5 ms·

This anti scanner fad stinks of mob mentality and hysteria. There is no evidence images have been stored at airports or that harm is caused by scans. There is

by aneth 16y ago

This anti scanner fad stinks of mob mentality and hysteria. There is no evidence images have been stored at airports or that harm is caused by scans. There is a pathetic lack of rational discussion of factual policies and why such policies might be necessary, whether we like them or not. I expect more from the HN crowd. Someone want to fill us on on facts instead of speculation and fear mongering?

tumult 16y ago
Sure. These machines cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, offer no additional security, and take naked pictures of you. There really isn't much to discuss.
- aneth 16y ago
  How does a full body scan not provide additional security over a metal detector? Another absurd counterintuitive postulate based on no evidence. Follow that up with "no discussion necessary" and you have mass hysteria.
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    The scan is for detecting additional, nonmetallic threats, especially explosives. Just one problem: nothing in the new procedures can prevent moving the same thing via your rectum. So if we want to pretend everyone will adhere to a specific conception of the threat model, sure, spend a bunch of money and alienate the traveling public.
    - aneth 16y ago
      So because it doesn't provide absolute security it doesn't provide "additional" security? Those are two very different things.
      - danilocampos 16y ago
        It provides incremental security at a cost to our civil liberties and taxes that is orders of magnitude greater than existing policy.
        aneth 16y ago
        Pedantics. The suggestion that full body scanners and effective pat downs provide no (or little) additional security over the status quo is difficult to believe. I'm guessing the same people critical of this policy criticized the previous one for being easy to circumvent. What do you all suggest we do?
        barrkel 16y ago
        Of the zero successful terrorist incidents in the last quarter-billion US flights in the past 9 years, how many would this technology and procedure have stopped? How much money do we need to spend to prevent these zero events from occurring in the next 9 years? And how much did extra was spent on preventing the third of a million motor deaths that occurred during the same period? There is a huge lack of rationality in the middle of this issue for far too many people. The spending and procedures are way out of proportion to the risks, quite apart from how poorly allocated the spending is. The guy who used to run the TSA (Chertoff) now works for the guys selling these machines.
        aneth 16y ago
        So we should keep security the same until something terrible happens? Or should we continue to improe security based on new information and technology? What's irrational is to assume because nothing has happened in the last 8 years (successfully anyway) that our current measures are adequate for the next eight.
        barrkel 16y ago
        Can you not see the disparity between spending allocation changes, and the real actual risks, when comparing air travel vs road travel?
  - miles 16y ago
    "How does a full body scan not provide additional security over a metal detector? Another absurd counterintuitive postulate based on no evidence." Full-body scanners are waste of money, Israeli expert says http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Full+body+scanners+waste+money+Israeli+expert+says/2941610/story.html http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Full+body+scanners+waste+... A leading Israeli airport security expert says the Canadian government has wasted millions of dollars to install "useless" imaging machines at airports across the country. "I don't know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747," Rafi Sela told parliamentarians probing the state of aviation safety in Canada. "That's why we haven't put them in our airport," Sela said, referring to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport, which has some of the toughest security in the world. Sela, former chief security officer of the Israel Airport Authority and a 30-year veteran in airport security and defence technology, helped design the security at Ben Gurion.
danilocampos 16y ago
Let's start with this: In a free society, people are being coerced to participate in a security procedure that violates their privacy. Don't want to go through the porno scanners? Okay, punk — have fun being aggressively groped in punishment. You don't get to enact this kind of invasive, extreme policy on a whim. Extreme measures call for extreme circumstances and at this point, no one has made any sort of compelling case for the necessity of seeing the American public naked or grabbing them by the nuts. No one asked for this. And no one gave permission for this, aside from bureaucrats with more agenda than sense. Finally, anyone dedicated to destroying themselves and others with a nonmetallic explosive is simply going to shove it up their ass. No pat down can detect that. So what, beyond further terrorizing the public, is the point? The terrorists groups are a bunch of amateurs. If you want to see real terror, call up some bureaucrats.
