I plan to opt for the pat-down every time I'm given the option as an alternative a body scan.
I'm male (and reasonably free of hang-ups). If being groped by a man, I plan to writhe and moan with evident enjoyment (unless he pings my gaydar). If examined by a female officer or a gay male, I will threaten to file accusations of sexual harrassment.
Why?
Call it a small scale civil rights protest, and note that if everyone does it (or even 1% of everyone in the queue) the whole stupid mess will grind to a halt sooner rather than later.
(And they haven't managed to ban feigning pleasure yet, nor do they have any insight into my actual state of mind -- who knows, maybe I am enjoying it?)
I'm all for opting out every time; I plan to do it myself. Moaning and threatening sexual harassment borders on childish, though. Not because the new pat downs aren't sexual harassment, but that your double standard of "moan with straight men, accuse the rest" makes it obvious that you don't actually feel harassed. It cheapens the more legitimate complaints of people like the woman in the article.
This is pretty much my exact plan if I ever fly anywhere that tried to implement this.
I've written about the unfortunate personal consequences of the DHS and TSA here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1850768 but I just don't see how I can go to a country that pays people to sexually assault men, women and (presumably if they or their parents refuse the scatter scan) children on entry or exit.
I feel they are doing that demeaning of a body search to coerce others into going though the scanners.
That's exactly what they're doing. There was a recent article (sorry, no citation) where supposedly the TSA agents said that the more complete pat down is designed to encourage people to stick to the scanners. Lesser of two evils, at it were.
At least there's a choice, of sorts. Hands-off scanner or hands-on pat down. It'd be crazy if the pat down wasn't able to reveal the same items the scanner can, so it makes sense to me, and I'd definitely choose the scanner (I went through one of the trial ones in 2009 and it was quite interesting, though I had no idea what it was at the time).
You went through a machine which took photos of your naked body without your knowledge and you don't see a problem with that?
I went through a machine in Amsterdam last year and was super pissed when I realised, after going through, what it was. I'm not planning to opt out whenever possible.
There was a recent article (sorry, no citation) where
supposedly the TSA agents said that the more complete pat
down is designed to encourage people to stick to the
scanners.
You're probably thinking of "For the First Time, the TSA Meets Resistance"[1]. Not exactly a reliable source of information, but entertaining, and definitely worth a read. Also, my recollection is that the TSA agent didn't say the pat down was designed for that purpose, just that he expects most people to opt for the scanner, because the new pat down procedure is so invasive.
Well, but can it? Some places are still unreachable by pat downs, and people have always hidden stuff there to get it into jails, etc. So what is the point of pat downs?
“He started at one leg and then ran his hand up to my crotch.
He? That seems.... wrong.
I am fairly certain TSA policies, and indeed various laws, require a female officer to perform the pat down (on a woman). Unless my information is out of date they broke a number of their own rules there, so I would file an official complaint (and potentially a molestation charge).
Yeah because not only will that actually matter to the TSA, your name also won't be stored somewhere so that the next time you're in line you get a special treatment.
And what about non-US citizens? What say do they have, really?
To say that an intensive pat down is okay (or somehow better) as long as it's done by someone of the same gender seems awfully heteronormative. In this case the gender of the TSA agent seems to have made the experience especially traumatic, but in general groping is groping regardless of the gender of the person who's doing it.
I don't know if there is a single government agency more universally reviled than the TSA. I cannot think of a single person who supports this, and yet it happens.
Former United States Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff supports it.
"Chertoff has been an advocate of full body scanners at airports. In 2010 he admitted that a client of his security firm, the Chertoff Group, is Rapiscan Systems, one of the two manufacturers of this technology."
The IRS? http://www.irs.gov/. Perhaps. But this stuff is really egregious. I am not looking forward to my next flight. These new rules are really making me question whether or not I want to fly. Obviously, I won't say I will never fly again but this will really make me think about whether or not I really have to.
Actually, I find the entire escalation of TSA to be both fascinating, in a kind of 'what will they think of next' as well as in a practical manner. Eventually the security theater will get _so_ intense, that it will result in enhanced security of flights.
Makes me think of the scanners in "Total Recall"
And yes, I get the whole "Give Up Liberty for a bit of safety, Deserve neither" argument. Though, I'm guessing some might argue that Airplane flights today are safer than they were in the 80s, and continue to get safer even _past_ the fact that people can't get into the Pilots Cabin, and passengers know they have to fight back in the event of a hijacking...
