The Ineffectiveness of TSA Body Scanners 494
TheNextCorner points out a video that lays bare a glaring flaw in the TSA body scanners used in airports to detect weapons and explosives. In such scans, citizens are depicted in light colors, while metallic objects show as very dark. The problem comes when you consider that the images are taken with a dark background. From the transcript:
"Yes that’s right, if you have a metallic object on your side, it will be the same color as the background and therefore completely invisible to both visual and automated inspection. It can’t possibly be that easy to beat the TSA’s billion dollar fleet of nude body scanners, right? The TSA can’t be that stupid, can they? Unfortunately, they can, and they are. To put it to the test, I bought a sewing kit from the dollar store, broke out my 8th grade home ec skills, and sewed a pocket directly on the side of a shirt. Then I took a random metallic object, in this case a heavy metal carrying case that would easily alarm any of the “old” metal detectors, and walked through a backscatter x-ray at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. On video, of course. While I’m not about to win any videography awards for my hidden camera footage, you can watch as I walk through the security line with the metal object in my new side pocket."
SSDD (Score:5, Insightful)
-- George Carlin
Test First (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Test First (Score:5, Insightful)
Go back to the old scanners. Try again in a few years with better tech if you actually create some.
Why would you do that when you can sell useless machines now and then sell slightly less useless machines again in a few years?
You seem to be under the impression that the scanners are supposed to achieve something other than enriching the people who make them.
Re:Stop aiding (Score:4, Insightful)
the "enemy" is much smarter than 10000 bureaucrats being sold by a used car salesman
after all this decades enemy has sustained life for thousands of years in an environment most of our citizens would die in, in a matter of hours... they do have some tricks "up their sleeve"
Re:Test First (Score:5, Insightful)
Testing would have delayed the goal of making Michael Chertoff more money.
Them terrorist will slip through anyway ... (Score:1, Insightful)
whenever the authorities want them to slip through.
[conspiracy mode on]
With Israeli security companies controlling American security, you just as well let everybody on board because
when the Likud-Neocons decide to shock the average American again to justify their Iran war, terrorist will miraculously defy all security measures.
[conspiracy mode off]
what the tsa will actually do (Score:5, Insightful)
Since obviously a metal detector will detect that sort of thing, the tsa will now buy new millimeter wave/backscatter x-ray scanners with a traditional metal detector integrated into the system. The only reason they're going to give up their toys is because they can get better ones.
Delete the last to words of the sub title (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stop aiding (Score:0, Insightful)
The entire TSA can't tell their ass from a hole in the ground.
Re:Stop aiding (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Surprise it took that long (Score:4, Insightful)
We were pretty sure that there was a problem with metal objects taped to the inside or outside of people's bodies when Adam Savage [arstechnica.com] walked through with two 12" razor blades. This story just provides an explanation of why the scanners don't work.
Re:Surprise it took that long (Score:5, Insightful)
Even Gestapo officers had friends...if they knew what was good for them.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:TSA is an expense account scam (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but you're not going to like it. It involves people like you banding together to run for office, then passing laws banning all non-medical use of X-ray or millimeter wave imaging within the bounds of your community or state. If every state did this, the TSA and the companies it supports would eventually wither and die on the vine. Even if they started overturning the laws in the supreme court, after about the twentieth state passed such a law, they'd have their hands full in court for decades—a big enough money sink that it just might be enough to extricate their crania from their recta.
Remember: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Soap hasn't worked. Jury hasn't worked. Yet we as a society seem to have skipped over the most important one on our way to the fourth. Never forget the second.
Re:SSDD (Score:5, Insightful)
A terrorist who is actually planning to blow himself up anyway would simply do so between the scan and the pat down upon detection—probably diving into the security line to maximize the casualties. The body scanners are thus completely and utterly ineffectual as a deterrent.
More to the point, the terrorists weren't afraid to bring box cutters onto an aircraft; the metal detectors were obviously not a deterrent. Based on that bit of history, what possible reason could you have for believing that this magic tiger-repelling rock will work better than the last one?
Security theatre (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems obvious to me that the TSA knew the machines didn't work effectively, but that this didn't matter to them. Airport security isn't about making the skies safer, it's about scaring (some would even say terrorising) the public in order to give the government more power and control. In his video he even says that there was no threat with the old metal detectors...
