24 ms·

Defeated

• shousper 13y ago
  If you weren't alone, maybe things would of been different?
  • Joeboy 13y ago
    One of the lessons of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment was that people were much more likely to rebel if they weren't alone in doing so.
    • ajb 13y ago
      Maybe an 'anyone opting out on my flight' app would be a good idea. Although writing one would probably get you put on the terrorist watch list.
      • krichman 13y ago
        That would be nice; you could actually have people on multiple flights opt out because there's a single security checkpoint for multiple gates.
      • jpalomaki 13y ago
        Offline version could be to wear a certain pin to indicate one is a member of the "opt-out movement" http://www.pinmart.com/stock-pins-awareness.aspx http://www.pinmart.com/stock-pins-awareness.aspx
• flyt 13y ago
  When you go into the millimeter-wave machine and the TSA employee asks you to raise your arms, tell them that you can't, but don't elaborate (and they usually won't ask why). Every time I've done this they let me go through the regular metal detector with no argument or subsequent pat downs or screening.
  • cbr 13y ago
    If a lot of able-bodied people start doing this then the TSA may start giving people who actually can't raise their arms a hard time.
    • reginaldjcooper 13y ago
      I would love to see the resulting class action lawsuit from that.
      • sbarre 13y ago
        America: lawyers!
    • jonknee 13y ago
      That would be great. The first time they do it to someone like John McCain the program will end. The ADA is easy to violate and the penalties are severe, challenging people to raise their arms would be a plaintiff lawyer's wet dream.
  • ksrm 13y ago
    Do this and then stretch your arms, or give someone a high-five. I wonder if they would do anything.
• highace 13y ago
  Can someone please explain what's wrong with going through the machine? If it means not having my balls squeezed, it sounds pretty good to me.
  • marshray 13y ago
    Because it's a strip search.
    • Joeboy 13y ago
      Further to that, once you can no longer travel in your own country without being strip searched it means, as the article puts it, that the terrorists have won. It's a test and a defense of freedom.
      • UweSchmidt 13y ago
        The terrorists don't win if people in America lose rights. Wtf? Terrorists win if they don't turn into terrorists in the first place but live normal happy lives in their countries, maintaining a mild disdain for the decadent west while admiring the nice parts, like freedom and wealth. The radicalization surely has many roots, one of them being real and imagined pressure from the West. I propose looking into that aspect a bit more. I think we (the West) are not intentionally evil towards the arab/muslim world, but that politics happens and power is applied and these people often get the short end of the deal, leading to resentment and strengthening the crazy mullah's teachings.
        • speeder 13y ago
          I am from another place that had problems with US, and I always believed US is intentionally evil, and it don't proved otherwise yet. It behaves like a school bully, that protect its interests by beating other kids until they hand their lunch over, and when someone ask why, he says he was hungry.
        • wpietri 13y ago
          I think you've missed his point. I agree with a lot of what you say, but I think it's not a useful response here. On of Osama bin Laden's stated goals was to bankrupt the US. For $1m or so in initial investment, he's gotten us to waste a trillion or so on a pointless Iraq adventure. The TSA has only cost us $100bn or so, not counting the countless hours and energy lost waiting in line and performing pointless rituals. But more broadly, he's a terrorist. As the name suggests, the goal is to create fear. And the TSA is a giant institutionalization of that fear. It's only scared people who give up their rights. The TSA is both a response to fear and a creator of fear, and having scared this guy into compliance, they have done their job.
• javajosh 13y ago
  Don't give up. You lost once. That doesn't mean you have to lose again.
  • prawn 13y ago
    Once, so far.
  • memming 13y ago
    For the exactly same reason, I gave up opting out as well. Well, played TSA.
• wilperkins 13y ago
  I had a similar experience when traveling to the US with my German girlfriend (I am from the US). What I found even more disappointing is the way that other passengers negatively reacted to her choosing to opt-out and wait for the "pat down of shame". I would be happy to see in the US a better public awareness of the amount of personal rights that we're forfeiting by simply passing through an airport.
  • RivieraKid 13y ago
    What do you mean by "reacted negatively"?
    • wilperkins 13y ago
      The standard head shakes of disapproval. Comments like "she should just go through the scanner like everyone else" or "look at her trying to create a problem". After the first couple walked by and had such a reaction, I just ignored it. But then when it repeatedly happened, I wondered why so many people were bothered enough by her decision that they have to stop and make a snarky comment about it.
      • niurnirixcvwc 13y ago
        Because it's not enough to be stupid, others must be as stupid as they are. They just, must... Why can't they just accept it and stop being a nuisance?...
      • seren 13y ago
        It could also be out of guilt. It is much more uncomfortable to see someone doing the right thing, when you know that you have chosen the wrong, and easier path. So you have to rationalize it verbally somehow.
    • valisystem 13y ago
      Frowns and interrogative looks I guess. When someone does not act as the norm in situations you are expected to, people just reacts negatively, since reacting positively requires to question yourself and make a decision whether you endorse or not a behavior different than yours. It's way more easier to dismiss self questioning and jump to the disapproval of non conform behavior, the one that everyone has already decided to follow (willfully or not).
• mherdeg 13y ago
  I would write to LAWA about this (even though they will just refer you to the appropriate contact at TSA & you'll get a black hole with no reply). It's not cool to wait >30 min for a "male assist".
• ccozan 13y ago
  Although I truly simpatize with the person ( and the political subject ), I can only express my wonder towards humans as a species: in order to survive, we adapt by overcoming our fears, then we move on, forgetting what was all about. The next challenge is waiting. Adapt or die ( figuratively speaking )!
• krichman 13y ago
  Please don't give up. We all have to value freedom more than to abandon it after half an hour apart from a laptop if we want to be free.
  • honzzz 13y ago
    I think you are right but I also understand OP - it's way too easy to choose the easier path. The older I get the more I admire people like Vaclav Havel and others who would rather spend years in jail instead of just 'sucking it up'... and the more I doubt I would be able to withstand even much smaller pressure - it must have been much harder than I imagined when I was 16.
• bjourne 13y ago
  The next time you see a cop, take a photo. You are bound to get in trouble for that pretty soon as the cops don't like it and many don't seem to be aware that it is perfectly legal to do so. I wonder if it would help? You would be harassed a lot but you would prevent photographing cops from becoming de facto illegal.
  • marincounty 13y ago
    I think we will need to do this in the future. I'm thinking of front and rear cams on my car. It just might come in handy if I ever need to fight an illegal pull over.
• marincounty 13y ago
  1. My subtle way of fighting back is trying to keep my face off cameras everyplace I go. I stopped going to stores like Home Depot who have you on a cam the minute you walk in. 2. I'm glad you held out as long as you did.
  • awjr 13y ago
    Err not sure how important that is. I would guess making sure you pay in cash at all times is probably more important.
    • hyperventilator 13y ago
      Even if you pay in cash the NSA will get those tapes and know he was at Home Depot. :P
  • cbr 13y ago
    Why are you singling out Home Depot? Most stores use security cameras these days. Have you considered compiling a list of stores that have taken a stand against cameras for privacy-conscious people to selectively patronize? That would probably do much more towards your ends than boycotting one store out of the many that use cameras. (I don't mind the cameras: I've given up on privacy.)
• jgeerts 13y ago
  An episode of South Park comes to mind 'The Entity', "Despite this unorthodox control mechanism (which is uncomfortable to the citizens of South Park), "IT" is still considered better than the airlines and Garrison is a smashing success".
