Scanner firms Insiders to Lobby for Them
Jan 12, 2011, 9:23 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 855
Scanner firms Insiders to Lobby for Them
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...T2010122400352
Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a watchdog group, predicts a similar fate for full-body scanners. "At the end of the day, a lot of taxpayer money will have been wasted on the body-scanner technology because of the disproportionate role of lobbyists in the policymaking process," he said.
Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the industry has been particularly clever in staging demonstrations of its gee-whiz technology for lawmakers and their aides. The approach allows the firms to gloss over serious flaws in the machines, he said.
"It's important that we do a full examination of how we ended up with body-scanner technology and assure that we are pushing for less invasive and more privacy-protective technologies," Calabrese said.
Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the industry has been particularly clever in staging demonstrations of its gee-whiz technology for lawmakers and their aides. The approach allows the firms to gloss over serious flaws in the machines, he said.
"It's important that we do a full examination of how we ended up with body-scanner technology and assure that we are pushing for less invasive and more privacy-protective technologies," Calabrese said.
Jan 12, 2011, 9:47 am
#3
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 855
It's the Money that Bothers Me the Most
We are squandering our tax dollars on dangerous, obsolete, useless equipment.
We are squandering our tax dollars to hire uneducated people to create a program which is at best a public nuisance. We are not spending any money educating these people to do something productive or beneficial.
We are not focusing our tax dollars on real security, just security theater.
We are not trying to find ways to end the Patriot Act measures, but rather to extend them indefinitely.
Do we really have the money? Seriously - our Federal Government is supposedly heavily in debt and running on a deficit. What's going to happen when the dollar collapses and the credit runs out? We'll have absolutely nothing left to show for all the money that was spent on the TSA. Their workers will be as ignorant as ever before. All the expensive, useless equipment will be broken and totally without value, except perhaps for scrap. The TSA employees will be out of work, without any marketable skills.
I'm not crazy about government giveaways, but we'd be better off if we were giving away college educations for people willing to become engineers, rather than paying people to root around in grannies' undies. We'd be better off spending money on scientific research in practically any field, than we are buying useless, dangerous cr@p to irradiate the traveling public.
Our country is on the ropes. I really resent every penny that is squandered on security theater.
We are squandering our tax dollars to hire uneducated people to create a program which is at best a public nuisance. We are not spending any money educating these people to do something productive or beneficial.
We are not focusing our tax dollars on real security, just security theater.
We are not trying to find ways to end the Patriot Act measures, but rather to extend them indefinitely.
Do we really have the money? Seriously - our Federal Government is supposedly heavily in debt and running on a deficit. What's going to happen when the dollar collapses and the credit runs out? We'll have absolutely nothing left to show for all the money that was spent on the TSA. Their workers will be as ignorant as ever before. All the expensive, useless equipment will be broken and totally without value, except perhaps for scrap. The TSA employees will be out of work, without any marketable skills.
I'm not crazy about government giveaways, but we'd be better off if we were giving away college educations for people willing to become engineers, rather than paying people to root around in grannies' undies. We'd be better off spending money on scientific research in practically any field, than we are buying useless, dangerous cr@p to irradiate the traveling public.
Our country is on the ropes. I really resent every penny that is squandered on security theater.
Jan 12, 2011, 9:53 am
#4
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Salish Sea
Programs: DL,AC,HH,PC
Posts: 8,974
TSA spokesman Greg Soule said industry lobbying has no bearing on who has won agency contracts, which are awarded competitively on the basis of rigorous performance and reliability standards.
He said the use of imaging technologies has led to the discovery of more than 130 prohibited passenger items since the Christmas bombing plot a year ago.
Oh, wait...
Jan 12, 2011, 10:03 am
#5
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 855
"He said the use of imaging technologies has led to the discovery of more than 130 prohibited passenger items since the Christmas bombing plot a year ago. "
Yep Wally, they wax rhapsodic over these "prohibited items" they find during searches. The trouble is, these items aren't a hazard to aviation. The people carrying them aren't terrorists.
I've been more nervous trying to buy gas at night than I have been getting on a plane. If you performed a shake down on my fellow customers and the clerk, I guarantee everybody would be packing heat except me. The only thing defending me is my twisted mind and sour disposition, yet I haven't been attacked - ever.
The probability of being attacked, even in the presence of heavily armed people, really isn't that great. That is, unless you're a pain in the * like Janet Napolitano. She's got people so annoyed they're mailing her stink bombs. Fire the broad, and we'll be that much safer. Napolitano and her ilk could get beat down at a Shriner's convention; they're that irritating. We'll be safer when they're replaced with more stable folk.
Yep Wally, they wax rhapsodic over these "prohibited items" they find during searches. The trouble is, these items aren't a hazard to aviation. The people carrying them aren't terrorists.
I've been more nervous trying to buy gas at night than I have been getting on a plane. If you performed a shake down on my fellow customers and the clerk, I guarantee everybody would be packing heat except me. The only thing defending me is my twisted mind and sour disposition, yet I haven't been attacked - ever.
The probability of being attacked, even in the presence of heavily armed people, really isn't that great. That is, unless you're a pain in the * like Janet Napolitano. She's got people so annoyed they're mailing her stink bombs. Fire the broad, and we'll be that much safer. Napolitano and her ilk could get beat down at a Shriner's convention; they're that irritating. We'll be safer when they're replaced with more stable folk.
Jan 12, 2011, 11:21 am
#7
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Nashville, TN - BNA
Programs: Hilton Gold, WN RR
Posts: 1,818
FYI, and I'll agree with you this article is so outrageous it should be required reading for anyone with even a passing interest in this topic...
There are a few other threads about this:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/omni-...ributions.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...rity-push.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...esnt-care.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...wholesale.html
There are a few other threads about this:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/omni-...ributions.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...rity-push.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...esnt-care.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...wholesale.html
