Body Scanning

[murmaid]

Was terribly shocked to hear, on the news, the a pilot is suspended because he refuses to submit to a body scan! Does the f***ing govt. want to put GPS units up our butts now?! I also read on the internet that a preg. woman was forced to go through a full body scanner by TSA in Boston! She was afraid it would hurt the baby and was aware it was her right to ask for a pat down. The TSA (Yeah,they started working at McDonalds during the day and went to night school or a couple stupid classes for training) told her, "It's as safe as an Ultra Sound". I HAD NO IDEA TSA WAS ALSO GIVEN OBSETRICAL TRAINING! They basically "scared" having the body scan!!!!! MY GOD!!!! A couple months ago I was in McCaran and went through the metal detector. I was asked to remove my zip up hoodie (wearing a tank top underneath). This creep TSA guy kept staring and then commented under his breath, "Nice Ta-Ta's". When I asked him, "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!!" He said, "You gots some kinda problem lady". Afraid I would be jumped by security I just shut my mouth, grabbed my bags and just got to my gate. DOES ANYONE REALIZE THESE TSA CREEPS GET A PEEK AT YOUR I.D.? KNOW EXACTLY WHERE YOU LIVE? GET A "PEEP SHOW" OF YOUR BODY IN UNDRESS? TERRIFYING!!!!!!!!!!!!! JUST WAIT UNTIL THE FIRST WOMAN GET STALKED, RAPED OR KILLED!

[gcdugas]

This article got me thinking… http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/201 ... no_do.html

The real JFK opposed a secret society as having no place among a free people. Why should the gov't get to see our "privy parts" in their secret viewing while we see nothing of them?

Accordingly I propose a new law "Any State that has an airport utilizing the porno-scanners must have every elected official, every state goon (including security contractors) pass through one and the images posted on the internet and in the airport concourses for public viewing." It is the old "I will show you mine if you show me yours." Let's see if we can get every State to have a movement to pass such laws. We may have the wind at our backs on this one. And with all the focus you have had in making this issue prominent I think it would be perfect for the impetus for such State laws to originate on the pages of flyersrights.org.

What think ye?

[sonneflwr]

If the scans are so invasive and such an abuse there's an easy answer-DONT" FLY! I'd rather not have a person on my flight that is so friggin paranoid they can't submit to a simple body scan. and if you don't have anything to hide you have nothing to fear from being scanned. GET OVER IT.

[Photographer1]

As a former nuclear submarine power plant and commercial nuclear power plant operator I have had more than enough radiation. I am very careful to limit my lifetime radiation dose as much as possible.

I am not willing to submit myself to even more radiation (even the low amount these scans give) unless it's absolutely necessary for health reasons. Since these scans can easily be replaced by a pat-down search, I'll pass, thank you.

[freqflyer]

The email from Sonneflwr is what is wrong with America. We have way to many sheeple (people who act like sheep) who are willing to trade freedom for supposed security. They go along with whatever the government bureaucrats dish out and don't challenge or question it. I DON'T WANT TO BE SCANNED OR PATTED DOWN! PERIOD! Flying is the only way to travel long distances and the fact that flying is a job requirement should not require me to submit to this invasion of privacy. The logic of "take it or leave it" is rediculous. Even if scanning and pat downs were 100% fool proof and could 100% guarantee that there would not be a terrorist attack, that does not justify this invasion of privacy. The end does not justify the means. During the years of communist Russia, they solved the drug problem by killing every suspected distributor they encountered. There were no trials, it was simple, if you were suspected, you were killed. If a few innocents were accidentally killed, that was OK, they eliminted drugs. They were 100% effective. Likewise, the possibility of a terrorist attack does not justify a body scan or pat down. I really admire the pilot who finally said enough is enough. Is there someplace online where we can go to contribute money to his cause?

[sonneflwr]

all i can do is shake my head at fregflyer. only a paranoid idiot could make the leap from a scan and pat down to the united states turning into communist russia. or is it that your so freakishly malformed that your scared of what they might find if another human being touches you or sees an xray image of your body? GROW UP!

[SpatialD]

I am the pilot mentioned in the original post. Join me over on the thread, "Ask a Pilot" for general discussion about pretty much everything. You can also check out my facebook page for more detail on my specific experience with the TSA on October 15th.

If the scans are so invasive and such an abuse there's an easy answer-DONT" FLY! I'd rather not have a person on my flight that is so friggin paranoid they can't submit to a simple body scan. and if you don't have anything to hide you have nothing to fear from being scanned. GET OVER IT.

sonneflwr, your comment belies a very myopic perspective on an issue in which there is much more at stake than the simple question whether someone has anything to hide. In light of your statement, how do you account for the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits the state from conducting unreasonable searches and seizures against law-abiding citizens? Why do we need this protection if we have nothing to hide?