• josscrowcroft 13y ago
  This happened to me at Heathrow in London, except there's no option to "opt-out". You either do it, or you don't fly. It's randomly selected, so although I triggered no safety protocols, I was picked out for backscatter. I was a hair's width from turning around and flying from Gatwick instead at a few hundred bucks cost (nothing compared to observing my rights) - but the engagement was too important.
  • DanBC 13y ago
    I guess that refusing the scan turns the encounter from random into 'suspicious person', giving them "reasonable grounds" to do all sorts of interrogation.
  • hyperventilator 13y ago
    While not being able to opt out is more restrictive, it is probably much quicker, go through or don't fly, done.
  • abrichr 13y ago
    When was this? Heathrow doesn't currently use back scatter [1]. [1] http://www.heathrowairport.com/heathrow-airport-guide/heathrow-security/faqs#backscatter http://www.heathrowairport.com/heathrow-airport-guide/heathr...
    • josscrowcroft 13y ago
      They do, unfortunately. Not for everybody, but randomly selected (I guess 1 in 1000 or fewer) and when singled out, it's a requirement. I'm white and british, so you can't call it profiling either.. It's way off at the side, so nobody really knows it's going on. Your only recourse is to take it up with the home office.
• flexie 13y ago
  Airline security measures is not only a threat to civil liberties, it's also a threat to the airline industry. On short distances (<500 km) I chose cars and trains. Getting to or from airports has always been an issue, but this problem has been minimized in recent decades with more and more subway systems, freeways etc. connecting airports with city centers. The check-in waiting time has been minimized with online check-in, self check-in stations etc. But all these gains have been cancelled out by overreaching security measures, mandatory waiting time etc. But there are powerful interests that like to keep it this way. Airport owners make money turning airports into shopping malls because travellers are forced to wait there. Governments use airport security as job creation schemes. It's a leech sucking on resources all of us need.
  • claudius 13y ago
    > Airline security measures is not only a threat to civil liberties, it's also a threat to the airline industry. On short distances (<500 km) I chose cars and trains. Good. Planes are somewhat decent means of transportation on long, rarely travelled distances, but for everything else, both cars and trains are the more ecological, economical and scalable way to get from A to B. Unfortunately, both cars and planes (and, to a lesser extent, trains) are still subsidised to a large extent, masking the real costs of going from A to B in a little tube with wings, thirty other people and so-and-so many litres of kerosine. If you had to pay the ‘real’ price to use airplanes (i.e. the costs of airports, air traffic control, standard-taxed kerosine, appropriate taxes to revert the ecological destruction caused by airplane traffic etc.), you’d prefer to walk.
    • Symmetry 13y ago
      Air travel is bad for the environment, but only because the distances are long compared to driving. The fact that planes take lots of energy to propel through the air is defrayed by the fact that you can pack a lot of people on a plane - both typically consume on the order of .5 kWh of energy per kilometer of travel. Rail and buses are, of course, an order of magnitude lower.[1] You can talk about all the other energy costs surrounding air travel, but you can do the same thing with cars. Really, they're small potatoes compared to the costs of the fuel for vehicles and in the case of cars the cost of building all those roads. And then there's the fact that flying a distance is much safer than driving it even on distances as short as a couple hundred kilometers. The diversion of people from flying to driving after 9/11 causes on the order of a hundred excess road deaths each year. [1] http://www.withouthotair.com/c20/page_121.shtml http://www.withouthotair.com/c20/page_121.shtml
• transfire 13y ago
  Don't fly. Seriously. Aren't you tired of being stripped searched, herded like cattle, squeezed into a tin can like sardines, going 300 miles in the wrong direction to switch plans at a hub, or sitting hours in wait in your three square feet of space on the tarmac? But what to do instead? Leave a day early. Take a train. Maybe even find a co-rider heading your way and split the cost of a cabin car. Then relax and enjoy your trip. Chat with some other travelers in the lounge car. Have a nice meal in the diner car. If you don't have to be there yesterday and you are not going over an ocean, you can't beat a train. Of course, in the States, the a$$ holes are winning there too as they won't let us build better trains (cough florida caugh hyperloop cough) and they have forced all passenger rail to go through Chicago when crossing the middle of the country. Honestly, how do they get away with this sh*t?
  • WA 13y ago
    Please point me to the train that takes me from Germany to NYC.
    • atsidi 13y ago
      That would be very cool. However, when we need to get to Europe, we take a train to Toronto or Montreal and fly from there. Canada's airports are a bit more sane that those in the U.S. When I lived in southern California, I drove across the border and flew out of Mexico: not as nice, but I saved a lot of money that way.
  • blackhole 13y ago
    Why yes, I'd love to drive over the Atlantic ocean.
  • aestra 13y ago
    I take it you've never traveled for business? Or for a funeral? Or have family cross country? I don't enjoy traveling. I travel way too much to relax while traveling, It is a necessary evil to get me to point a to point b. The quickest way is the best way, it's like ripping off a band-aid, get it done quickly and painlessly as possible. Spending 4 days driving or riding a train from New York to LA isn't appealing to me, nor is it cost effective. I've riding The Northeast Corridor more times than I can count. I don't like driving that route, so I take that train, but it isn't cost effective at all. It isn't pleasant. The train is delayed more than on time, once total delay time was over 5 hours. Not a relaxing good time. When I was a kid I rode a train from New York to Florida, it was terrible. We slept in the seats, just like 90% of the passengers, because that's what was affordable. Real relaxing. If you are a regular traveler, you aren't going to want to do any of those things. I travel regularly, I don't want to leave a day early, I'm on a tight schedule. Traveling isn't vacation.
• soheil 13y ago
  "three or four of them(passengers) had induced mini-panic-attacks by lifting or moving the tray containing my laptop" when are we going to learn to assume other people are probably somewhat rational beings and not crazy zombies walking around?
  • singold 13y ago
    Maybe when we stop seeing everyone as potential 'terrorists' that should be undressed to prove they don't carry anything dangerous to the rest of us. Also, there are really a lots of crazy zombies walking around
• einhverfr 13y ago
  Please don't give up. Please write the ACLU, the EPIC and ask for legal representation. We lose our rights by not asserting them and fighting abuses like this in court.
• jballanc 13y ago
  There is an extremely simple solution: leave. I've not lived in the US for almost two years now. I've only had to travel back twice in that time. Meanwhile, in the same time I've visited France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany multiple times. None of those travel experiences were nearly as unpleasant or stressful as my two trips to the US. Furthermore, the technology communities that are growing up in these places have a vigor and sense of excitement that rivals or even surpasses anything you'll find in Silicon Valley.
  • veidr 13y ago
    Yeah, I left too. I've lived in a couple parts of Europe and then Japan since leaving. All of them feel more "free" than post-Bush (I guess I really mean post-Bin Laden) USA; people enjoy more civil rights, and (more pragmatically) more freedom from idiotic hassle in the name of... whatever kind of fuckery it is that keeps the prison lobby, the TSA, and the general industrial-fearmongering complex in business and free of logical constraints. But, leaving is not really a simple solution, at all. It is both complex and unsatisfying. Thankfully, my wife and kid are with me (and btw, compared to Japan, the USA seems like a completely insane place to raise a kid) but I still have family there, not to mention friends, business interests, tax obligations, etc. I feel like my country is occupied by an enemy force, and that feeling is hammered home every single time I fly home, within minutes of deplaning.
