth the cost.
Re:Agree, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Get over the hang-ups of nudity being naughty? How dare you suggest that. What impact would it have on the kids to know that every has such bits. Won't anyone think of the children!
What? We're in this ridiculous situation because people are thinking of the children and are taking it too far? Oh, okay.
Unfortunately I think we're too ingrained in the culture of "nudity = porn" (especially America and its Soul Corrupting Nipples, but also the UK) for the sensible approach of "it's just a bloody scanner, it isn't being used indecently and is no different to an anatomy book and is less indecent than some old works of art".
Re:Agree, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, the urge to keep primary and secondary sexual characteristics private is not wholly driven by religion. There are lots of people who may have hangups for reasons other than religion about being obliged to show their bodies to strangers via a scanner: survivors of breast cancer who've had a mastectomy; those with a physical disability; people with particularly large or small genitalia; and those who just think that they should be able to choose for themselves who they show their body to. While there are some nude cultures around the world, the majority of human cultures value some level of body privacy -- including culture that predate Christianity. Just because it's not important to you, doesn't mean it's not important to anyone.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Furthermore, we have thousands of years of evidence of religious people not respecting anyone else's views. Why am I obligated to make concessions to them? I'm not killing them because they believe in God (I do not), but in many places in the world, I would be. Can you imagine what would happen to a public leader in a Western country who refused to swear an oath on a Holy Book? People woul
Re:Solution: exempt children (Score:4, Funny)
Children are small. We can transport them with a series of high speed air powered tubes. Problem solved.
Now will somebody... (Score:3, Funny)
1984 came late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:1984 came late... (Score:5, Informative)
Um...
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/08/britain-to-put-cctv-cameras-inside-private-homes/ [wired.com]
"£400 million ($668 million) will be spend on installing and monitoring CCTV cameras in the homes of private citizens. Why? To make sure the kids are doing their homework, going to bed early and eating their vegetables. The scheme has, astonishingly, already been running in 2,000 family homes. The government’s “children’s secretary” Ed Balls is behind the plan, which is aimed at problem, antisocial families. The idea is that, if a child has a more stable home life, he or she will be less likely to stray into crime and drugs."
Re:1984 came late... (Score:5, Informative)
I mean it is crappy and all but not nearly as evil as wired/you put it.
The official site does give me the chills in some places. Though, they don't seem to go beyond what is normal in most neighborhoods (Even in the US), the way they phrase things is a bit much for me.
http://www.asb.homeoffice.gov.uk/default.aspx
Re:1984 came late... (Score:5, Insightful)
There needs to be some sort of Godwin's law for 1984 comparisons.
No, I don't like the airport paranoia, but to compare airport security tech to 1984 is rather hysterical.
It would be claiming anti-Arab feelings and sentiment make the US just like Nazi Germany.
Yet on any article about the government on /. it's a simple matter of time when reading the comments before one compares whatever the privacy violation of the day is to 1984. Which generally makes it hard to take seriously.
Wait, (Score:4, Insightful)
This cant be right, I'm certain the PC committee will rectify this before tea time.
Re:Wait, (Score:5, Informative)
I once made a comment to a day care center "Is it for the protection of the children". She replied "No, It is for the staffs protection".
It's the only logical solution. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's the only logical solution. (Score:4, Funny)
Hehehe, you said balls!
I understand they're exempting people under 18 (Score:5, Insightful)
Perfect. There have been suicide bombers younger than that. I feel much safer now...if perhaps a tad undignified.
If you think if the children, the terrorists win (Score:4, Funny)
If you think if the children, the terrorists win. Wait. No. If you don't think of the children, the terrorists win. Ahhh...my moral outrage is so confused right now.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Think of the child terrorists!
rethink security (Score:3, Funny)
I say the passengers for the flight get to take a vote to see who gets to go through the body scanning machine. I doubt you'll get a flight full of pedophiles, but some kids seem capable of blowing things up
Fear of pedos vs. fear of terrorists (Score:5, Funny)
Fear of pedos vs. fear of terrorists.
The cage match we've all been waiting for.
Anyone taking bets?
Re:Fear of pedos vs. fear of terrorists (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone taking bets?
I'll make one on "we lose".
Odd timing (Score:5, Interesting)
Its odd someone gets all the way from the middle east, thru Europe, all the way to Detroit with JUST the sort of device these things are meant to detect at JUST the time their deployment is starting to ramp up.
Massive overreatctions (Score:4, Insightful)
Each and every day we take far greater risks with our lives that that posed by terrorism.
Yes things changed on 9/11...
We all became wimps as our leaders showed fear...
Where's the spirit of Winston when we need him ?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Currently doing a few hundred rpm in his grave, just need to hook him up to a generator and our electric problem is solved :)
Wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy solution... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't we just make it illegal for people under 18 to have bodies? They're too young anyway, and having a body just encourages them to explore it. At their age they shouldn't be taking on such adult burdens.
In one stroke, we get rid of under-age pregnancies, statutory rape, pedophilia and many other issues related to under-age sexuality.
Children should be heard, but not seen!
Stupid friggin article (Score:3, Funny)
First off, in order for the law to have any effect, you have to find someone willing to press charges.
Second, the charged person will have a right to be judged by their peers.
So, do you think anyone would prosecute someone under this law? Do you think any jury (including a judge) would convict someone for these circumstances?
This is how and why the laws work in the US, are they that much different in the UK?. Whoever wrote (and posted here) the article is just digging for attention on a non-issue.
Now if images did leak out onto the internet, then you have a case against anyone who allowed or enabled that leak. So, I would be all for stringent historical logging of usage of these machines. Some way to identify all persons who had access that could have leaked an inappropriate image, be it child or not. So, like other things, quit trying to stop a good thing based on exaggeration, and spend more effort discussing and fixing the real problem.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's disgusting, frankly (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it could very well get worse.
The exact same image (or rather, one even more accurate) could be recreated just by turning down the surface-transparency on a medical scan (such as a CT scan). Once all those subcutaneous organs are properly filtered out of the scan, what's left is a high-resolution, extremely-accurate naked image of your child.
Moreover, it's in 3D!
When the for-the-children lobby figure that one out, perhaps we ought to expect most hospitals (already terrified of lawsuits) to start delaying or refusing potentially life-saving diagnostic scans on the grounds that they may constitute illegal child pornography.