I’m a lot more concerned about the cumulative effect of the flying I do than I am of the small exposure for a few second when I go through the scanner.
I fly a lot. At 38,000 feet my exposure to radiation has me worried. Not a damned thing I can do about it, but in time it may become an issue. Rads-wise, my money is on flight exposure to increase my chances of cancer.
The politics of exposure are a separate issue. But hour after hour that I sit on an airplane at altitude, I am exposed to a lot more radiation than I am in the scanner.
It’s funny. I’m at Gold Medallion level with Delta at this point. Would it help me to rest the gold medallion over my brain stem as I fly?
Just make sure you don’t stock up and then run foul of a police stop and search. Otherwise they would want to know what you gon’ do with all that junk; all that junk inside your trunk.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the issue is that the exposure you get from flying is whole body exposure, the effects of which are spread out to all the tissues in the body; whereas, the backscatter x-rays consolidate the exposure in the skin and tissues close to the skin, including breast tissue, that may already be highly susceptible to developing cancerous cells. So, your skin tissue is potentially getting a much more dangerous dose in the scanner, than from flying. As such the concern is greater for people who have already developed skin and/or breast cancer as well as those who are genetically predisposed to it.
I’m guessing if breast tissue is potentially at risk, testicular tissue may also be, but I haven’t seen that mentioned.
Sometimes it’s proper to be afraid. I know that doesn’t sound great in the face of the incessant American individuality mandate and our wild west machismo, but there are tons of things out there that can harm or kill you and a little fear goes a long way to protect yourself from it. They were able to pull off one of the most spectacular attacks in US history. If we’re not afraid of that, and adjust accordingly, what are we to be afraid of? Because the man who says there’s nothing to fear is a man who’s not going to live very long. And don’t confuse paralyzing cowardice with a little good old fashioned fear.
If they sneak things on board planes, then we check people for things, not that hard to understand.
Random application is more likely to catch terrorists than profiling based on something like race (not to say you’re for that). If we target, they can shift tactics. Randomness is the only thing that can be effective in a country as large as ours with as many fliers and come within budget and not add 5 hours or every flight. It’s the best we’ve got
And really, do I have to keep belaboring the point? You do it randomly because that’s the best way to catch terrorists. Target them in any way and it’s either illegal or would be ineffective the second they catch on. If one slips through it’s better than 19 of them slipping through.
Well if that’s your final word in the matter and I can’t convince you otherwise, then I can only hope you’re either prepared to not fly or have a good lawyer because I don’t see this going away
It would definitely hurt to be profiling people by race. Let’s get that out of the way now. I don’t know your politics but the way I see other people who are conservatives falling over themselves to try to blame the brown people is laughable and disheartening. How easy would it be for Al Qaeda to start hiring non-Arabic and middle eastern terrorists? And how many laws of our own will we break by calling people out based on race? You think you were pissed just because you think the TSA treats you like a criminal and pats you down? How would you think an entire race of people feels, or people who simply look like that race, if suddenly we decide being born to certain parents is a crime? Plus, just a month or two ago there was a foiled terrorist plot by some Muslim or Arabic guy. The ones who turned him in? Other Muslims (I believe it was a relative, I forget the name right now).
People have insinuated that I have no line to be drawn because I favor a little more pat downs. Here’s my line: No racial profiling at all. Not until more than half the people we’re profiling are actually terrorists. Until then, there will always be more good than bad, and you don’t want to piss off the good, or deny them their rights, to chase the bad
Anyways, sorry for that rant. In response to the rest of your paragraph, I’ll offer you a compromise: the first time someone tries to bring on a weapon who is a child, or disabled, we start searching them all. Until then, no search. How about it?
Sort of, I started this topic to complain specifically about people who use exaggerated hyperbole (comparing the pat downs to molestations) when discussing the increased security measures. On that, I completely believe is 100% less valid. They are not molestations at all
Agree and disagree. Agree that being reactionary and fear-inspired is a bad thing, but disagree that what we are currently doing amounts to that.
They just started, give it some time
I didn’t say whether or not they work is besides the point. I said whether YOU believe they work or not is besides the point. Clearly I do believe they work. And clearly, if there were no security, the terrorists would just start bringing in sticks of dynamite. The fact that they had to sneak aboard crappy weapons like box cutters or underear bombs instead of guns and bags of C4 proves that our normal security deters people and prevents them from being brought onboard. It doesn’t make sense that you believe an increase of our current security wouldn’t prevent even more things
We’ll just have to not agree then
(Maybe you should tell that idiot about your story since he didn’t believe I could have brought my water on board )
On point: Clearly it worked. You’re not a terrorist and you didn’t blow up the plane. Statistically, only a small number are terrorists, and letting a few people through with such contraband is ok (since, as I’ve said over and over before, the TSA will try to catch as much as they can catch given their limitations). It’s pointless to say you could have been a terrorist. You’re not. You didn’t blow up the plane.
