Box-cutters weren’t a problem prior to 09/11. In fact, on September 10, 2001, I accompanied my mother to the airport when she was flying home. I walked through the metal detector, after putting my keys (with a Swiss Army knife with a two-inch blade) in the little basket, and walked her as far as the door to the jetway. It wasn’t a problem that I didn’t have a boarding pass and it wasn’t a problem that I had a small knife.
(Forgive me for interrupting all the emotion with a question. Since we have no witnesses as to what happened on the 9/11 airplanes, do we know boxcutters were used? How do we know? How do we know the passengers on one place used a food-service cart to ram the cockpit door? )
As I remember, the passengers on board those flights called their relatives and relayed what was happening, including that one of the terrorists cut the throat of a flight attendant to draw the pilot out of the cockpit.
Lack of technology didn’t allow the box cutters on the plane, the law did. Before 9/11, knives with blades up to 3 inches long could be carried through security. Dude could have walked up to security wearing a “Kill Whitey” t-shirt, slapped his newly purchased Stanly box-cutter in the plastic bin, and walked right through.
Also, the case for box-cutters even being the primary weapon for 9/11 hijackers is plenty thin. A box cutter is mentioned by ONE person making a desperate cell call from one of the planes. Other callers mentioned knives, one even mentioned a passenger had been shot. No weapons survived the crashes, so no one really knows for sure what weapons were used.
True dat. I flew through Dallas in August 2001 and you could buy big-ass Bowie knives, airside.
A better analogy would be the difference between a waiter and a busboy. One is trained in customer interaction and expected to do so properly. The other couldn’t give a rat’s tail about customer interaction.
Whatever. But that’s your personal preference.
I personally don’t care if they see my naked body either - hell, rather than opting out, my protest would be to simply disrobe before going into the scanner: if they want to see my private parts, why not let the whole airport in on the experience?
But it should be a matter of choice, rather than something that our security state can require as a matter of right.
They are, of course, claiming that it IS a matter of choice; you CAN opt out and choose the pat-down instead. But if they mean that, it’s up to them to put their money where their mouth is, and have sufficient personnel on hand to handle whatever number of people choose to opt out.
If there are more than the usual day-before-Thanksgiving backups at security next week, please direct your ire at TSA for failing to back up their words with staffing, rather than the people who are taking them at their word, despite their dislike for TSA procedures.
Copy the first image on this page into an image editing program (the girl with the green shirt): http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/11/airport_body_scan_protesters_p.php
Then invert the colors. Naked chick, pretty detailed too.
In future please indicate when a link might be inappropriate to open in an office setting. Just out of curiosity I clicked on the link expecting to see an article about airport body scan protesters with a picture of a chick in a green shirt and instead it popped up with SEXY NAKED XXX in the window.
Not to mention, that first picture is a hoax: [spoiler]http://www.tatumba.com/blog/archives/1369[/spoiler]Spoiled because it contains the same pic as the link **control-z **posted.
That’s the second time I’ve posted that link on the boards today. It’s a HOAX, folks.
If it’s a hoax I’m sorry for that, but there is nothing NSFW about that page. If you’re worried about NSFW words don’t browse The Pit at work.
TSA threatens to prosecute anyone who tries to opt out:
Here’s some handy advice from Chopper Reid on handling airport security.
YouTube video
But my personal preference doesn’t enter into it at all. It’s an absolute fact that a far better and more representative nude can be manufactured with nothing more than a headshot than you can get from a backscatter scanner. Despite this, nobody’s clamoring to make digital image manipulation illegal. That’s why I find calling the scanners “pornoscanners” to be completely disingenuous- it shows that the argument is just a rationalization.
So, can anyone work out how this YouTube video of a young child having to remove the clothes on the upper half of his body is not real?
Because I’d hate to live in a world where it is real.
What are you talking about? This is good stuff. Learning young like this will help him to not question the police state when he grows up.
“What’s the big deal with full body cavity searches? That’s not much different than what I grew up with.” he’ll say.
You know I’m glad I’m not flying. Because if I was I’d have to rig a fake bleeding wound, like a little baggy of some fake blood that’d pop when they did the pat down. Then when they looked at the fake blood in disgust I’d look at them in complete surprise and horror. “oh no, no! You need to clean that off and get tested! I’ve got AIDs.”
And that can only end in jail time.
This link claims to have the backstory, although who knows if it is accurate or not.
Basically sounds like kid got chosen for a search, was not cooperating, so the father removed the shirt as an alternative to them patting him down.
Next time I go through an airport, I’m going to do my best to make the TSA bozo question his sexuality. Lots of moans, and pelvic thrusts when his hands are on my thighs, just to see what they could try to arrest me for.
Could I be arrested for simply telling TSA that I was positive for HIV?