    • FedRegister 13y ago
      The rampant xenophobia in Japan is what keeps me from moving there. You mean even if I becomes a naturalized citizen (an ordeal in itself) that most places will still treat me like a foreigner? No thanks. The US is occupied by an enemy force that they supported and elected. Every time another basic human right is violated by the legislative and executive branch those cheer. Does it matter that drunk driving kills more people per year in the US than acts of terror? Does it matter that more people die from prescription drug dispensation mistakes? Not to the mind of the scared American.
      • adrinavarro 13y ago
• yRetsyM 13y ago
  Did anyone else find it really hard to read the text in this article? I don't like the contrast...
• prawn 13y ago
  The terrorists have won. I don't think the terrorists won, they just provided the push. The commercial interests and their lobbyists have won. And by that, I mean they continue to win.
  • bayesianhorse 13y ago
    I don't think airport security and avoiding bombs on planes is an entirely "commercial" interest.
    • qznc 13y ago
      Selling expensive equipment to the government is a commercial interest. Increasing responsibilities/work of the TSA (arguably) is a commercial interest as well.
    • prawn 13y ago
      A strongly commercial interest, at least. No one's going to fly if the planes aren't safe, for one thing. See the other reply which has already covered the boon in selling expensive detection equipment. Once that's in place, do you think lobbyists and TSA-employee unions are going to be excited about winding them down? No terrorist is sitting there thinking "Hell yes, we've stifled their freedom! We've won!" I can't imagine any of the airport shops cried when people were forced by policy to throw away bottled water and other drinks before entering waiting lounges. Longer security lines increase thirst and hunger too. Board a plane with an infant and liquids are a non-issue - milk/formula, pre-boiled water, medication, etc. I've read that you can be asked to taste products you're carrying, but never had this happen. Always wondered if someone planning to asplode a plane is really going to be deterred by needing to drink a toxic substance. (Martyrdom for their infant would be a matter for the strength of their belief.)
    • prof_hobart 13y ago
      Other forms of transport, such as trains, don't have even a tiny fraction of the level of security that planes have, and if anything are a more effective terror target than a bomb on a plane (I would say that the terrorists got far more publicity out of the 7/7 bombings in London than they did out of Lockerbie) - I strolled around two of the busiest stations in London for a couple of hours on Saturday, and saw a single sniffer dog occasionally checking out someone's bag, and even that was far more than I normally see. Yet we don't see train bombs on a regular basis. So why would planes be vastly different if the level of security was ramped down?
• shuri 13y ago
  I think the opposite should be done. I think every single person should opt-out.
• progx 13y ago
  The terrorist won a long time ago. In particular in the US and England. Other countries (ironically) did not have such problems with terrorists, or how we call this people in germany: "citizens", "taxpayers", "neighbors"... ;)
  • this_user 13y ago
    May I remind you of the RAF(), checkpoints manned by police armed with semi-automatic rifles and the use of dragnets in the late 70's and early 80's? Our hands aren't as clean as we would like to believe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction
    • progx 13y ago
      And ? Did the terrorists won in germany ? Did germany has a totalitarian monitoring state ? Or reject human rights ?
      • astrodust 13y ago
        Look, you cannot say that Germany in the 20th century was a bastion of freedom and respect of human rights. Just because things have been relatively chill the past twenty years does not mean it's time to start boasting.
• ethanazir 13y ago
  This is the type of crap that pushes a non-muslim over the edge.
• philliphaydon 13y ago
  IMO This is silly. Yeah I understand why we don't want the NSA looking into all our emails and phonecalls etc... But its a security check at an airport... This has to be one of the silliest things to get wound up about.
  • hvidgaard 13y ago
    It's a matter of the principle - if you don't stand by the right to have freedom, someone will eventually erode it piece by piece. And The People will not care because "it's just a security check at an airport". It has been shown that they offer little to no added security, but they do reveal a lot about you and it is in electronic form. If it somehow was guaranteed that this information would never leak it would be a non concern - that is however not the case (they need to preserve this information in case it is needed). It is comparable to pictures of a strip search getting leaked.
  • tomelders 13y ago
    It's a strip search. You don't have a problem with being strip searched?
    • philliphaydon 13y ago
      Its not a strip search. It's an x-ray. And after watching the tv series "Embarrassing Bodies", I've come to realise we're all human and who really gives a FUCK what we look like under our clothes. If someone wants to get off over my x-ray scan good on them.
    • onebaddude 13y ago
      >It's a strip search. No, it isn't. When you're in a back room with your clothes on the floor, being asked to lift your scrotum and spread your butt cheeks, you're being strip searched. The MM machines are annoying, invasive and potentially harmful, but saying it's analogous to being strip searched doesn't help the cause. You'll believe me if you're ever actually strip searched. It's a far worse violation.
  • jdavid 13y ago
• gfodor 13y ago
  Is this even allowed? I had the understanding that once you opt-out, you either have to get the pat down, or you have to leave the airport. Altering your decision and going through the scanner I thought was against protocol, much like when you enter the security line you have to go through security or leave the airport. Either way you should continue to opt-out despite this bad experience. I always opt-out unless I am with my wife and time is tight, I don't want to be responsible for us missing our flight if the trip is important enough to her. (I've gone through only once or twice.) In general, if all it takes for an American who is obviously already in the outlier group of people who care about civil liberties to be "defeated" is a half hour of (largely unwarranted) stress about a laptop, we are well and truly screwed. I opt-out because it makes the experience just as uncomfortable for the TSA as it is for me, raising awareness, unlike the scan which is only uncomfortable for me. You should too. Nobody is going to steal or damage your laptop, and either way if that's the price you have to pay to maintain little dignity and perform openly visible, public, safe civil disobedience of a horribly unconstitutional policy it's well worth it in my book.
• tzaman 13y ago
  This is the second time in a week I have read about people refusing to go through security scanners, and then complaining about being treated differently. You should really put yourselves into security guards' skins here; What if you were him/her? You'd observe millions of people do the same stuff day in, day out, and out of those million, a small percent would refuse to do what's required of everyone - pass the standard security. If you ask me, I'd be suspicious too. And probably annoyed why there have to be a few of smartasses who can't follow standard procedure. Now, before I hear you complain about privacy, you really need to wake up. If you leave in a city, you're being recorded on pretty much every step, and you still go to the bank, for example, and drive your car. And use Facebook. Or whatever. If you want real privacy, move to Sibiria. Or Zimbabwe. And for those who think these machines are medically dangerous, toss away your phone - long term effects of it's use haven't been proven either. my 2c
  • tomelders 13y ago
    The agents are 'supposed' to be protecting America. Not just the people, but it's ideals as laid out in the constitution and the bill of rights. If someone in that position takes umbrage with someone else exercising their rights, then they are the wrong person for the job. You don't have to like it, just like I don't have to like reading the endless swill of weak minded, shortsighted arguments like the brain numbingly asinine one you've just posited. What you do have, as a citizen of a country that gives it's people rights, is a moral obligation to acknowledge and respect those rights and to ensure they are administerd equally and without prejudice, even if it's hard sometimes. You do not have the right to pick and chose which rights other people can exercise, especially when you are in a position to do just that.
    • larrys 13y ago
      "Not just the people, but it's ideals as laid out in the constitution and the bill of rights." Where are you getting that from? They have a job to do which they were hired to do. At the end of the day they go home, eat dinner and watch TV. Nothing more than that. Why don't you go out and talk to them and see if (other than lip service) they have a clue at all about what you are suggesting they should be protecting.