As most Americans have so far been fine with the methods, I will simply say that you’re exaggerating the violations.
Sure, go ahead, put the doors in. I don’t mind them as the last line of defense. But I would mind if they were the only line of defense.
I’m not arguing against the doors so much as I’m arguing that the doors themselves are all we need
I ate too much Korean BBQ the night before, some of it probably half-cooked, and didn’t feel well enough to argue with people. I posted in some other, less serious posts though
There’s a difference between acknowledging a danger and taking rational, precautionary action to minimize it and being so scared that you mindlessly bend over for whatever They say they have to shove up your ass.
No, it’s not. You and others have used it constantly and consistently enough in this topic within the context of a sexual assault. Don’t pretend otherwise. And stop exaggerating
Fear is detrimental when it supplants your ability to think critically and act rationally. You are not thinking critically and the TSA is not acting rationally. This level of fear-mongering is nothing but improper.
Well, you are quite simply wrong. You cannot demonstrate that random application is of these protocols is effective for identifying threats or keeping terrorists from boarding the flight. There is no basis for that conclusion. Intelligence and law enforcement agencies, i.e., the CIA and FBI, utilize profiling, not random screening. Any screening done at all, metal detector screening as an example, must be comprehensive or it introduces holes in security. A hole in security is a vulnerability that can easily be exploited.
Random screening is only an illusion of safety to you because you’re too enamored by the costly show to realize that it’s incomplete and, therefore, utterly pointless. If only a waste of money were all it is.
I like the way you ignored my statistical example. Do you have any idea what percentage of travelers are subjected to the backscatter x-rays and/or enhanced patdowns? I absolutely guarantee you it’s not 90%. So, you’ve got a few more than one slipping through. It only took two to take down the WTC towers and one do some significant damage to the Pentagon. Who knows where the fourth was heading, but it wasn’t airport security that changed that story.
(Bolding mine.) This is precisely the method law enforcement agencies (in America!) use when investigating crime. They don’t randomly select people to pat-down based on nothing more than their mere presence and let the rest go. That’s a waste of time and resources.
But that’s exactly what they’re doing now with the enhanced pat-downs. Only they aren’t just pissing the good ones off, they are mauling them in some cases, touching them in places it’s not kosher to touch people, stripping them of their dignity, and trampling on their civil liberties. Yes, it’s happening. It’s happening a helluva lot more than terrorists are being rooted out by these tactics. You may wish to whitewash because it’s not happening enough to offend you, but that it’s happening at all, offends the rest of us.
That’s dumb. Because not every child or disabled person is a terrorist. On the contrary, the vast majority, if not all, are innocent travelers. When are you going to learn it’s about ASSESSING THREAT and properly responding to that threat?
Except for the ones that are, right?
That you believe they work does not prove that they do.
Nobody has suggested that there should be no security.
As has been mentioned several times already, box cutters were not contraband on 9/11, so your assumption that they had to “sneak” them aboard is false. Further, if they didn’t bring C4 is reasonable to assume that they didn’t need it as it didn’t fit into their obvious goal of gaining access to the cockpit to use the plane as a weapon. If you blow up the plane, you can’t exactly crash it into a building, now, can you?
As for the underwear bomber, a bomb-sniffing dog is going to be a lot more effective, which, given the shoe bomber incident previously, should have been considered as a reasonable security measure. But no, instead we have to take off our shoes and some of us to invasive pat-downs and body scans. It’s too bad, too, because I’ll bet bomb-sniffing dogs are cheaper than those scanners.
It doesn’t make sense to you because you think the backscatter scanners and enhanced pat-downs of random travelers is increased security. I see it as decreased security as I’ve already explained to you. The costly scanners have diverted necessary resources from more useful and targeted security measures, such as bomb-sniffing dogs and enhanced threat assessment via passenger interviews. The pat-downs have done nothing but hurt and embarrass a number of innocent passengers who have no choice but to be subjected to them; and has additionally lulled the more dimwitted among us into a false sense of security while giving the government expanded powers against our persons.
I’m not surprised you report doing that. The fact is that every rule TSA has implemented has been applied haphazardly and inefficiently. The right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing, IME. Suffice it to say, you are an idiot if you got through airport security having been forced to drink half your bottle of water, still completely ignorant of the 3-1-1 rule.