Reading these reports just makes me think the terrorists have won. People may not be blowing up, but they're getting abused by the government that swore to protect them. And living in fear. It's a sad and completely avoidable situation. Shame on the US government for allowing this travesty to pass.
How is it that the efficacy of these machines in preventing terrorism has not even entered into this discussion??
I don't have strong feelings one way or another, but to read these comments (and much internet commentary) you'd think these machines were totally useless and the TSA was a department of perverts, rather than a government agency tasked with an extremely difficult job with zero margin of error.
I up-voted you because it's a legitimate reaction. And it gives me the opportunity to point out why your question is flawed.
The whole issue is the burden of proof. Here in the USA, the whole government is supposed to be about the people: "government of the people, by the people, and for the people". We built this country, and vested the Federal Government with power, in order to guarantee our freedoms.
Thus, there is absolutely no burden on us, the people, to prove or even explain why the government's bumbling encroachments are wrong. It's the other way around.
It's entirely the job of the government to prove that any encroachment on our freedom is both necessary and effective. To date, they have only asserted that this is necessary without any supporting logic or evidence. And to the best of my knowledge, they haven't even tried to make the argument that it's effective.
And absent any material demonstration of those things from the government, freedom should win by default.
A difficult job, yes, but zero margin of error -- or rephrased, 100% security -- is not possible, and attempting to achieve can justify anything that is incrementally effective.
Lets assume they are 100% effective. And instead a terrorist detonates a bomb while waiting in the security line, killing hundreds. So was the money spent on these machines a good investment?
I personally don't find being scanned (or patted down) particularly traumatic, but I can certainly see why some people would. I suppose I should go for the invasive pat-down just in solidarity.
I would happily walk through the airport naked if I could keep my laptop(s) in my bag at the checkpoint, though.
Previously the TSA was just security theater. It was useless, but it wasn't too annoying so people went along with it. Prohibiting printer cartridges on flights are just the latest useless version of this.
But I think they're crossing a line with the scanners. They're really getting a groundswell of opposition, and I'm not sure how they'll be able to deal with it as such a dysfunctional, myopic agency.
I do not believe this story. At all. In it, a male TSA worker conducts the pat-down on the woman. The TSA is many, many bad things, and one of them is 'bureaucracy', and the TSA's bureaucracy has bureaucracized that female attendants do the patdowns on female passengers. The TSA gates are all staffed with women partly for that reason.
It appears to be silly season on TSA security checkpoint stories. Recently, a woman claimed to have been detained by the TSA, handcuffed to a chair, and verbally abused by the attendants for asking to opt out. TSA posted the video. Suffice it to say: no.
A breach of TSA rules like "man pats down woman" is extraordinarily clear and nightmarishly bad PR. I don't buy that it could have happened without an official TSA response.
I say this, lest someone think to compose a 19 paragraph response about how little I understand about the implications of the TSA, as someone who loathes the TSA and is intellectually offended by airport security in general.
Last time I flew, for some unexplained reason I had to do not just the scanner, but then the groping too (by a male who seemed embarrassed by it). I wasn't thrilled by either experience -- I did my ROTC scholarship payback as a Navy nuclear engineering officer, so I know that Mr. Ionizing Radiation is not our friend -- but they weren't the worst things I've ever had to endure.
The real question, ISTM, is whether we citizens / taxpayers are getting enough bang for the buck out of (i) the invasion of privacy and its long-term implications, and (ii) the billions TSA must be spending.
So my choices for my children in the airport are 1-allow a non-medical professional to view them naked and since the images can be retrieved and no one is accountable, possibly unwittingly create child porn, or 2-allow someone to molest them?
How is no one protesting this? The signs you could make would hit emotional hot buttons pretty easily.
Has there even been one incident where a US citizen has ever assisted a foreign terrorist to commit a crime on a US airline?
And if absolutely no one can be trusted, how can we trust our pilots not to fly the plane into the ground or the folks loading the cargo not to place a bomb on board?
So what sort of opportunities does this new "pat down" policy offer? Buy put options on airline stocks. The public is not like lawmakers. They are conservative in a way I believe is hard for lawmakers to identify with, and this will be too far for them. Not to mention the pilots, who feel it is ridiculous to be required to be frisked for a bomb when in a few minutes they will be in the cockpit with total control of the destiny of the plane.
And the best response to give your TSA patdown-partner when he asks if he can feel around your crotch area:
And yet people seems to have a problem when I suggest that we freeze these little nazis out, or that we remind people that these are cancer machines.
