I wonder where else these will be put to use. It's nice that they're gone, but as the article states the other, less revealing scanners are still going to be in use.
You know, I've kinda always been a contrarian when it comes to these. I don't see it as an invasion of my privacy. Now if they've been shown to be ineffective, or less effective than metal detectors, I can see not using them. If the radiation dose is large, I can also see them being an issue (but I'm pretty sure it's not that bad.) Those reasons I understand - but the privacy one, not so much...
I don't see it as an invasion of my privacy.
I just can't possibly imagine ever caring if someone (especially some random GS-5 government employee behind a wall) were to see a greyscale image of my kind-of-nude body. Why on earth do we care? Sure, we're entitled to privacy in our daily lives, in our homes, but there's definitely a case to be made that you have to give up some of that when you board a pressurized metal missile with 60 other people you don't know for extended periods of time.
Ever met the TSA? They have less training than these guys. I care. I care a fuckload. And I care a fuckload because any other body that wants to strip-search me has to arrest me first. The TSA? They can strip search me if I want to get on a plane. Why? Security theater. The scanners are next to useless anyway. No other country uses them. It's an invasion of privacy for the sake of invading privacy and despite living 10 minutes from LAX, they're the reason I drive anything under 1400 miles.
Yeah, I fly all the time (I just got in from an international flight on the 11th, actually). The security theater argument is totally valid - it's probably why Israeli security methods are so much more effective - and I'm all for getting rid of scanners if they're not effective. But you can't just dismiss the idea of searching people by shouting "security theater!" and fighting about privacy. It changes the argument from "look; this method is ineffective and I dislike it on a personal level" to "fuck you, you're invading my privacy no matter what you do". They're checking to see if you have weapons. It's not for the sake of invading your privacy, it's for the sake of keeping passengers on airplanes safe. If they didn't do security screenings, I think it would be very easy for people to get weapons onto airplanes. (As an aside: Israel has famously strong airport security. Do they respect anyone's rights? Not in the slightest. They profile people, they force you to log into your email account in front of them, they even have lie detector tests.) I've been on planes countless times. It's a simple task to get through American security: Place bag on conveyor. Walk through the metal detector. If they ask to pat you down, let them pat you down. If they ask to look through your bag, let them look through. Walk to your gate. Done. The most frustrating part of security is the line, honestly. Now, I'm not of Arab descent, so I might be getting it easier than some. But in all my flying experience, people have gotten through security sans-issue and moved on with their lives. I still submit to you this: what should scare you way more than someone seeing you naked (or copping a feel of your inner thigh for .5 seconds) is being locked in a metal tube with 60 other people for a number of hours. That's the part I don't like.
Nope. At some point "fuck you, you're invading my privacy no matter what you do" is entirely valid. When I have to take off my flip-flops and pour out my coffee, we're not being pragmatic or safe, we're cracking skulls because it's fun. The TSA exists so that we don't have to normalize foreign policy. The TSA exists as a giant pork-barrel project. The TSA exists so that people with no control and no understanding will worry less because they feel if their rights are being trampled they must be safer. I don't fucking fly El Al. I fly Virgin. If you can't determine whether or not a lethal quantity of explosives isn't on my person without resorting to a strip search, you need to check your foreign policy. Entrusting knuckle-dragging bean counters with the task of keeping me safe isn't helping a fucking thing. Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer, wrote the two books that became SYRIANA. He opens one of them by pointing out that despite the massive intelligence apparatus at our disposal, what crashed a hijacked passenger jet into a field in Pennsylvania wasn't the CIA, NSA, State Dept or any other agency, it was concerned citizens doing the right thing. He could have gone on to point out that the same was true for the Shoe Bomber, the Underwear Bomber and those guys who make us all pour out our coffee now. Just because you're cool with it does NOT mean I have to be. Your canard about 60 people in a tube simply illustrates that you have a surface-level understanding of the situation and don't want to understand any deeper.
Fine. You're smarter than the rest of the world, the intelligence community is useless at stopping terror attacks, and American foreign policy is evil. The TSA is useless, and they enjoy strip-searching people. Somehow, it's fun for underpaid government workers with low morale to be constantly accused of being perverted and trampling on the rights of others. You're making this way too simple, and saying things way too matter-of-factly for us to have an interesting discussion. FYI, accusing me of "not wanting to understand any deeper" is completely uncalled for (beyond the fact that it's not true.)
I've thought about it more than most people. | the intelligence community is useless at stopping terror attacks| Largely. More en pointe, however, the intelligence community isn't the TSA. Wholly and completely. | and they enjoy strip-searching people| It is demonstrably so. You're a white guy. So am I. I have friends. He's Moroccan. She's Persian. You don't wanna hear their stories. I know a lady who quit the TSA at LAX to work for the DMV in Compton. The reason they're constantly accused is they're constantly provoking accusation. The Swedish have to worry about terrorism a lot less than the Israelis because they provoke a lot less terrorism. I say that being Jewish enough to qualify for the Right of Return. I'm not trying to have a discussion, I'm trying to shut you up. The TSA is evil. Demonstrably, factually evil. They are keeping no one safe and their ultimate goal is not liberty or safety, it is self-preservation. "I don't see the problem with pornoscanners?" "The Israelis don't respect rights so neither should we?" This isn't deserving of a conversation, it's deserving of a beatdown.You're smarter than the rest of the world
The TSA is useless
Somehow, it's fun for underpaid government workers with low morale to be constantly accused of being perverted and trampling on the rights of others
You're making this way too simple
and saying things way too matter-of-factly for us to have an interesting discussion.
FYI, accusing me of "not wanting to understand any deeper" is completely uncalled for (beyond the fact that it's not true.)
I travel a good bit, I often get pulled aside and searched when going through security at airports. I don't have a problem with it, I'm young and I look like I fit the "profile". Here is me looking menacing. -Back in college I had a long scraggly, hippy beard and I looked like a young bin-ladin. I'm not arabic but I look it and I take no offense to being searched. It is what it is. I'm all for effective security, so long as it is quick and done courteously, which mine always has been. And so long as I still make my flight. What I didn't care for were the racial slurs I got after 911. One time a guy brushed passed me in line and said, "pardon me Mohammed". -That didn't go over well.
This is a pretty curmudgeonly viewpoint, but one of my objections is that I simply don't trust people without MDs to operate radiological equipment. I mean, sure, in normal operations, there are some non-peer-reviewed studies suggesting that the total radiation dosage is negligible (and people somewhat rightly bring up the cosmic radiation point -- as part of my Department of Energy orientation, I was told that airline crews get some of the highest radiation exposure of any career), but as a computer scientist, the question that occasionally comes into my mind is: how would the average TSA agent actually know if their radiological equipment is operating normally?If the radiation dose is large, I can also see them being an issue (but I'm pretty sure it's not that bad.)
I think that's a fair position to take. There are probably a lot of safeguards in place to make sure you don't get massive doses of radiation, but it's very true - your average TSA agent is no genius and probably would have no idea if anything was awry. I think we could do a lot better than the TSA, in terms of security oversight; it'd be nice to have people who are more professional. TSA agents tend to be all over the place.
As far as I know, TSA agents are not required and possibly not allowed to wear radiation exposure badges. Why should we trust that these machines output a safe level of radiation (for passengers or workers) if the company has proven to be untrustworthy?
Regarding that specific issue, I think the fear is that if they let their employees wear dosimeters, then people would think, "Man, if the agents have to wear dosimeters, then there's probably a serious risk of dangerous levels of radiation." So that puts us at "the simplest way not to have problems is to never know if you have problems," i.e., disable the check engine light in your car and nothing's ever wrong with it.