Nothing worked. Nothing was screened to the extent you seem to think it is. The only screening I got was the same I got 15 years ago: my stuff went down the conveyor through the x-ray and my body went through the metal detector. Just like Richard Reid. Just like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Just like Mohammed Atta and his group of 19. The point, to make it perfectly clear is, there will be another terrorist behind me getting the same exact treatment I and all those other guys got. And it is more than likely, given my experience and that of all the other passengers in priority pass line that day, s/he will get on the plane, too.
The *only *thing you have gotten right in this thread is the need for better airport security. Period.
I agree that too much fear impairs thinking. I don’t agree that what we have here is too much.
Law enforcement agencies use profiling for specific cases, unless you can cite me instances where they use preventative profiling for deterrance. They are usually not in the business of pulling random people into the precinct and questioning them to see if they are going to be committing future criminal deeds. That’s essentially what the TSA is being asked to do, grab random people out of line to do screenings. It’s harder to demonstrate because nobody has a stat on how many people decided not to do something on the basis of that.
However, to imagine how effective it could be, ask yourself honestly, if there were no security, would THAT be a deterrant? Or if security were rolled back to pre-9/11 levels with only a secured door added, would that deter or prevent anyone from doing what the shoe/underwear bomber did? The shoe bombing idiot probably could have carried out his attack had he simply tried to light his foot in the bathroom instead of where other people could see him
I didn’t ignore it. I felt it had flaws in it’s reasoning. That’s why I said it was alright if it simply reduced terrorism instead of completely preventing it altogether, which no technology is capable of doing. Let me clarify: it is ok if not all the terrorists or regular passengers are subjected to enhanced security measures. It is ok because the fact that these are there would make some people think twice. It is ok that we don’t get all of them, because to do so would be impossible (in time, money, and practicality). Making the best of a situation doesn’t mean you get to complain about a perfect utopian ideal as if it were achievable
That’s already been addressed by myself and others. The reason why it’s not feasible is because of the amount of fliers we have in the US compared to Israel, someone else posted the statistics earlier. For that same reason, we cannot use bomb sniffing dogs since there are only a few thousands of them available too. Plus, cost in training and manpower: we have customs agents doing that now, but to training the thousands of people needed to man our airports would be cost-prohibitive. I would love to have your idea implemented, just as I would love to have more bomb sniffing dogs. And I would drop my support of these naked x-rays and pat downs if you can simply tell me that we can get all our airports staffed with these profilers and dogs at a cost that is not astronomical and practical.
It’s being done to everyone equally and nobody’s being singled out, that make it automatically less likely to piss people off to plane-bombing proportions. When a group of people feel singled out, they lash out. When it’s happening to everybody, people get pissed, but nobody blows anyone up. And again, I fully support better training for the TSA to prevent such maulings
Outliers exist for everything. It is factual to say that what the TSA does is not molestation even if it happens to somebody in Kentucky. What people like you seem to be arguing for is that EVERY instance counts as molestation. That is an exaggeration that I cannot stand by and ignore, which is why I posted this topic.
Sure they have. A door is the only thing standing between a takeover and dead terrorists. People have said that’s the only thing they want to put in. Others objected to taking on bottles of liquid or taking off their shoes. Still others in this topic mentioned that any pat downs make them feel like criminals. Taken together, these people want the TSA to know beforehand who’s a terrorist and search them only and leave the rest of us alone. Just read back at some of the more animated posts by Stranger or Bosstone and you’ll see that their objections extend to more than the enhanced security but to almost all security.
You missed the point about why they had to use boxcutters in the first place. If we didn’t have metal detectors and pat downs prior to 9/11, they could have simply brought on actual knives, guns, or explosives. The fact that they had to use boxcutters was because the security didn’t go far enough to prevent them. The current increased security measures are designed to account for things we know would slip through the past, that’s why they need to look at your naked and grab your crotch. Now you and others are advocating we have less security so that the next time somebody brings on something not illegal, we can all overreact and ban that substance. Pat downs and naked scanners are a way of trying to get ahead of the terrorists. If I’m a terrorist, I’m definitely going to have to try harder to get something through security now than I would if I knew there were no chance of them finding a weapon in my underwear or shoes
What, now we’re assuming hijackings are the only form of terrorism now? I guess Reid wasn’t a real hijacker because he only planned to blow up the plane, not crash it into anything. :rolleyes: Enhanced security is to meant to catch anything that might pose a threat, including bombs
If the cost of installing the new scanners is preventing enough dogs and people to be trained, then I wouldn’t support them. But my understanding is that they are the most cost-effective system we can implement and much less compared to more dogs and people. If you can show me otherwise, I’ll gladly withdraw my support for them
I’m just a really really lazy traveler. Don’t begrudge my abilities to ignore everyone else. I’m either reading or playing games, probably wouldn’t notice if Bin Laden himself was standing in line behind me
Had we gotten the shoe removal before Reid, he would have been captured. If Atta and his gang were denied box cutters, they might have been thwarted (I bet more than a few passengers would have fought them hand-to-hand). Not much can be done about the underwear bomber though, but I’m hoping they’re still trying.