You are dealing with the same kind of bullies you were dealing with in grade school, cept they have grow up now and now don't even have to feel sorry for what they do.
Edit: to prove my point the first two replies to this tells me that I am wrong and cite sources - this isn't a science debate, this is politics.
A lot of things are cancer machines. Including our earth and solar system. I certainly hope they continue to test these devices and analyze the risks, but I'm not feeling too scared by things like this:
The UK Health Protection Agency has completed an analysis of the X-ray dose from Backscatter scanners and has written that the dose is extremely low and "about the same as people receive from background radiation in an hour".
Flying itself exposes you to significant levels of radiation in any case (compared to being on the ground). They even have to reroute flights due to it sometimes.
Dr Robert J. Barish, an expert in aviation related radiation, even claims the average minute spent in flight exposes you to the same level of radiation as a single full body scan. Given the different types of scan available, though, this strikes me as only a vague estimation at best.
The thing that bothers me the most about this is that children are subject to the same pat downs. I can't imagine the difficulty of trying to explain to a child why it's OK for a TSA officer to touch you in this way, but it's not OK for anybody else to.
My idea: A shirt with a witty "security theater" slogan on the front, but also has a metallic thread woven into it so it spells "LIKE WHAT YOU SEE?" or "F YOU TSA" when viewed through the backscatter xray.
[+] [-] cstross|15 years ago|reply
I'm male (and reasonably free of hang-ups). If being groped by a man, I plan to writhe and moan with evident enjoyment (unless he pings my gaydar). If examined by a female officer or a gay male, I will threaten to file accusations of sexual harrassment.
Why?
Call it a small scale civil rights protest, and note that if everyone does it (or even 1% of everyone in the queue) the whole stupid mess will grind to a halt sooner rather than later.
(And they haven't managed to ban feigning pleasure yet, nor do they have any insight into my actual state of mind -- who knows, maybe I am enjoying it?)
[+] [-] Osmose|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _b8r0|15 years ago|reply
I've written about the unfortunate personal consequences of the DHS and TSA here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1850768 but I just don't see how I can go to a country that pays people to sexually assault men, women and (presumably if they or their parents refuse the scatter scan) children on entry or exit.
[+] [-] tlrobinson|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 83457|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] petercooper|15 years ago|reply
That's exactly what they're doing. There was a recent article (sorry, no citation) where supposedly the TSA agents said that the more complete pat down is designed to encourage people to stick to the scanners. Lesser of two evils, at it were.
At least there's a choice, of sorts. Hands-off scanner or hands-on pat down. It'd be crazy if the pat down wasn't able to reveal the same items the scanner can, so it makes sense to me, and I'd definitely choose the scanner (I went through one of the trial ones in 2009 and it was quite interesting, though I had no idea what it was at the time).
[+] [-] toolate|15 years ago|reply
I went through a machine in Amsterdam last year and was super pissed when I realised, after going through, what it was. I'm not planning to opt out whenever possible.
[+] [-] Estragon|15 years ago|reply
[1]http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/10/for-the-...
[+] [-] swah|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ErrantX|15 years ago|reply
He? That seems.... wrong.
I am fairly certain TSA policies, and indeed various laws, require a female officer to perform the pat down (on a woman). Unless my information is out of date they broke a number of their own rules there, so I would file an official complaint (and potentially a molestation charge).
[+] [-] marze|15 years ago|reply
http://www.thousandsstandingaround.org/
[+] [-] pierrefar|15 years ago|reply
Yeah because not only will that actually matter to the TSA, your name also won't be stored somewhere so that the next time you're in line you get a special treatment.
And what about non-US citizens? What say do they have, really?
[+] [-] mtinkerhess|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scythe|15 years ago|reply
Unbelievable.
[+] [-] mtholking|15 years ago|reply
"Chertoff has been an advocate of full body scanners at airports. In 2010 he admitted that a client of his security firm, the Chertoff Group, is Rapiscan Systems, one of the two manufacturers of this technology."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff
[+] [-] siculars|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ghshephard|15 years ago|reply
Makes me think of the scanners in "Total Recall"
And yes, I get the whole "Give Up Liberty for a bit of safety, Deserve neither" argument. Though, I'm guessing some might argue that Airplane flights today are safer than they were in the 80s, and continue to get safer even _past_ the fact that people can't get into the Pilots Cabin, and passengers know they have to fight back in the event of a hijacking...
[+] [-] PedroCandeias|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DuncanIdaho|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ahoyhere|15 years ago|reply
It seems like any political resistance has been mere theater.
