5 ms·
A few reasons: - They actively image your naked body. Metal detectors do not. - They record said image of our naked body for an indefinite amount of time. Met
by potatolicious 13y ago
A few reasons:
- They actively image your naked body. Metal detectors do not.
- They record said image of our naked body for an indefinite amount of time. Metal detectors do not.
- A human views the image of your naked body, and makes a subjective assessment of whether or not something suspicious has been detected, based on a wide range of parameters. A metal detector is a simple on/off detection based on an extremely narrow range of parameters.
In short, they are invasive because a human is involved. Let's not forget the cases (now rarer) of TSA agents guffawing at each others' penis sizes, or deliberately checking out women in the scanner, etc. My objections against the scanners would be greatly nullified if:
- All decision making is made via computer. No human ever sees the image.
- All images are immediately discarded. No record of the scan exists except the result.
- The parameters of detection are open and transparent.
The invasiveness of the scan has less to do with the scan and more to do with the tremendous opportunity for abuse it represents - both at the low level (individual TSA agents) and high level (as a matter of policy).
- xxpor 13y agoThis whole rant hasn't been true for over a year. All it shows now is a generic block body, with an indication of an area to check if the COMPUTER decides it needs to be checked. For the majority of people, it doesn't even show the body. It just flashes "OK" on the screen.
- danielweber 13y agoI managed to completely avoid flying for the whole time when rapiscan scanners were around, despite flying a relatively commonly before that. And I heard many horror stories from people during that time, even people who didn't think the TSA was so bad. I've been flying more in the past few months, and the TSA has always been courteous and professional in those instances. I don't know if something changed or it's all luck of the draw, but things seem much better these days.
- B-Con 13y agoThat only addresses the active display. What about storage? Do we have any official confirmation on that?
- xxpor 13y agoThat's kind of a moot point, isn't it? Even if they do store it, it's literally just a picture of a generic drawing of a human.
- B-Con 13y agoNo, I'm talking about the original hi-res image. (More detailed write-up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6279027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6279027)
- arnarbi 13y agoAs backed up by xxpor, I don't think this is true. But mainly, I don't see the tremendous opportunity for abuse, unless you are some sort of celebrity whose blurry nude pictures are valuable.
- epoxyhockey 13y agoI don't see the tremendous opportunity for abuse The TSA says that there is no human in the loop and that they are no longer storing images. I don't know how much trust and credibility they have left these days (esp. after claiming xray scanners were perfectly safe to use).
- JabavuAdams 13y agoAn undesirable side-effect of discarding the images is that there's no paper trail. This has been a problem for electronic voting machines. Imagine you wanted to fight a decision later in court ... assuming that's possible ...
- arnarbi 13y agoThe only decision you might want to fight is not being let on the plane, and this will only happen after a physical search, or you refusing to subject to one. In either case, the scanner data seems irrelevant.