• hingisundhorsa 13y ago
  Sometimes I feel confused. Are "we" the real terrorists?
  • jacquesm 13y ago
    Maybe google translate can make this palatable for you: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Het_monster_Trotteldrom http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Het_monster_Trotteldrom It answers your questions to some extent. We are definitely complicit.
• shloper 13y ago
  gay
• epsylon 13y ago
  > that their development and procurement was a particularly depressing example of political corruption I'd like to hear more about this.
• reaganite 13y ago
  Just sign up for Global Enrollment (GOES) and you automatically get TSA Pre and don't have to go thru the regular security lines: no Millimeter back scatter scanner, no taking off your shoes or taking your laptop out of your bag. Australia, the Netherlands and Canada have similar programs and at present all recognize each others program enrollees, so it also gets you thru Customs in those countries faster too. https://goes-app.cbp.dhs.gov/main/goes https://goes-app.cbp.dhs.gov/main/goes
  • WimLeers 13y ago
    The main site for this is http://www.globalentry.gov/ http://www.globalentry.gov/. Sadly, it is only available for citizens of the U.S., Mexico and the Netherlands. Canadians can use the NEXUS program, which gives the same benefits. (See http://www.globalentry.gov/faq.html#a2. http://www.globalentry.gov/faq.html#a2.) So this only helps a tiny fraction of people frequently flying to the U.S.
  • Karunamon 13y ago
    Even if you get signed up for TSA Pre, you're not guaranteed to get the benefits of it every time. Lot's of "if"s and "may"s and other weasel-ey language. If TSA determines a passenger is eligible for expedited screening, information is embedded in the barcode of the passenger’s boarding pass. TSA scans the barcode at designated checkpoints and the passenger may be able to receive expedited screening. http://www.tsa.gov/tsa-precheck/tsa-precheck-how-it-works http://www.tsa.gov/tsa-precheck/tsa-precheck-how-it-works
    • gergles 13y ago
      If you sign up through Global Entry and not through the "you've flown enough that the airline likes you" version of the program, you are far more likely to get expedited screening. You can also scan your boarding pass at home and discover whether you're getting expedited or not, so you know how early you have to be at the airport.
  • gergles 13y ago
    The big problem with Global Entry/TSA Precheck is that it requires you fly on a "participating" airline which are all the bumbling legacy behemoths and not any of the airlines (JetBlue, Virgin, Southwest) you might actually want to fly on.
• kghose 13y ago
  Sorry, but I'm going to be the token "sheeple" here. Did you make such a fuss when you had to go through metal detectors? Did you make such a fuss when you were wanded? Did you make a fuss when you were carded (at the bar, or at the airport?) I think we should protest when the TSA is unprofessional and does not monitor their people and they do unprofessional things, (like circulate photos or make fun of people) but protesting the scanners themselves is like going to a hospital and refusing an MRI because hospital staff may act unprofessional and look into your medical records. The scanners are a detection technology. They are the next generation metal detectors as are the "sniffers". At some point people will "hack" them, just like metal detectors are useless now and we will need the next thing, but they are just a technology.
  • coldpie 13y ago
    The people operating the naked scanners are literally ex-pizza-delivery-dudes: http://www.loweringthebar.net/2010/07/tsa-advertising-job-openings-on-top-of-pizza-boxes.html http://www.loweringthebar.net/2010/07/tsa-advertising-job-op... Highly trained professionals, these are not. They're just people working their nine-to-five to get a paycheck. We pass dumb customer support tickets around the office all the time; why shouldn't they pass around hot chick photos, etc?
    • eddieroger 13y ago
      Cops are 9-to-5ers as well. Should we not trust them to do their job and keep us safe? They didn't walk on the job with no training - maybe the ex-pizza dudes got trained as well. Also, comparing security photos and helpdesk tickets is a bad comparison, regardless of the similarities.
      • Ziomislaw 13y ago
        is this why the crime rate in USA is so high? because from 5 to 9 there are no cops?
      • consultant23522 13y ago
        No, you shouldn't. Because the job of police officers is not to keep you safe. In fact it's quite illegal for police officers to keep you safe, because keeping you safe is something that must be done before a crime is committed. Police are there to help clean up after you've been hurt in a crime. They only keep you safe in the very stretched sense of the language by hopefully preventing future undetermined crimes by the same person after they've already harmed you once.
• jaydub 13y ago
  I have to admit that I had an eerily similar experience at Logan Airport around a month ago where I opted out. I was given a very difficult time, the TSA agent repeated multiple times that I should just go through the machine and that I'd be exposed to more radiation on the airplane etc. They kept calling for a "male assist. I waited it out for like 25 minutes and finally the guy came and took me through. But it was such an annoying experience that I'd since given up on it.
• WimLeers 13y ago
  I had the exact same experience at SEA several weeks ago: I waited well over 30 minutes, had to remind the TSA officer numerous times that I was still standing there. He was not bothered one bit that I'd been standing there for so long. Which is rude in and of itself. Then some other TSA officer walked by and started talking to the one in my security line. Just some chit chat. After 5 or so minutes, he started asking why I didn't want to go in the machine. Did I realize this was not an X-ray? Did I realize that this was in fact perfectly healthy? Then, after letting me wait another few minutes, this same TSA officer took me and performed the search ritual, not hurried one bit, doing everything with the greatest pauses, all the while chewing extravagantly on his chewing gum. If that's not unprofessional, then what is?
• bluedino 13y ago
  Isn't being felt up much more of a violation of your rights than going through an x-ray machine? My nutso-girlfriend refuses to go through them because of OMG CANCER, so instead I end up sitting around for a half hour while they manually search her. It's such a pain in the ass.
  • coldpie 13y ago
    I agree. Wouldn't it be nice if every single person opted out, so they became so overloaded with groping that they had to change their policies?
    • moheeb 13y ago
      Wasn't that exactly how it was before? How is that better, or worse?
  • imsofuture 13y ago
    Absolutely it's a violation of my rights to be patted down. I choose that option so that other people may actually see and consider the rights that they're so casually giving up walking through the scanner.
  • Thrymr 13y ago
    Exposing yourself to regular doses of unnecessary x-rays is probably not a great idea. The human [ed.: backscatter] x-ray machines are mostly phased out already, though. Millimeter wave (the most common scanners now) is non-ionizing radiation and does not have any known association with an increased risk of cancer.
  • consultant23522 13y ago
    Not that anyone wants pictures of me... but having someone take nude pictures of me without my permission and spreading them around to whomever they want without my knowledge is more of a violation of my privacy than to have a yahoo briefly invade my physical space in a controlled environment. At least, that's the way I feel about it.
• ozh 13y ago
  As one says: "USA is the country of Liberty. They put a statue where it has been buried!"
  • brightsize 13y ago
    Do you remember how right after 9/11 GW Bush said, to paraphrase, "they hate our freedoms". "They" being terrorists I suppose, though I think the popular interpretation was "Muslims". We're giving "them" less to hate with every passing year.
• ssalbiz 13y ago
  I've been allowed to keep my belongings with me when I opt-out in the past. This has helped alleviate the stress of opting out considerably.
