5 ms·

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

by 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.
  - coldpie 13y ago
    No, you shouldn't. Cops are not there to "keep you safe." They are there to enforce the law. Never talk to cops without a lawyer. This lecture, by a law professor and former defense attorney, explains why <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc>
gergles 13y ago
The scanners are already worthless. They can be defeated by being overweight and putting $dangerousitem under a fat fold, or between your butt, or any of a million other places. They are actually less secure than magnetometers, which is my primary objection to them. They take longer, are more invasive, and are less effective. Why would I support that when the magnetometers exist and work well?
raldi 13y ago
Metal detectors, wanding, and carding actually accomplish the purposes they were each created for -- not perfectly, but to a large degree. The body scanners, however, are a boondoggle.
Zak 13y ago
I do find many applications of metal detectors and places where I'm required to show ID objectionable. While relatively minor, I do consider such things unnecessary intrusions in to personal liberty, and I would rather live in the sort of society where they are rare. Instead, they've become more common. I am willing to accept an increased risk that a criminal might bring a weapon in to a sensitive place or that a teenager might get drunk and hit me with a car in exchange for an increased sense of freedom, even if the actual freedoms involved are fairly trivial. Leaving slippery-slope arguments out of it, I think that the collective mindset of a culture that accepts these risks and spends less time and energy worrying about them encourages more people to strive to reach their full potential.

by kghose 13y ago

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.
- coldpie 13y ago
  No, you shouldn't. Cops are not there to "keep you safe." They are there to enforce the law. Never talk to cops without a lawyer. This lecture, by a law professor and former defense attorney, explains why <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc>

gergles 13y ago

The scanners are already worthless. They can be defeated by being overweight and putting $dangerousitem under a fat fold, or between your butt, or any of a million other places. They are actually less secure than magnetometers, which is my primary objection to them. They take longer, are more invasive, and are less effective. Why would I support that when the magnetometers exist and work well?

raldi 13y ago

Metal detectors, wanding, and carding actually accomplish the purposes they were each created for -- not perfectly, but to a large degree. The body scanners, however, are a boondoggle.

Zak 13y ago

I do find many applications of metal detectors and places where I'm required to show ID objectionable. While relatively minor, I do consider such things unnecessary intrusions in to personal liberty, and I would rather live in the sort of society where they are rare. Instead, they've become more common. I am willing to accept an increased risk that a criminal might bring a weapon in to a sensitive place or that a teenager might get drunk and hit me with a car in exchange for an increased sense of freedom, even if the actual freedoms involved are fairly trivial. Leaving slippery-slope arguments out of it, I think that the collective mindset of a culture that accepts these risks and spends less time and energy worrying about them encourages more people to strive to reach their full potential.