Exactly. You have no real-world proof that what the TSA is doing is effective as a deterrent. The TSA screening also does not predict “future criminal deeds”; it only detects contraband material that is being brought onto the plane. The attempt itself to do so is a crime, whether the criminal behavior is detected through intelligence and actual threat analysis or the luck of the draw at going through a randomly selected scanner/pat-down. The point that you continue to miss is that random selection is a lot less reliable than intelligent and focused threat analysis.
Again. Irrelevant because nobody is suggesting a complete lack of security.
Cite? Why would people think twice? Why wouldn’t they, like Richard Reid or the 9/11 attackers or the underwear bomber, just think of another way to exploit the system? Shouldn’t it be obvious that a minimally utilized screening process would be the easiest to exploit? All you need to do is overload the system and it’s statistically likely that some will get through. Even if you lose a few in the process, you’ve successfully exploited the system to achieve a measure of additional fear and paranoia. And you make take out a target or two or three.
I don’t think you’ve really put much thought into this. I’m not an expert in cost analysis, but here you go, right off the top of my head. How many people does the average traveler interact with at the airport? There’s the ticketing agent, with whom most people spend a significant amount of time with, answer questions such as: How many bags are you checking today? Do you have your identification? Did you pack your bags? Have your bags been in your possession the entire time?
See, they are already going in the direction of intelligent threat assessment. It wouldn’t take more than a bit of training and cooperation with the TSA to enhance their threat assessment abilities.
Next, while you’re waiting in line for security, a TSA agent comes up to you to check your identification and your boarding pass. Yet another opportunity for intelligent questioning and behavior assessment to detect potential threats.
Now, you get to the conveyor and your carry-on baggage and personal items pass through an x-ray. They come out on the other side while you’re going through the metal detector. By now, you should have been sniffed out by bomb detection dog. You’ll see them on the other side of security as well. They should have no boundaries. They’re pretty efficient when trained and handled properly. They are used successfully the world over by numerous security and law enforcement agencies and militaries. Using them as visual deterrents, however, is about as dumb and ineffective as random scanning. That’s clearly not how to do it.
How many TSA agents do you see going through airport security? They should and could all be trained in behavioral profiling and threat assessment. As it stands now, “threat” in their language includes prosthetic breasts, urostomy bag, steel pins in leg, nipple rings, defibrillator implants, et cetera. This makes no sense and does not in any way, shape, or form, deter actual terrorists. There is absolutely no evidence to the contrary.
It’s been demonstrated to you multiple times that this statement is factually incorrect. It is NOT being done to everyone equally and only certain people are singled out for enhanced screening, and, by and large, the most significantly targeted group is the disabled.
How about a cite? I didn’t see anyone assert that a secured cockpit door is the only thing necessary for security.
Strawman. People have been saying they want more comprehensive security that does not indignify travelers and trample on their civil rights. The only people being affected by these aggressive non-targeted enhanced screening tactics are innocent people, not criminals. The tactics they are using on these innocent people, who have done nothing to indicate any kind of threat other than have a cryptic mark on their boarding pass or have some disability that is detected in the metal detector or backscatter scanner, are exactly the type of intrusive screening used on arrestees and prisoners. It’s demeaning and unnecessary.
We did have metal detectors prior to 9/11. You keep asserting that the enhanced patdowns and backscatter scanners, to which we object, would have prevented the 9/11 attacks. They would have done nothing to prevent that. End of story.
No, I am advocating BETTER, more INTELLIGENT, and more FOCUSED threat evaluation and response to ACTUAL threat as opposed to the security theatre we have now. My argument, which is apparently far too nuanced for you, is that it would be MORE EFFECTIVE security than what we have now.
Nope. We are dismantling your argument that the 9/11 attackers did not bring C4 onto the plane because they couldn’t get it onto the plane. Irrelevant. It should be obvious that they didn’t need it because their intent seems to have been to use the plane as a weapon. :rolleyes:
A terrorist’s agenda is to exploit whatever holes in security they can detect. Ergo, the most effective means of detecting an unknown threat is to detect the intent to cause a threat as well as the commission of a crime in progress and/or conspiracy to commit crime. Ergo, behavioral profiling has been such a widely used method of threat and criminal analysis.