• eagsalazar2 13y ago
  "I won't be opting out again"? What? Give me a break. I fly weekly for work so I know the routine. 99% of the time the TSA agents are perfectly happy to do the pat down. I have had a few that have given me a hard time but then I've also had others come and apologize and emphasize that it is my right to opt-out. Keep opting out and next time someone gives you a hard time calmly ask for (1) a manager and (2) a comment card. They have both and they are eager not to have you make an official record that there has been a problem. An agent should never express their political opinion to you or try to influence your decision to opt out. Instantly when one of them does this you should ask for a manager and a comment card and refuse to talk to him anymore. ALSO (jeez) don't send your stuff through until you go through! I have been told this repeatedly so most agents actually know this already but even the ones that won't prompt you to do it won't prevent it either. Anyway, man don't give up so easily.
  • coldpie 13y ago
    I agree with you, though the longest wait I've had was about 15 minutes. My girlfriend has had about the same length, since they didn't have any women clowns at that station and had to call one from another station. The TSA clowns aren't there to make your life hell, they're there to do their useless jobs. Like any other position, sometimes the employees are bad at their jobs. I am confused about this, though: > ALSO (jeez) don't send your stuff through until you go through! I have been told this repeatedly so most agents actually know this already but even the ones that won't prompt you to do it won't prevent it either. I always wait in the line, send my stuff through, and then tell the clown next to the scanner that I'm opting out. Do you approach the clown first, carrying all your stuff? When do you put your stuff through the scanner (i.e. how do you "cut" into the line)?
    • eagsalazar2 13y ago
      Yeah just tell the agent when you first walk up then hold your stuff aside as needed. Mostly they totally get it but once I had a guy tell me to send it through. I told him no way because I always travel with an instrument and he backed down so I guess my situation is a little different. Honestly I've never been made to wait more than 5 minutes and in the last couple years I've probably been on 100 flights but I have had asshats try and tell me that I'm wrong for wanting to opt out. I ask that person for the manager and the comment card every time and I've been profusely apologized to by the manager every time.
• rayiner 13y ago
  I just don't get the deal with the millimeter wave scanners. Did everyone raise a fuss like this when airports had you walk through metal detectors? How is a millimeter wave scanner different than a high-tech metal detector? Aren't we always talking about how the law needs to "catch up to technology?" Don't get me wrong, I think the TSA is a huge waste of money and I hate being ordered around by flunkies who can't get any other job every time I go to the airport. But I don't see anyone raise a fuss when you have to walk through a metal detector to get into the local Barnes and Noble...
  • flexie 13y ago
    They have to walk through metal detectors to buy books? I thought it was only for dangerous places like schools and offices. I can't think of anywhere in Europe we have those except for American embassies, a few courthouses, some government buildings and airports. Anyone knows when this started in the US and when it got so widespread?
    • Ziomislaw 13y ago
      This might have something to do with USA weapons law.
    • jplewicke 13y ago
      They're not metal detectors -- they're RFID scanners that sound an alarm if someone tries to steal something. A lot of products have an RFID chip attached that must be deactivated at the checkout. It's for reducing shoplifting, not for public safety.
    • mkenyon 13y ago
      I have let to see a local business in the US use a metal detector. Most will use shoplifting-detection gates at the exits. An "empty your pockets and purse" metal detector is terrible for business.
      • superuser2 13y ago
        Most local businesses don't, but high-value targets like government office buildings, financial markets, museums (especially Jewish history and Holocaust memorial museums), and iconic monuments all tend to.
• eloisius 13y ago
  You probably put to much stock in the whole "I've never been through the imaging machines" bit. It's not about remaining opt-out puritan or something. Fight when you can. I hope op reads this, buried in all the other comments. Please, for the sake of everyone, dust yourself off and opt out again. It doesn't matter if you do it every time. I opt out every time I can, but there have been plenty of times when I don't. There's been times when I didn't have time to catch my flight, or my stress levels were bordering on unmanageable, or I didn't want to miss that wedding at any cost. One time, I felt like I had to pee too bad to risk waiting for a screening. So kick off your shoes, empty your pockets, and take the freedom stance on the mat of defiance. Hold your arms out with pride and hope that someone on the other side of the security barrier sees you and decides to opt out as well.
  • deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    • eloisius 13y ago
      Some fights are worth fighting if only to retain your dignity. I won't volunteer my rights; if they want them they will have to take them by force (i.e., the threat of not being allowed to travel). I won't do them the favor of ignoring the gun in the room.
      • cavilling_elite 13y ago
        Agreed, I opt-out every time I can. This gives me a chance to talk to the TSA agent. This puts human faces on the, typically, blurry screen of human mass. When they ask why I opt-out, I explain about the numerous times I have filled out the comment cards mentioning the real danger of cataracts because you don't tell people to close their eyes. Explain that my engineering background fully understands both the x-ray and mm-wave technology. I explain that even the weak, yet not disclosed, powers of mm-wave back scatter can, over time, cause damage to your eyes. This gives them something to think about, that isn't the typical "freedom" complaint they hear. I hope, one day, to overhear a TSA agent tell people to close their eyes. First, the threat to your eyes is real. But, my underline reason is by making people close their eyes it will give a sense of vulnerability that the current systems don't have. I am hoping, one day, that this is the tipping point needed for more people to opt-out. An engineer can dream.
• sealless 13y ago
  My wish for you is that this is the worst thing that ever happens to you. And that you move on.
• rdl 13y ago
  I opt out mostly to make it as difficult for the screener as possible, not because I think it's particularly less of a violation of my privacy to get my nuts felt up vs. irradiated with low power mm wave. (if there were a "you can have a copy of your own scan" machine, I'd probably voluntarily go through mm wave for fun). If people opt out, it 1) ties up a TSA agent 2) makes a TSA agent do something moderately unpleasant 3) serves as an example for others in the screening line 4) makes me feel like I'm doing something. OTOH I mostly just don't fly unless it's >800 miles. I've always had the TSA people screening me be unfailingly polite, if a bit incompetent (not running me through the magnetometer if they're doing a hand screening actually lowers overall security vs. weapons; it wouldn't be terribly difficult to get a disassembled handgun through the hand screening.) I used to work on military bases with a much more invasive screening (for vehicles; I was exempt personally but my vehicle wasn't). There, there was mostly a legitimate threat (although the biggest screening was in Kuwait, which had ~no risk; it was just a way to keep their combat zone pay. In Iraq, they just asked me to unload my weapon before walking on base, and in 2003/2004, just being white was enough to get on base, no ID needed.)
  • einhverfr 13y ago
    > I've always had the TSA people screening me be unfailingly polite, if a bit incompetent (not running me through the magnetometer if they're doing a hand screening actually lowers overall security vs. weapons; it wouldn't be terribly difficult to get a disassembled handgun through the hand screening.) I have been arguing this for a long time. The removal of magnetometers is a very bad thing security-wise. I am not opposed to the use of bodyscanners where there is reasonable suspicion, but the idea that we virtually strip search everyone and omit the magentometers is just asking for trouble.
  • peeters 13y ago
    > If people opt out, it 1) ties up a TSA agent Isn't this something that doesn't scale then? Author of this post is complaining of being "defeated" because no agent came to give him his pat down. What if it just so happens that a few people had opted out in a short window, and so their pat down guy was tied up? The more people follow this example on a given day, the longer your wait for the pat down will be.
• csomar 13y ago
  These articles made me think that travelling (overall) and security checks are unpleasant. The first time I travelled was to Doha through Istanbul. I was amazed at how comfortable the security checks are, and how friendly the security stuff were there. It really frightens me to hear the experience in the US borders is quite different.
• raheemm 13y ago
  Shit will really hit the fan when we have a President or some authority figure who will use all this massive surveillance power to run McCarthyistic campaigns against people. Heck, already NSA employees are spying on their former lovers. The author is correct, this is how freedom and rights are lost, slowly and bit by bit.
