Originally Posted by
flitcraft
What I find unbelievable is that the AIT cannot cope with assessing threats without first assigning a 'body type.' This is bizarre to me, since it's obvious that some females have practically no breast tissue that the 'template' must be expecting, whereas some males are far better endowed in the chest department than many females. Is there a special template for 'man-boobs' for chestier males?
People come in all sizes, shapes, and amplitudes. A machine that cannot cope with the differential 'naughty bits' is so primitive that I cannot believe it could possibly cope with all the other variations in the human shape. Hence my skepticism that it can possibly contribute to meaningful security.
This.
The WTMD detects the presence of metal; so did the (discarded) HHMD. The ETD (ideally) detects the presence of chemicals related to explosives; so did the (discarded) puffers.
But TSA - in their wisdom - decrees that the primary means of screening a passenger's body is based on "body shape detection." And that the detected body shape is compared (visually by the backroom boys, or automatically by a computer) to a "reference body shape", where anything that is different must be "wrong."
This machine also requires the passenger to (1) stand for (2) some period of time with (3) their hands over their heads.
And we asked, here on FT to (self-identified) TSA employees, and on Bloggy Bob's Big Page o' Lies, and in newspaper comment sections:
1. What will TSA do about people who can't stand at all?
2. What will TSA do about people who can't stand for the required period of time?
3. What will TSA do about people who can't raise their arms?
4. What will TSA do about people whose body shape is "non-reference" - not just those whose gender is not apparent, but also those who are extremely tall, extremely short, very obese, people with prostheses or insulin pumps or ostomy bags or a simple sanitary pad?
None of these issues arise with scanning for metal or testing for explosive residue.
All of these should have been considered by TSA before introducing the NoS, with very clear answers for passengers and TSA screeners alike as to how to address them (Or, better, decide not to introduce the NoS because these issues cannot be handled appropriately. @:-) )
Instead, TSA tells passengers: "Trust us, we have a Procedure for dealing with that, although we can't tell you what it is; SSI, you know."
And they (seem to) tell the screeners: "Just make something up."
We've seen this with the discussion over how medical "opt outs" are handled; there are wildly different experiences from airport to airport. We've seen it with the screening of wheelchair passengers, and people with ostomy bags. This event is just one more example of TSA making it up as they go along. All of this was foreseeable.