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'Naked Scanners': Lobbyists Join the War on Terror
- danilocampos 16y agoOne simple thing we can all do to help: Call them "porno scanners". It's a sticky, effective, accurate label that offends the sensibilities of the sort of people who make public policy. Who wants to be in support of something called a porno scanner, after all? credit: http://vimeo.com/16710243 http://vimeo.com/16710243
- jambo 16y agoPro pornographers everywhere are insulted! At least what they do involves consenting adults. Germans call them "Nacktscanner", naked scanners or, better, strip scanners, which really gets the point across. The other thing we have to prepare for is that Rapiscan and L3 will introduce still less graphic renderings as a result of this outcry, but the scanners will still be capturing the same naked photo data. And questions about Therac-25-type problems will still stand.
- wwortiz 16y agoMeh, I think if you are going to call them something you should label them correctly: virtual strip search seems to fit that well. It is especially awful if you can explain that your choices boil down to being seen naked through a virtual strip search or being physically violated through an overly invasive pat down. These don't even take stretches of the imagination to define what the TSA is doing.
- nodata 16y agoWhy give them another new name? They're already naked body scanners.
- johngalt 16y agoSaying you wouldn't go through the "porno scanner" makes you sound weird, and doesn't always convey what what you might want it to mean. I fly regularly through two of the first airports to test these out. The name that's stuck is the XXX-ray. Pronounced "triple-X-ray". It rolls off the tongue pretty easily in conversation too. "Hey John miss your flight?" "Yeah I got held up at security because I wouldn't go through the triple-X-ray"
- danilocampos 16y agoOoh, that's a good one too. Now I'm torn. Whatever we land on culturally with these things, it's important to codify their idiocy right in their common name. Language has power.
- IgorPartola 16y agoFail. So I decided: not flying anywhere until this idiocity is over. Not that I fly that often, but let's say that they have lost X dollars a year on me. Hopefully, more people will commit to this as well and after some airlines go bankrupt, the rest will get the message and hire their own lobbyists.