• Tichy 13y ago
  Really overly dramatic. Just because they are nice enough to say "use of the machine is optional", you are not losing your rights if eventually you have to pass through. What if they had never put that option on display to begin with. Would you then have decided to never fly again? Are airport checks in general a violation of our rights? I don't know what measures are effective - apparently a lot of procedures at the airport are not effective. But in general I would say if safe flights require procedure X, it is not a violation of our rights if airports require procedure X. Just because the government erred in one direction (too much intrusion and security checks), doesn't mean that to oppose it we should demand the complete absence of security checks.
• teresascientist 13y ago
  I am a female American. When I traveled through Seattle airport a while ago, I saw that every single person was getting selected to the mm wave scanner. I told the security guard I wanted to opt out...A few minutes later, a large male TSA agent came over for the sole purpose of yelling at me (it was loud!) that I opted out before I had been selected to go through the scan. This continued 5 minutes before my pat down. Thanks, America... Like other people point out, yes it's better here than other places. I am grateful I don't live in Egypt. But, it upsets me to no end how quickly we throw away our constitutional rights or cease to care about corruption and ineffectiveness of mm wave scanners.
• kleiba 13y ago
  They're much further in Australia: If you are departing Melbourne on an international flight from Monday 10 December, you may be randomly selected for a body scan. If you are selected to be screened by a body scanner and you refuse you will NOT be allowed to pass through the screening point for 24 hours. This will mean that you are unable to board your flight. http://melbourneairport.com.au/Flight-Passenger-Info/preparing-to-fly/security-information/body-scanners.html http://melbourneairport.com.au/Flight-Passenger-Info/prepari...
• adultSwim 13y ago
  The ending is a bit hyperbolic.
• speedyrev 13y ago
  What happens if someone steals your laptop from the table at the end of the conveyor? Does TSA have any liability since the laptop was taken from your possession by them?
  • pekru 13y ago
    So, they do not have a token system at all? Almost every other airport has a simple tokened system where one gets a token for their belongings, goes through the checks, reaches the other end and hands the token back and collects their belongings. Such a simple thing. Seen it in Changi (Singapore) and KL. The TSA dudes never thought simple thing?
    • takluyver 13y ago
      I've not seen that at any UK or US airport I've been through. Stuff just goes through on a conveyor belt, and sits at the end for the passengers to pick up. It's struck me how easy it would be for someone to swipe a phone or wallet while it's sitting there, though I've never seen that happen.
• magikbum 13y ago
  Can people stop complaining? Every other day the front page is covered with posts on people "giving up" and "this not being the American they love." Since all of these intrusive efforts have started how many attacks have happened?
  • gergles 13y ago
    Since I bought this rock, 0 tigers have attacked me in my apartment!
• utunga 13y ago
  I'm that person too I always make sure i have time to opt out and sometimes it gets annoying. The last time, the TSA person seemed friendly and chatty enough and I remarked towards the end that, "you know why I'm doing this right? I'm doing this for you". He may have been humoring me only but I think not, he seemed to genuinely appreciate my point and almost be grateful. It is very true that amongst the many things I dislike about those machines the actually technically unsafe exposures that the TSA employees are being exposed to is one thing I really dislike about them. I feel like by maintaining the protest we increase the chance that they may one day turf the things. So I hope the author of this piece takes heart. Sure, sometimes you get an ungrateful piece of mould for a guard, and they win. But sometimes you get someone who appreciates the bigger picture, and that maybe this is helping them out. So stick with it. I will if you will.
  • 3JPLW 13y ago
    I still cannot believe that TSA personnel don't wear radiation dosimeter badges. It's absolutely absurd. In any other setting, OSHA/CDC would be going crazy. From 2010: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-12-06-tsa-xray-inside_N.htm http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-12-06-tsa...
• pekru 13y ago
  The worst would be for non-US citizens. My cousin got back to the US after a vacation and she had two of her kids accompanying her. She was asked to go through the scanners and though she protested, she was asked to 'follow the rule'. And thus she complied and the entire bunch went through the scanners only to find some fat slob at the monitor leering at her 12 yr old daughter. She was crying over the phone saying she wanted to get out as soon as possible from that hopeless place.
• aneth5 13y ago
  I was once a great fighter for freedom, democracy, and civil liberties. I battled the system long and hard. Then one day out of a hundred similar travel days, I had to wait 30 minutes for a TSA pat down, probably because a single TSA manager was not following procedure. I realize some great freedom fighters would at least file an official complaint, but I also realized that if one manager one time can make me wait 30 minutes, the terrorists have already won. I surrendered my principles to the police state. If I had known how hard this fight would be, that a mere mortal man as me would have to wait 30 minutes for a pat down, might even have to miss a flight or submit to a scan and then file a complaint, I never would have become such a great freedom fighter. Fortunately, my ignorance of such trials allowed me to boldly enter the resistance, even if my warrior days were cut short and I failed to fight past 30 minutes of standing on a mat. 30 minutes - what man could be expected to endure this in the name of human liberty?
• tpainton 13y ago
  Its interesting that there are > 200 comments on how easy it is to run snd not one on stopping the bastards who threw you into fear and retreat. You are _soundly_ defeated. Im not being forced from my homeland by a despot government or a coward with a bomb. Sorry.
• orblivion 13y ago
  I've been through once, because they found some substance on my person and wouldn't let me on my flight otherwise (though they were very polite in my instance). I opted out before that and still have since. They wore you out, just keep wearing them out. Call the ACLU since they made you wait that long. Continue to opt out. You lost your "never been through the machine" badge. That sucked for me too, well, let's get over it. (At least it wasn't a backscatter, right?) This is really about raising awareness, as it were, right? Having lost one time doesn't really change that. By that measure we already "lose" millions of times because everybody else goes through those machines.
• aneth5 13y ago
  A population that believes this strongly in liberties then surrenders after a single 30 minute inconvenience is a greater danger to liberty than the TSA. Seriously, you have shown you are willing to make zero sacrifice in fighting for your rights. You don't believe in anything. This is the problem with armchair libertarians. You sound tough them surrender at the first sign of difficulty. This does more harm than good.
• jpalioto 13y ago
  I had the same experience at LAX recently. It seems they are doing this on purpose to inconvenience people who opt out. When they ask me about the machine and why I don't want to go through, I simply tell them that I worked at a company that made machines like that (true) and I don't want to go through.
• eeeeaaii 13y ago
  I ask them to guard my laptop, which they usually do since I suppose they will get in trouble if it's stolen. Actually maybe the fact that I'm asking them to watch over my laptop expedites the actual patdown, because I never have to wait long.
• robomartin 13y ago
  > I give up. The terrorists have won. I'm sad and I'm angry, but the perpetual wearing-down works. I won't be opting out again. Time for "Freedom Flights"? The airport is one place I can think of where you are presumed guilty and have to prove your innocence through unreasonably search as well as seizure (I've had a couple of nice Swiss Army knives confiscated simply because I forgot them in my laptop bag). Perhaps it is time to start organizing "Freedom Flights" between major cities. By this I mean that a sizable group of people book seats in a flight, say, from SFO to LAX, and every single member of the group would absolutely refuse to be searched or touched by TSA. Every single person would be armed (yes, I said armed) with a piece of paper containing language developed by volunteer attorneys. Something in this vein: "My constitutional rights state that you cannot touch or search me and detaining me without cause is unlawful. Please get out of my way." The idea would be to make a point. Nobody should expect to get on a flight, at least not before a few tries. Conventional and social media channels would be alerted in order to get coverage. I can't think of a better way to raise awareness and make a point. We are being treated like criminals, all of us. This has to stop. Enough is enough.
