I get your point. The choice to simply walk away will probably come up if anyone makes a test case. Still merely using the “nothing to hide” argument does bother me. I can’t give any reason other than it assumes guilt.
Would you believe me if I said I objected on the grounds that I’m so well endowed, I don’t want to give the “surveillors” a feeling of inadequacy? 
This makes me really angry. It’s hard enough for me to get the courage to fly in the first goddamned place, this is too much. A brisk, professional general pat down (no groping of the breasts) I could deal with, although I’ve never been subject to one at an airport.
I absolutely would not fly if I had to go through one of these things. Having been raped and molested in my youth I’ve had enough violation of my body/privacy for several lifetimes. I will not subject myself to this type of invasion. I’ll be damned if I will have spent all this time teaching my daughter that her body is private and she has the right for people not to see her naked if she doesn’t want them to, and then take her someplace where multiple people could see her naked without her informed consent (she’s 8).
It’s a good thing I like to drive. If I wanted random people to see me naked I’d walk around with no clothes on.
And fuck anybody who thinks I’m oversensitive or unreasonable for feeling this way.
And a good hearty fuck to anybody who thinks that my desire for safety makes me insensative or unreasonable for feeling the opposite.
Are we going to start regulating which portions of the E-M spectrum can be viewed?
And a heartfelt “blow me while I shit” to anybody who thinks random people should be able to see me or my children naked, especially when not suspected of a goddamn thing, because THEY are scared.
I hear several people saying if this virtual strip search is unacceptaple, don’t fly. Well, that works both ways. If you feel that flying isn’t safe enough without this technology, the YOU can take the fucking train.
So what is your bottom line? At what point do you feel that we pass beyond acceptable caution and into something else? You are obviously OK with this, is there any security measure that would not pass your gut check?
They’re not even all that secure. Because of X-ray concerns, they’re designed not to penetrate the skin (notice you’re not seeing skeletons in the sample pics.) All you need to do to smuggle stuff on the plane is get very overweight terrorists who can hide their guns/explosives/whatever in between their rolls of skin.
You have a point. I, for one, will not feel safe flying until we strip search everyone and have a stern woman in a German SS uniform parting the rolls of fat of my fellow passengers for a search while barking stern, yet somehow arousing, orders. It is also of vital importance to national security that she smack them in the ass with a riding crop to move them along when finished.
Failing that, perhaps the best thing to do is to give everyone explosive implants before they board the plane (a la Escape from New York) and have the flight attendants have a remote control that can set them off.
When they start getting invasive with no reason, sure. But I don’t find that X-ray back scattering, IR or metal detectors are invasive. I also don’t have any problem with the police (or anyone) viewing the IR emissions of my house.
It does make me wonder what they’d do if this was implamented and someone came in with lead underware. Heck, what do they do with folks who go through the metal detectors with it? Not that it’s a regular occurance, I’m sure…
That’s fine, no one is proposing that random people be running airport security.
This, in particular, I find shocking. Are you just pretty much in favor of all but unlimited police power, then?
Getting a security job is random enough for me not to like them seeing my kids naked. Does a security clearance somehow make that OK?
It may be that we are looking at this all wrong. Perhaps the answer is to stop making a fuss about this technology, but with the proviso that the screeners all have to do their jobs naked. Fair is fair*
*They could still wear their little guns, though.
Whoa! Fair is nice, but I think, since we’re somehow paying their salary, we should be able to vote on individuals.
Uhhhh, no. That’s a pretty big leap there.
If you were really concerned about what was coming out of your house, you’d do something about it. Would you be upset if your neighbors watched you shower through a curtainless window? Would you feel that they were to blame for their ability to see you? Is the IR spectrum sacrosanct? What about the UV spectrum? Cosmic rays? Gamma rays?
In a way, yes. In addition to the millennia old purpose of shelter as, well, shelter from the elements, there is also a deeply culturally ingrained idea that your home is your castle.
The very fact that, when I purchased a house, I put up curtains and did not buy a transparent house implies that in addition to the very basic functionality of keeping me warm and dry, I also desire for it to be a refuge of privacy. This is increasingly important as our lives become more and more crowded and hectic. I should not have to get into some technology arms race just to not have my privacy invaded.
Do you really think that I should, for example, be able to buy an IR camera and watch everything that you do? Should the police be able to just drive around looking through people’s walls, fishing for someone doing something wrong? Do you really have that much faith in authority that you don’t see the terrible potential for abuse here? How is this not a batshit insane position to take?
Ummmm, some people might even be willing to pay extra for that. :eek:
Gaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh. Tradition and law should not go together. It’s not okay to leave blacks or gays or whatever as second class citizens just because that’s the way things have been done.
Then should you need to buy curtains? Shouldn’t it be against the law to look into your house? Should I be able to tell which rooms have lights on? How do you define when your responsibility to protect your privacy ends and where society must limit themselves to protect your privacy?
I’d be fine with that. If I wasn’t I’d baffle my walls or run some sort of coolant through them. What if someone bought an IR camera and sat across the street looking at your house through it? What about a shot-gun microphone?
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Should the police be able to just drive around looking through people’s walls, fishing for someone doing something wrong?
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I’m not finding it terribly different from their ability to drive around and look at peoples houses in the visual spectrum. Or use a satalite from up above. Or a geiger counter. Or take pictures of your house. Or use binoculars. I don’t think they should get an automatic warrent because one room is really hot and they could be growing pot in there anymore than looking at the electic meter and seeing high energy usage. They’re going to need more than that.
Because I don’t view the IR spectum as some mystical magic realm that no one should venture into. It’s just another emission that’s coming out of your house. No one is pulsing an E-M field through your house, drilling a hole or sending a mircoscopic robot to spy on you. I’m sorry that’s ‘batshit insane’ to you.
What if someone was born witha mutation that allowed them to see into the IR? Should they not be permitted to be a police officer? At what point to make the cut off on what wavelength the police can look at your house with? 100nm? 500nm? 750nm? 900nm? 1700nm?
kidchameleon, I am intrigued by your post. I especially like the way that you attempt to use a civil rights issue to justify the erosion of personal privacy and freedom. I also like how you try to imply that I am ascribing “mystical” or “magical” properties to parts of the EM spectrum.
I guess that we will have to agree to disagree, as you seem pretty entrenched in your position and I can not imagine an argument that would convince me that it is OK for people to see me naked or to watch what I am doing in my own home without my consent.
As an aside, I am pretty sure that is is against the law to look into someone’s house. I think that they call them peeping-tom laws.
The idea makes me wary in the first place, but then knowing that it is even that effective, makes me shudder.
I would like to think that there is little chance of this becoming widespread- both because of the invasion of privacy and because of the current substantial cost, but in the War on Terror crazier things have happened.