There are so many ways one could commit an act of terrorism at an airport without getting on a plane if one were so inclined (I'm not, by the way!) and every time I fly I see more. The full body scanners do nothing to increase a person's safety.
Let's face it - the terrorists have won. The public are terrified. Sadly it's their own governments which have done the terrorising.
Re:SSDD (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, funneling mountains of money into BS like this, not to mention all the military hardware, ends up leaving more people out in the cold,
There are several assumptions (mostly incorrect) in your post:
A) that money that is spent on airport bs would otherwise be allocated to "the people out in the cold"
B) that there are a large number of people in this country dying of exposure (the number is astonishingly low)
C) That those who DO die of exposure could have been saved with more money
D) that if the government doesnt become a charity, then it is responsible for their deaths
You may want to reexamine these assumptions. B especially you may want to research.
Re:SSDD (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes I remember George Carlin & Hunter S. Thompson are both dead now.
I get sad when I do that.
Re:SSDD (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SSDD (Score:5, Insightful)
A large part of the US military spending goes to destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. Both in the name of liberation and whatnot - but the fact is that lots and lots of locals have been killed, either directly by bombs or bullets, or indirectly due to loss of their home and destruction of general infrastructure in their countries.
Not bombing Iraq and Afghanistan would save the US a lot of money (effectively lowering your immense deficits), and would have saved many lives in the countries affected. Not having military operations all over the world would possibly even have prevented many terrorist attacks to happen in the first place, due to less bad blood about US activities.
Sure you can not prevent all actions from all mad men. Most bombings on US soil have been by US nationals. But not meddling in other countries' internal affairs helps a lot (and that's not an endorsement of either the Taliban or of Saddam Hussein). Leave that meddling to the UN, it's what that organisation was set up for to begin with.
Not only ineffective, but not proven safe (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm glad the EU has declared backscatter X-ray scanners to be illegal to use in European airports. I work in a radiation industry and know a considerable amount about X-ray physics and medical imaging, and these scanners should never have been taken into use for public screening.
I love going through the US airports and requesting a manual search when they try to put me through the backscatter machines. They always make a big drama over it, but I explain that I work in a radiation industry and I will not subject myself to additional radiation given a choice. Backscatter machines fall into this category, and so far I have not been through a single one. If they try to force me to go through one or not pass the security checkpoint, I will take it all the way to the top if needed. I will not tolerate being scanned by a backscatter machine, nor should anyone else. It's not been proven safe for human use or effective at increasing security.
And let's not even get started about the fact that the TSA have been caught multiple times storing images from the backscatter and millimeter wave machines, when they say publicly that the images are not saved. There is a reason why they earned the nickname, pr0n scanner. There is no valid reason to save the images after you pass screening, unless they are simply playing the CYA game. This should not be allowed.
Note, the backscatter machines are far different than the millimeter wave scanners used in some airports. Millimeter wave is known to be safe. Backscatter is NOT and should never be used on the public.
Re:Test First (Score:3, Insightful)
You seem to be under the impression that the scanners are supposed to achieve something other than enriching the people who make them.
Well, they do. Specifically, they condition the general population to accept such scanning without question. In a few decades, the lack of terrorist attacks will be credited to the machines, and in the interests of public safety they will begin to be placed into our public schools to save the kids from other kids. Eventually you will have to pass through them in any place which now requires a metal detector scan, such as sporting events, courthouses, federal buildings, public libraries, etc.
No, I'm not pulling the "slippery slope" here, there will be some limits to how far they will be used. But by the time the high school kids today have kids of their own, they will be much more commonplace.
Re:Day in court for pointing out the obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Security theatre (Score:5, Insightful)
There are so many ways one could commit an act of terrorism at an airport without getting on a plane if one were so inclined (I'm not, by the way!) and every time I fly I see more.
The fact that you and others here feel the need to add disclaimers like "(I'm not, by the way!)" says a lot about the oppressiveness of the current regime. People are constantly aware that their comments may be monitored and there may be implications to speaking the truth.
I think I've heard this story before somewhere...
TSA safe (Score:4, Insightful)
If I needed a firearm on an airplane, I would probably use the 33 gram CO2 cartridges from the life vest conveniently located under my seat. Put it in a fitting pipe, and all you need is a crude firing device to pierce the seal - blunt force will do.