• laureny 13y ago
  > I give up. The terrorists have won. Or maybe you could recognize that flying is a privilege, not a right, and that you have other options if you want to make a stand in your beliefs, such as picking a different airline, going to your destination by some other means or, you know, not traveling. These entitled smug conspiracy theorists who act like prima donnas irritate me. "The terrorists have won" because you had to go through a machine? I think it's time for the OP to step back, take a hard look at their life and wonder if they have their priorities straight. There are much more interesting and worthy things to worry about.
  • danielweber 13y ago
    "Picking a different airline" isn't really a solution. The screening happens regardless of which airline you are on. I think it should be a solution -- given both 1) cockpit doors are now secured, and 2) passengers won't let hijackers take over a flight, the risk of any in-flight incidents is borne by the passengers, and if an airline wants to compete on less invasive scanning, they should be able to do that.
  • ilyanep 13y ago
    Comments like yours make my blood boil. > flying is a privilege, not a right Is taking a train a privilege, not a right? Driving? A bus? Would you be okay with TSA-like screening procedures before any such sort of transportation? What makes flying so special? People have bombed trains, cars, busses, etc before too. > "The terrorists have won" because you had to go through a machine? I think it's time for the OP to step back, take a hard look at their life and wonder if they have their priorities straight. Maybe because our government has taught the citizenry that it's okay to be pre-emptively searched on planes, or stopped and frisked (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_stop-and-frisk_program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_stop-and-frisk_pr...), or other such things. Meanwhile, the rent-a-cops operating these machines are basically given free reign to do whatever power tripping they want, because one wrong move can have you finding yourself detained for a while.
    • laureny 13y ago
      > Is taking a train a privilege, not a right? Driving? A bus? Yes to all. If you're not quite sure how to determine if something is a privilege, just see if it's mentioned in the Constitution. For example, the "pursuit of happiness" is a US right. Driving a car is not (you need to get a license and that license can be revoked). Just because you grew up with such conveniences doesn't make them a privilege, although they have the effect of giving a sense of entitlement to people who've lost sight of what's important.
• jdavid 13y ago
  To be free, you must first act free.
• burmask 13y ago
  Just say you had shoulder surgery and cannot lift your arm(s) and they'll move away from the magnetometer and let you through.
• mchanson 13y ago
  Hey buddy, I opt out too all the time. It once did not work out for me also. Don't worry about be a hypocrite or being an absolutist. You are still sending a message and slowing the stupid operation down by opting out 99% of the time. Chin up! Live to opt out next time. BTW I quite enjoy the passive aggressive questions. If they ask if I know the machine is safe I always agree with them that the machine is safe. They find that amusing in SFO and annoying in BOS. I don't fly through LAX so they might be more annoying there. I find that most of the time the TSA people, if you treat them with a bit of a sense of humor, are usually pretty nice about the whole opt out thing (though they do do the passive agressive stuff). However I'm white middle aged guy with a wedding ring. So perhaps I get, by far, the easiest side of TSA 'attitude'.
• tippytop 13y ago
  I noticed on my last trip that the TSA, at all airports involved, were more pushy this time about herding me through the machines, using similar words. I guess there was a new policy memo sent out.
• squozzer 13y ago
  Political defiance is not a blitzkrieg -- if it were everyone would do it. A loss does not dictate surrender. I'm still pretty new at the political defiance game, but reading a few PDFs at aeinstein.org has opened my eyes a little - thanks to an earlier post I read on HN. Myself, I avoid air travel whenever possible. The highways have not yet been transformed into a maze of checkpoints.
• Simple1234 13y ago
  I took a flight once and I carried on my coin collection. All that metal set off a red flag so they took me to a private room to examine my collection. The TSA was generally polite, but at one point while shuffling my collection around the table a coin fell on the floor. My favorite coin. It was a commemorative coin for Operation Enduring Freedom that my cousin gave me. Other than pictures, it's the only thing I have left to remember him by. As I picked the coin up from the floor, with newly minted scratches no doubt, I couldn't help but think of the symbolism.
• lowglow 13y ago
  I will continue to opt out. Not a fan of the new machines.
• ignostic 13y ago
  I find it odd that a community like HN is reasonable, calm, and science-based on all but a few issues, like the TSA. The problem is not the body scanners. The problem is the TSA and the disregard of the bill of rights. Health claims: Passive mm-wave scanners do not produce radiation. The active mm-wave scanners use non-ionizing radiation which has been studied and shown not to cause cancer. One study even suggested it might reduce metastasis: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bem.20208/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bem.20208/abstrac... You'll pick up far more radiation on the flight itself at a fairly low 5 mrem (50 µSv). Even that would only be a significant factor if you're part of the flight crew. http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/commercialflights.html http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/commercialflights.... http://xkcd.com/radiation/ http://xkcd.com/radiation/ It's true that the machine itself hasn't been studied much, but the type of radiation it emits has been studied extensively. Barring any novel delivery system, that's enough. By analogy, you don't need to study the health effects of every single x-ray machine because we know what x-rays do. You just need to know the machine's dosage and wavelength. The lack of health concern is more than a stab in the dark. Invasion of privacy: Yes, the scans are absolutely an invasion of privacy. So is submitting to a pat-down. The problem isn't the scanner - it's the bureaucratic nonsense that makes the security state and the TSA possible. I believe a business should have the right to search you before coming on board if they want to and you agree, but they shouldn't HAVE TO. Flyers should have an option between airlines that use the security measures the market determines people actually want. Specifically, the "naked body" invasion: It does us harm to spout misinformation in our quest for privacy and freedom. The machines no longer store or display images of your body - they store and display images of a generic body with the data received from you. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/01/tsa-abandons-nude-scanners/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/01/tsa-abandons-nude-s... (the initial announcement) http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/tsa-completely-removed-full-body-scanners-rep-article-1.1360143 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/tsa-completely-remo... I dislike the TSA and government paternalism more than almost anyone, but we're getting caught up spreading misinformation and nonsense when we should be thinking about how to get our personal freedom back.
  • epoxyhockey 13y ago
    Your first points should really be addressing active Terahertz radiation and its effects on living things. Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terahertz_radiation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terahertz_radiation The summary is that we don't know enough about terahertz radiation to draw any solid conclusions yet, and there is at least one reputable source pondering, "How Terahertz Waves Tear Apart DNA": http://www.technologyreview.com/view/416066/how-terahertz-waves-tear-apart-dna/ http://www.technologyreview.com/view/416066/how-terahertz-wa... Do you know how much power is emitted by the terahertz-wave scanner as two antennas are swept across your mid-section in close proximity? Here are some responses to your other points about mm-wave: Passive mm-wave scanners do not produce radiation Passive mm-wave scanners are not used in airports and not relevant to this discussion. You'll pick up far more radiation on the flight itself at a fairly low 5 mrem (50 µSv) Also, irrelevant as the xray body scanners have largely been removed from US airports due to their safety concerns. The EU has also banned the use of those scanners. The study that you cite is for radiation applied to the entire body mass, while the xray body scanners applied all of the ionizing radiation only to the outer layer of the body (skin + some bones + male reproductive organs + brain).