- aneth 16y ago
  We have always been coerced into procedures that violate our privacy when we fly. If we were not, terrorists would regularly board aircraft with guns and ammo. From a shitload of personal travel (I fly twice a month) I have found 95% of the TSA to be good humored and responsible. The situation today is fa better than it was when run by private companies.
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    > We have always been coerced into procedures that violate our privacy when we fly. Detecting metallic objects isn't really a violation of privacy. Neither is seeing an X-ray image of mundane baggage. This is your body, we're talking about. And I'm not aware of any previous policy that allowed TSA to cop a feel with such gratuitous abandon. > If we were not, terrorists would regularly board aircraft with guns and ammo. When "terrorists" and other boogeymen reach the airport with all their destructive goodies, our security apparatus has already failed.
    - aneth 16y ago
      > Detecting metallic objects isn't really a violation of privacy. Neither is seeing an X-ray image of mundane baggage. This is your body, we're talking about. And I'm not aware of any previous policy that allowed TSA to cop a feel with such gratuitous abandon. Personally, I'd rather have someone see a black and white outline of my naked body than look through my luggage - the former has no meaning or value, the second is actually private. What you consider "mundane," I consider personal. > When "terrorists" and other boogeymen reach the airport with all their destructive goodies, our security apparatus has already failed. So - no wiretaps, no racial profiling, no country profiling, no searches, no detainment, no internet monitoring - I suppose we use love and psychic powers?
irons 16y ago
One major pilots union is already instructing its members to bypass the scans, out of concerns that the radiation dose is absorbed disproportionately by the skin: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/american-airlines-pilots-advised-to-avoid-new-airport-scanners.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/american-air... ... a concern echoed by a group of UCSF biologists: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126833083 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1268330... I don't care much about the nakedness aspect, but I do resent security theater, which now apparently extends to physically intimidating "enhanced pat-downs" and making everyone remove belts, even at airports without backscatter imagers: http://www.salon.com/technology/ask_the_pilot/2010/11/04/belt_removal_at_security_checkpoint/index.html http://www.salon.com/technology/ask_the_pilot/2010/11/04/bel...
sp4rki 16y ago
There is no evidence images have been stored at airports There is, but even is they weren't they still could easily be saved via a photograph. Also, I don't really care if anyone sees me naked anymore, but I bet most of the public does, and to violate the right to be covered in clothes of the people is irresponsible. ... or that harm is caused by scans. It's an X-ray machine. It irradiates your body. Some experts say it's negligible, others say it's not negligible at all, some say it's not a big deal, and others say it is a big deal for regular travelers. I really don't care if it is/isn't harmful until it is scientifically proven it's not, in the meanwhile I'll choose to label said machine as a potential danger to my health. There is a pathetic lack of rational discussion of factual policies and why such policies might be necessary, whether we like them or not. You find pathetic that people want to discuss their opinion on the violation of their civil right because you disagree? You want actual facts? How about this: 1) There is some probability that you might be inflicting unnecessary damage on your body with this machines. 2) You're giving the TSA consent to see you naked, which not only is it a violation of your rights, but it's an awful precedent to set. 3) Various security experts have expressed their disdain of such measures because the small (if any) benefit to security they might offer is not commensurate to the inconvenience, potential health damage, and violation of rights that are being committed. 4) Not doing anything about it (not complaining) makes this sort of actions easier to justify in the future. 5) There are adults watching your children naked without a real need to do so nor your consent. 6) It freaking annoys the hell out of me and every one in the line. Do you even want me to get started on the pat down policy? I mean I would expect that in a military base, a police station, the White House, or a drug deal, but in an airport and done to children, elderly women, and people whom might be extremely offended by it? Fuck no. The real solution to this is profiling, plain and simple. Everybody knows this, but it's a career suicide for whomever sets it up. Imagine the articles: "Muslim man was unjustly groped at airport by slender blonde TSA agent. Man said 'she grabbed my penis...'" The real irresponsibility here is the TSA claiming that an opt out day is irresponsible, when they could easily avoid it by not imposing their ridiculous and useless security standards. In the mean time, I'll keep shoving my shampoo bottles up my ass.