Backscatter x-ray scanners (AITs) are reported to cost about $150,000 to $180,000 apiece, not including training, installation and maintenance. The projected cost over a six year period is $700 million dollars. Cite:
On the contrary, the dogs the U.S. military sends to Iraq to be trained for bomb detection cost about $7,500 to $8,500 each, not including the dogs needs — from food to medical care — over its working life span, which is an average of 12 years.
How many dogs do you think you could procure, train, and maintain for the cost of 1,800 scanners? Has the TSA done a cost/benefit analysis comparing the two security methods? Do you have some pertinent information wrt cost analysis that has convinced you that the scanners are most cost effective, seeing as how you seem to have accepted and are presenting that premise as fact? How about a cite for that?
This certainly explains why you haven’t noticed that the vast majority of travelers in line with you have not been subjected to your enhanced screening techniques. If Bin Laden is behind you, it’s more than likely he’ll bypass advanced screening as well. Unless, of course, he brings his dialysis machine.
Yes, there is something that can be done about underwear bombing that’s much more effective than random backscatter scanning. Bomb-sniffing dogs at the metal detector. Behavioral profiling and intelligent threat analysis throughout the process.
If you don’t get it by now, you are an idiot. I am done here.
I skipped the backscatter machine at SFO yesterday and walked through the regular old metal detector instead… and… nothing happened. No pat down, not even a sideways glance. I grabbed my stuff off the belt and boogied on down the concourse.
I’m not against security, but of course Yog is too stupid to understand more then sheep’s bleating. Again, I would prefer the minimum security required to be effective. Metal detectors, X-ray scanners, bomb-sniffing dogs, and sensible policies. Non-invasive and efficient.
Profiling based on behavior cannot be evaded in this manner. The only way for a terrorist to not act like someone carrying a bomb is to not carry a bomb.
No, it isn’t. A bomb carried by one person doesn’t blow up a plane any more thoroughly than a bomb carried by 19 people.
My hay fever is acting up again; please remove your straw man.
Not hyperbole – facts. For example:
[QUOTE=Techdirt] TSA Told To Tell Children That Groping Them Is A Game… Horrifying Sex Abuse Experts
Apparently TSA agents are being told that one way to handle the new groping pat downs for children is to try to make it out to be some sort of “game.” This is apparently horrifying some sex abuse experts who point out that a common tactic in abuse cases is to tell the kids that they’re just “playing a game.”…
[/QUOTE]
Pedophiles around the country thank TSA for making their job easier… :eek:
Cite? (i.e. an example of someone attempting to smuggle a bomb onto a plane being caught by these measures)
ACHOO!! ACHOOO!!!
You don’t get to incorporate the proposition you are attempting to prove into your argument. That’s Logic 101.
This is a whoosh, right? I mean, you’re just pretending that you’ve never heard of applicants for security clearances being preventatively investigated to see whether they’re in debt up to their eyeballs, or applicants for day-care center jobs being preventatively investigated to see whether they love kids in entirely the wrong way, or… well need I really go on?
I see that you’re ignoring the point about sniffer dogs being more effective than the current Security Kabuki Theater. I can understand why the people who make these decisions did so – I’d be surprised if Chertoff were the only one lining his pockets this way – but in your case it seems to be simple inattention.
The gee-whiz statistics turned out to be less impressive when controlled for the size of the countries (i.e. the resources available for implementation). Obviously, the available revenue stream and the security problem are both roughly proportional to the number of passengers served.
A meaningless statistic unless the number of X-ray gadgets available is cited for comparison.
See above re the inherent proportionality between the size of the problem and the funds available for the solution.
Michael Chertoff’s accountant certainly agrees.
No, he would have simply hidden the bomb somewhere else.
The issue there was not weapons available, but the standard operating assumptions about how to deal with hijackers. Based on the then-prevailing assumptions that the hijackers want a free ride to Cuba and a soapbox, passivity is the most sensible approach. When that assumption broke down with the reports of the first 9-11 attacks, the hijackers’ weapons were not enough to save them from the passengers.
I’m not clear why anyone is still trying to discuss this issue with YogSosoth. He has made it clear that not only does he not understand the policies and procedures that are currently in place and are well-documented much less the new procedures being discussed and the impact thereof, but he has blatantly lied about his experiences in air travel security i.e. going through security unhindered with a bottle of water. He is either a pertinacious simpleton or an insufferable hobgoblin who is getting his kink on by watching people respond to his ill-informed blather.
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