• bengrunfeld 13y ago
  Oren is right. Our rights are being taken away one at a time. As an immigrant to America, I can see how the idea of "Freedom" has been so ingrained into the culture that most people simply refuse to believe that the government is taking it away from them. "But we are the Free Country!", they all yell. While this may have been a free country in the past, and may still carry the echoes of freedom, those echoes are fading quickly.
• jonnathanson 13y ago
  There's a bigger point at play here, which is this: in modern American society, the real enemy of democracy isn't apathy, per se. It's convenience. TSA lines are already a ridiculous inconvenience, and the prospect of additional stress -- or worse, of missing a flight -- just ads to fuel to the fire. So, faced with the choice between, say, a 30 minute line or a 45-60 minute line, most travelers will just say "fuck it" and submit to the scans. It's not always practical to opt out, especially in extremely busy airports on extremely busy days. Nor, would I submit, is opting out a scalable solution. We're never going to convince n = enough people to opt out en masse, such that we'll make any real difference. Instead, the solution is organization. It's protest. It's petitioning. Generally speaking, it's making a national stink of this issue. Not enough of an outcry has been rallied, by not enough people, and not at sufficient volume.
• rfatnabayeff 13y ago
  Eventually they might probably encounter a person, a "troll-terrorist", who's demands would be not money, drugs or "release of brethren from prisons", but "introduction of even stricter TSA procedures". The authorities would be in a loose-loose situation, because if they tighten the measures, that would be the fulfillment of terrorist's demands, while if they won't that would be the ignorance of the terrorist threat. ))
• magic5227 13y ago
  This works both ways, opt out as much as you can, hold up the process and force the TSA to come up with something better.
• siculars 13y ago
  I always opt-out. And I often exchange some words with the agent. When they ask if I would like to do this in private I say no thanks, I like the public knowing that their tax dollars are at work. The officers usually chuckle and agree. Most of them don't like doing the pat down. One once went on about the lack of union benefits. It's often an interesting experience.
• ohazi 13y ago
  I wrote this last night as a way to vent some of my frustration and was really floored by the responses I received in the morning. These solo protests are small battles, and It's easy to get discouraged when the victories feel so insignificant. But as many people pointed out, the losses can also be small (especially when compared to some of the truly horrifying TSA stories we come across every now and then). For me at least, being tired and stressed can really add to the feeling of hopelessness and defeat, but a few words of encouragement from strangers can be immensely empowering. I can't say for certain that I'll be up for another small battle next time, but I'll certainly consider it. To all who added to the discussion or offered support, your words have not fallen upon deaf ears. Thank you.
• karmel 13y ago
  If you need some motivation, consider: originally, I opted out for the same privacy concerns you cite. However, in the last couple of years, I have started wearing a medical device that has not been rated to pass through the backscatter machines. So now I opt-out because of both choice and necessity. If all the good people choosing to opt-out stop doing so, it will be an even bigger headache every time someone with a medical device is forced to opt-out-- there will be no staff assigned to the screens, no stable protocol, etc. So opt out! If not for your sake or the sake of American values, for the sake of those of us with chronic diseases that don't play nicely with imaging machines!
• DjangoReinhardt 13y ago
  Non-American here. Can someone point me to what exactly happens if you opt-out of these screenings? What happens on this 'opt-out floor-mat of shame'? I'm asking out of pure curiosity and prefer not to search those keywords and get added to some list and have an eye-in-the-sky suddenly trained on me. It is completely understandable if you choose not to answer this question. Thanks for reading, though. :)
  • cheald 13y ago
    You get pulled aside while the agent manning the scanner yells for a "male/female assist" (depending on your sex). It takes somewhere between 30 seconds and 30 minutes for them to find someone to grope you. You're then taken around the scanner, asked to identify (but not touch) your luggage. They pick up your luggage, lead you over to a screening area (which is in public view; they give you the option of a private patdown. I always elect for the public one, as I want people to see and question what's going on), explain their procedure, have you pose as though you're being crucified, and give you a very thorough groping which includes putting their fingers into your waistband and feeling your junk and buttocks with the backs of their hands. They then swab your luggage and their gloves (with which they have just groped you) and put it in an explosives detector. If the machine doesn't find anything, you're free to go. If it does, you're pulled into a small room and given an even more thorough search. The last time I flew out of LGA, I was subjected to this secondary search; the agent said it was probably alerting on the sunscreen I'd put on the day before. The second search came up clean, but I was extremely amused to find that the room they searched me in was the room in which they kept their 5-gallon buckets of confiscated cigarette lighters. I was left alone in this room - with my luggage, past the security checkpoint - while the agent ran his second explosives test. I didn't do anything untoward, but man, if I was a bad guy it would have been trivial to stuff my bags with a bunch of containers holding flammable liquids. I don't get hassled all that much when I opt out, but I'm also extremely white. I imagine that would be very different if I were brown and/or had a foreign accent.
    • DjangoReinhardt 13y ago
      As I was reading your reply, I kept thinking, "Well, this sounds pretty standard..." until I reached the part where you said: > give you a very thorough groping which includes putting their fingers into your waistband and feeling your junk and buttocks with the backs of their hands > fingers into your waistband and feeling your junk and buttocks > feeling your junk and buttocks Wat? Are they expecting that the bad guys will walk in with explosives stuffed up their private parts and extract them out later for their intended purpose? Also, honest question: why would anyone want to go through this? I mean, given the option, I'd probably opt to walk through the scanner than let someone handle my junk. (I felt extremely uncomfortable just saying that.) Surely the scanners cannot be more invasive than THIS? Or am I reading the whole thing wrong? Is the rejection of scanners not because of privacy issues but because of health issues? So many questions... I kept reading and a few lines later, you said: > ...given an even more thorough search. I can't even begin to imagine what an 'even more thorough search' would be/look/feel like. The closest word I can think of is 'rape' but surely it can't be THAT bad, can it? Where I am from, we do have pat-down searches at private places like malls, but the public places are largely ignored, surprisingly. Even the pat-down searches at the private places are more customary than anything else. Then again, our record at homeland security isn't all that great, as witnessed by recent events. In comparison, your track record since 9/11 seems to have considerably improved, though how much of it should be attributed to all of this is another question entirely. As a white male living in the US of A, I think I understand your outrage. If this were to happen to me, in my country, I'd probably be up in arms, and so would the rest of the country. However, as a brown male, living outside of the US of A, and having never been to your country so far, I wouldn't know what it truly feels like, so I might just be talking out of (pardon my french) ass here. I'm just too confused, surprised and horrified at the moment to fathom the weirdness of it all. Thanks for your detailed reply, though. I hope the situation resolves into something amicable for both parties - you and the authorities. PS: As a brown male who has never been to your country but who would like to visit some day, your comments have unsettled me somewhat. I like to keep a lush beard and I have long hair. Sure, I'm an atheist, but does that even count?
• greendata 13y ago
  This disheartens me but thank you for your effort. We know the TSA is already on buses and trains. I think more and more areas are going to be deemed "4th amendment free" zones (schools, airports, football games, buses, trains, 100 miles within a border, cars and the internet to some degree). If we can get even 10% of the people to opt out and waste their time the system will begin to collapse. Keep fighting, keeping being a pain. They can't do a pat down on 10% of the passengers.
• pattle 13y ago
  You should have just used the machine
• 59nadir 13y ago
  "The terrorists have won.". This line always strikes me as kind of missing the point. Terrorists aren't the one infringing on your privacy and dismantling your rights.