by aneth 16y ago

tumult 16y ago

Sure. These machines cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, offer no additional security, and take naked pictures of you. There really isn't much to discuss.

aneth 16y ago
How does a full body scan not provide additional security over a metal detector? Another absurd counterintuitive postulate based on no evidence. Follow that up with "no discussion necessary" and you have mass hysteria.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  The scan is for detecting additional, nonmetallic threats, especially explosives. Just one problem: nothing in the new procedures can prevent moving the same thing via your rectum. So if we want to pretend everyone will adhere to a specific conception of the threat model, sure, spend a bunch of money and alienate the traveling public.
  - aneth 16y ago
    So because it doesn't provide absolute security it doesn't provide "additional" security? Those are two very different things.
    - danilocampos 16y ago
      It provides incremental security at a cost to our civil liberties and taxes that is orders of magnitude greater than existing policy.
      - aneth 16y ago
        Pedantics. The suggestion that full body scanners and effective pat downs provide no (or little) additional security over the status quo is difficult to believe. I'm guessing the same people critical of this policy criticized the previous one for being easy to circumvent. What do you all suggest we do?
        barrkel 16y ago
        Of the zero successful terrorist incidents in the last quarter-billion US flights in the past 9 years, how many would this technology and procedure have stopped? How much money do we need to spend to prevent these zero events from occurring in the next 9 years? And how much did extra was spent on preventing the third of a million motor deaths that occurred during the same period? There is a huge lack of rationality in the middle of this issue for far too many people. The spending and procedures are way out of proportion to the risks, quite apart from how poorly allocated the spending is. The guy who used to run the TSA (Chertoff) now works for the guys selling these machines.
        aneth 16y ago
        So we should keep security the same until something terrible happens? Or should we continue to improe security based on new information and technology? What's irrational is to assume because nothing has happened in the last 8 years (successfully anyway) that our current measures are adequate for the next eight.
        barrkel 16y ago
        Can you not see the disparity between spending allocation changes, and the real actual risks, when comparing air travel vs road travel?
- miles 16y ago
  "How does a full body scan not provide additional security over a metal detector? Another absurd counterintuitive postulate based on no evidence." Full-body scanners are waste of money, Israeli expert says http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Full+body+scanners+waste+money+Israeli+expert+says/2941610/story.html http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Full+body+scanners+waste+... A leading Israeli airport security expert says the Canadian government has wasted millions of dollars to install "useless" imaging machines at airports across the country. "I don't know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747," Rafi Sela told parliamentarians probing the state of aviation safety in Canada. "That's why we haven't put them in our airport," Sela said, referring to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport, which has some of the toughest security in the world. Sela, former chief security officer of the Israel Airport Authority and a 30-year veteran in airport security and defence technology, helped design the security at Ben Gurion.

danilocampos 16y ago

Let's start with this: In a free society, people are being coerced to participate in a security procedure that violates their privacy. Don't want to go through the porno scanners? Okay, punk — have fun being aggressively groped in punishment. You don't get to enact this kind of invasive, extreme policy on a whim. Extreme measures call for extreme circumstances and at this point, no one has made any sort of compelling case for the necessity of seeing the American public naked or grabbing them by the nuts. No one asked for this. And no one gave permission for this, aside from bureaucrats with more agenda than sense. Finally, anyone dedicated to destroying themselves and others with a nonmetallic explosive is simply going to shove it up their ass. No pat down can detect that. So what, beyond further terrorizing the public, is the point? The terrorists groups are a bunch of amateurs. If you want to see real terror, call up some bureaucrats.