The TSA lines are there for your illusion of safety. Your real safety lies in the fact that it is rather unusual for people to conspire to kill a plane full of people, themselves included.
Re:Surprise it took that long (Score:3, Insightful)
It's only scary at first. Despite all this, no successful terrorist attack has successfully been carried out on planes for over ten years. Instead of getting rid of an overpriced, useless and redundant mess of an agency, we continue to praise it for stopping terrorists, even to the point of being scared when realizing they didn't actually stop any terrorists.
- "Why are you constantly clapping?"
- "To scare away elephants."
- "But there aren't any elephants here!"
- "Yes. You're welcome."
Re:Day in court for pointing out the obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
An alternative (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the government could stop aiding the enemy by being stupid.
Re:SSDD (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd call BS.
Blowing up a security checkpoint in a major airport would be just as effective as blowing up a plane. Even if you take only 5-10 people with you. The end goal, scaring the public, would be achieved either way.
Re:SSDD (Score:4, Insightful)
And Vonnegut.
Easy fix (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SSDD (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry, there won't be any of those soon. The Government is rounding them all up and forcing them to leave in preparation for the 2012 Olympics.
Re:SSDD (Score:2, Insightful)
fact is, the government SHOULD be a charity. that's one of the reasons it exists. to help and assist the less fortunate.
Re:SSDD (Score:4, Insightful)
A large part of the US military spending goes to rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq, which is the real problem. The military is meant to blow things up and kill people. Spending military money on building schools and infrastructure is no longer military money. I suppose if the UN actually had any teeth and actually did things like, oh, follow up on their word when they say things like "let the inspectors in...or else!", then we wouldn't have things like Iraq (well, if there had been a different US President AND the UN did its job, I suppose).
Re:TSA is an expense account scam (Score:5, Insightful)
There's something missing from your prescription: Ensuring that the new laws that get passed actually get enforced.
That is unfortunately not a minor issue. For instance, Massey Coal has routinely violated laws on mine safety for decades, and donated heavily to the campaigns of the state prosecutors and judges to prevent those laws from ever being enforced - it took the bad press of the Upper Big Branch deaths to put the CEO (who had specifically told his subordinates to break the law) on trial. Similarly, Goldman Sachs probably (although they've never admitted it in court, they're willing to settle the case) committed fraud worth billions, and is going to be let off with paying a fine that's a fraction of the revenue they received for the fraud. And Dick Cheney told the world he committed war crimes (specifically, he ordered torture of prisoners, using the definitions of torture the US used after WW II) on national television, and is still free.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SSDD (Score:4, Insightful)
Yea, I can't imagine why terrorists wouldn't want to target a place where a lot of people are forced to bottle neck....like a security checkpoint....
I mean, nobody would give a shit if a few hundred people got blown up waiting to take their shoes off and walk though a body scanner right?
Example Fail (Score:5, Insightful)
Korea? The only reason action was taken in Korea was that the Soviets boycotted the session in question, avoiding a Security Council veto. The UNC structure and DMZ are still there, 60 years on. All of the allied nations have fled except the US. There's a rousing success story.
South Korea has about 49 million people living in it. Depending on how you count it, they have the 12th or 15th highest GDP in the world . I think 49 million people would argue that it is a rousing success story. Moron. However, I do agree with your general point that the UN is mostly a legacy of failure, but your cited example of South Korea is a big time fail.
Re:SSDD (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a general problem here: we're fixing last-year's problem.
So we had a plane highjacking by people with knives. The hijackers ran the planes into buildings. This is what we're most focused on preventing, but it's not very likely to happen again. First, pilots and passengers are less likely now to allow someone with a knife to take control of a plane. The reason they allowed it before was that it was basically the policy to do so-- they weren't expecting hijackers to use the plane as a missile. We also are more vigilant about keeping an eye on planes in the airspace around population centers, and we'll be more ready to shoot down planes that are too close to downtown NYC and not following their flight plan. 9/11 won't happen again.
And why would they even try? It's much more effective to find some new vector of attack. It increases your chances of success, and it also increases the terror that it causes in the general population. By using various methods, the attacks become unpredictable and encourage the perception that you might get hit anywhere, at any time.
Re:SSDD (Score:4, Insightful)