[+] [-] roadnottaken|15 years ago|reply
I don't have strong feelings one way or another, but to read these comments (and much internet commentary) you'd think these machines were totally useless and the TSA was a department of perverts, rather than a government agency tasked with an extremely difficult job with zero margin of error.
[+] [-] CWuestefeld|15 years ago|reply
The whole issue is the burden of proof. Here in the USA, the whole government is supposed to be about the people: "government of the people, by the people, and for the people". We built this country, and vested the Federal Government with power, in order to guarantee our freedoms.
Thus, there is absolutely no burden on us, the people, to prove or even explain why the government's bumbling encroachments are wrong. It's the other way around.
It's entirely the job of the government to prove that any encroachment on our freedom is both necessary and effective. To date, they have only asserted that this is necessary without any supporting logic or evidence. And to the best of my knowledge, they haven't even tried to make the argument that it's effective.
And absent any material demonstration of those things from the government, freedom should win by default.
[+] [-] fshaun|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] roadnottaken|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdl|15 years ago|reply
I would happily walk through the airport naked if I could keep my laptop(s) in my bag at the checkpoint, though.
[+] [-] tlrobinson|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marze|15 years ago|reply
Anyone who thinks these stories are exaggerated should check out this collection. The consistency is impressive:
http://www.thousandsstandingaround.org/
[+] [-] dododo|15 years ago|reply
what kind of person would apply for such a job, knowing this was one of the duties?
how is this not state-sponsored sexual assault?
... definitely trying to avoid the usa for the foreseeable future. too fucked up.
[+] [-] varjag|15 years ago|reply
An unemployed kind of person, perhaps with a family to feed and bills to pay.
[+] [-] cschmidt|15 years ago|reply
But I think they're crossing a line with the scanners. They're really getting a groundswell of opposition, and I'm not sure how they'll be able to deal with it as such a dysfunctional, myopic agency.
[+] [-] tptacek|15 years ago|reply
It appears to be silly season on TSA security checkpoint stories. Recently, a woman claimed to have been detained by the TSA, handcuffed to a chair, and verbally abused by the attendants for asking to opt out. TSA posted the video. Suffice it to say: no.
A breach of TSA rules like "man pats down woman" is extraordinarily clear and nightmarishly bad PR. I don't buy that it could have happened without an official TSA response.
I say this, lest someone think to compose a 19 paragraph response about how little I understand about the implications of the TSA, as someone who loathes the TSA and is intellectually offended by airport security in general.
[+] [-] dctoedt|15 years ago|reply
The real question, ISTM, is whether we citizens / taxpayers are getting enough bang for the buck out of (i) the invasion of privacy and its long-term implications, and (ii) the billions TSA must be spending.
[+] [-] starnix17|15 years ago|reply
Shouldn't it be females get patted down by females and the same with males?
[+] [-] ericb|15 years ago|reply
How is no one protesting this? The signs you could make would hit emotional hot buttons pretty easily.
[+] [-] stretchwithme|15 years ago|reply
And if absolutely no one can be trusted, how can we trust our pilots not to fly the plane into the ground or the folks loading the cargo not to place a bomb on board?
This is absolutely ridiculous.
[+] [-] GFischer|15 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_people_impris...
It's still ridiculous (as you say, we have to trust the pilots, the employees, etc.. - but a background check can mitigate that)
[+] [-] marze|15 years ago|reply
And the best response to give your TSA patdown-partner when he asks if he can feel around your crotch area:
"Who do you think I am, a U.S. Senator?"
[+] [-] tomjen3|15 years ago|reply
You are dealing with the same kind of bullies you were dealing with in grade school, cept they have grow up now and now don't even have to feel sorry for what they do.
Edit: to prove my point the first two replies to this tells me that I am wrong and cite sources - this isn't a science debate, this is politics.
[+] [-] petercooper|15 years ago|reply
The UK Health Protection Agency has completed an analysis of the X-ray dose from Backscatter scanners and has written that the dose is extremely low and "about the same as people receive from background radiation in an hour".
Flying itself exposes you to significant levels of radiation in any case (compared to being on the ground). They even have to reroute flights due to it sometimes.
Dr Robert J. Barish, an expert in aviation related radiation, even claims the average minute spent in flight exposes you to the same level of radiation as a single full body scan. Given the different types of scan available, though, this strikes me as only a vague estimation at best.
[+] [-] jim_h|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msmith|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 100k|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|15 years ago|reply