aneth 16y ago
We have always been coerced into procedures that violate our privacy when we fly. If we were not, terrorists would regularly board aircraft with guns and ammo. From a shitload of personal travel (I fly twice a month) I have found 95% of the TSA to be good humored and responsible. The situation today is fa better than it was when run by private companies.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  > We have always been coerced into procedures that violate our privacy when we fly. Detecting metallic objects isn't really a violation of privacy. Neither is seeing an X-ray image of mundane baggage. This is your body, we're talking about. And I'm not aware of any previous policy that allowed TSA to cop a feel with such gratuitous abandon. > If we were not, terrorists would regularly board aircraft with guns and ammo. When "terrorists" and other boogeymen reach the airport with all their destructive goodies, our security apparatus has already failed.
  - aneth 16y ago
    > Detecting metallic objects isn't really a violation of privacy. Neither is seeing an X-ray image of mundane baggage. This is your body, we're talking about. And I'm not aware of any previous policy that allowed TSA to cop a feel with such gratuitous abandon. Personally, I'd rather have someone see a black and white outline of my naked body than look through my luggage - the former has no meaning or value, the second is actually private. What you consider "mundane," I consider personal. > When "terrorists" and other boogeymen reach the airport with all their destructive goodies, our security apparatus has already failed. So - no wiretaps, no racial profiling, no country profiling, no searches, no detainment, no internet monitoring - I suppose we use love and psychic powers?

irons 16y ago

One major pilots union is already instructing its members to bypass the scans, out of concerns that the radiation dose is absorbed disproportionately by the skin: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/american-airlines-pilots-advised-to-avoid-new-airport-scanners.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/american-air... ... a concern echoed by a group of UCSF biologists: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126833083 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1268330... I don't care much about the nakedness aspect, but I do resent security theater, which now apparently extends to physically intimidating "enhanced pat-downs" and making everyone remove belts, even at airports without backscatter imagers: http://www.salon.com/technology/ask_the_pilot/2010/11/04/belt_removal_at_security_checkpoint/index.html http://www.salon.com/technology/ask_the_pilot/2010/11/04/bel...

sp4rki 16y ago

There is no evidence images have been stored at airports There is, but even is they weren't they still could easily be saved via a photograph. Also, I don't really care if anyone sees me naked anymore, but I bet most of the public does, and to violate the right to be covered in clothes of the people is irresponsible. ... or that harm is caused by scans. It's an X-ray machine. It irradiates your body. Some experts say it's negligible, others say it's not negligible at all, some say it's not a big deal, and others say it is a big deal for regular travelers. I really don't care if it is/isn't harmful until it is scientifically proven it's not, in the meanwhile I'll choose to label said machine as a potential danger to my health. There is a pathetic lack of rational discussion of factual policies and why such policies might be necessary, whether we like them or not. You find pathetic that people want to discuss their opinion on the violation of their civil right because you disagree? You want actual facts? How about this: 1) There is some probability that you might be inflicting unnecessary damage on your body with this machines. 2) You're giving the TSA consent to see you naked, which not only is it a violation of your rights, but it's an awful precedent to set. 3) Various security experts have expressed their disdain of such measures because the small (if any) benefit to security they might offer is not commensurate to the inconvenience, potential health damage, and violation of rights that are being committed. 4) Not doing anything about it (not complaining) makes this sort of actions easier to justify in the future. 5) There are adults watching your children naked without a real need to do so nor your consent. 6) It freaking annoys the hell out of me and every one in the line. Do you even want me to get started on the pat down policy? I mean I would expect that in a military base, a police station, the White House, or a drug deal, but in an airport and done to children, elderly women, and people whom might be extremely offended by it? Fuck no. The real solution to this is profiling, plain and simple. Everybody knows this, but it's a career suicide for whomever sets it up. Imagine the articles: "Muslim man was unjustly groped at airport by slender blonde TSA agent. Man said 'she grabbed my penis...'" The real irresponsibility here is the TSA claiming that an opt out day is irresponsible, when they could easily avoid it by not imposing their ridiculous and useless security standards. In the mean time, I'll keep shoving my shampoo bottles up my ass.