The founders of our country understood that the kind of power that would allow government agents to walk up to you or stop you as you move about within your own national borders and dig through your pockets, empty your bags, and even strip search you (virtually or otherwise - it makes little difference) or put their hands on every part of your body at random without probable cause was abusive and would inevitably be turned against the citizens of the free society which they themselves suffered and sacrificed to establish and pass down to us. Imagine how one political party might leverage such power to keep its opponents at bay or silence its critics. Every tyrant who has ever walked the face of the earth has used this kind of authoritarian control to do just that.

You say it's a paranoid leap people are making. Then tell me, if it is legitimate and justified to treat everyone in the airport as a suspect and strip them of their basic rights because somebody might do something evil there, or because others have done evil there in the past, then what logic prevents this same reasoning from being applied in our shopping centers, Interstates, schools, or places of worship - basically anywhere people gather and where someone might do something evil, or where someone already has? A much higher portion of violent crimes are committed every day on the streets in the U.S. than in the skies. So why funnel all the money, manpower, and attention toward the already ultra-safe air travel industry? Why not stop people in their cars and strip search them, just in case they're in possession of something the state says they're not supposed to have?

Look, I know airplanes make really big booms when they fall out of the sky. It's sensational, horrific, and terrifying - I get that. But does that mean we have to lose or minds and hand all our rights and liberty over to the state, bleating like helpless sheep, "Save us! Protect us! Here, take our money, our dignity, our freedom - we can't do for ourselves and we have no other hope. We need the higher power of the state to deliver us from evil, and we will submit and serve and obey..." Grow up, you say? I say WAKE UP!

The American people are living in fear. Terrorism rules the day, to be sure. But it isn't being imported from some guy named Haji on the other side of the planet. We're growing it right here on our own soil. Our leaders are using it to lord it over us, knowing that we're too afraid of losing our jobs or being inconvenienced in some way to actually put up any meaningful resistance to their tyrannical overtures.

The air transportation system has been an ideal venue for this little experiment. Many people simply don't travel enough to understand what's happening. Others travel so often they haven't even noticed the surveillance police state slowly creeping up around them. It's one big sociological boiling frog experiment. Just keep turning the heat up slowly enough that the frog cooks to death without ever jumping out of the pot - only we're the ones being cooked, literally in this case. I suggest it's time to jump out of the pot, folks, before your indoctrination becomes completely ingrained and you've been too desensitized to this sort of madness to recognize when you are being exploited and abused, or to understand that you must protect your families and your country from this authoritarian assault.

In the Houston airport, there is a PA that comes over the loudspeakers every 15-20 minutes to keep us all in our place: "Any remarks or jokes concerning security may result in your arrest." I've heard it so many times I'm sure it'll still be ringing in my ears on my death bed. But really? These buffoons at the TSA are clowns. And clowns are funny. How can anyone refrain from making remarks or jokes? The more seriously they take themselves, the more laughable it becomes. The one thing tyrants cannot abide is being laughed at. I say we laugh the TSA right out of business this week, because losing our rights and liberty is no laughing matter at all!

EDIT: Kate, I apologize if that was too much. SpatialD gets worked up like that sometimes.

[aimster]

Beautifully put, SpatialD! Thank you for your eloquent and well-reasoned comment.

[Notaright]

I would like to say that all of you are idiots. Do you obviously think that the guys who are patting you down get off by doing so. They hate patting down your fat asses anyways that's why they would rather you use the scanner. But honestly...FLYING IS NOT A RIGHT!...It is a privilege that is given to you. You do not need to fly on an airplane because you can get to wherever you are going by car, bus, train, boat, hovercraft, teleportation, or whatever other transportation available. Honestly...Do you guys not remember 9/11...It was a thing that happened 9 years ago...where 19 men made it through security with knives and took over 4 airplanes and crashed them. Seriously. I don't want that to be me or anyone in my family. Shut up and deal with it like everyone else it really doesn't hurt. I would much rather be searched by some creepy guy (who is just a normal guy trying to make a living) than be blown up. Grow up, deal with it, you are all adults.

The 4th Amendment may apply but like I said if you dont want to be searched then don't fly on the plane...simple as that. It is not your right to fly like I have said. Good day to you.

[SpatialD]

FLYING IS NOT A RIGHT!...It is a privilege that is given to you.

Um, given by whom? Who gives us the privilege to drive, or walk down the street, or go to the grocery store or to a place of worship, etc.? Security threats exist in those contexts, too, and bad people have done bad things in all those places, and it might happen again. So, being security-conscious adult and all, would you rather be searched by some creepy guy there as well?