Is this strange? Since the TSA implemented body scanners I have flown more than 25 segments to mostly major cities such as JFK, and SFO and Ihavenever been through a body scanner or parsley.Multiple times at JFK and Ft Lauderdale, and once at DCA they have turned it off just one or two people away from me.

Now I'm not complaining but this doesn't seem like very effective use of very expensive technology.

- Mike from seatrate.blogspot.com

Please follow the thread as it moves to the Travel Safety/Security forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

Mike, welcome to TS&S.

You seem to share a viewpoint which many illinformed travellers (or non-travellers) in the US share.

It is not the fact that you have not yet been scanned that it is a concern. Rather, the lack of effectiveness of the scanners is the concern.

Are you aware that other countries have tested and rejected the scanners as being ineffective? Just a few weeks ago the extended test in Germany ended, and was called a 'dismal failure'. Over a year ago, when scanners were first demanded, a German television program demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the scanners.

This is one major reason why so many here are angry. Money is being spent on ineffective tools, whilst gaping holes in security remain unaddressed.

Perhaps you would be willing to spend some time here and really try and understand the issues here. I suspect that you will receive several emotional responses to your post, but please do as I did a few years ago and take the time to do some research yourself on this subject.

Please feel free to start reading here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...rmany-ham.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...s-useless.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...r-germany.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...t-germany.html

And here:

And here is a video which you should definitely watch - make sure that you have the subtitles turned on if you don't speak German, and do watch the entire thing. The large man is a famous Austrian physicist, known for his 'myth busting' type of popular science, and the moderator is one of the most famous and popular ones on German television, known for his investigative segments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idICUSiGcqo

The scanners, like substantially everything else the TSA does, represent hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on security theater. You are no safer whether the machines are running or not.

Actually, we might be less safe with the scanners running since the TSA might think they are working as advertised and may relax other security measures. I just hope this madness doesn't get a firm hold in Europe. Only place where I've encountered it so far was at a gate at AMS.

In the EU only Holland and the UK use scanners, and they are in limited use compared to the US.

There were tests in Finland, Germany and Italy but every other EU nation has not put scanners in place, and Germany is currently investigating the results and will report out soon on the 'dismal failure' as noted above.

Almost two years after scanners were pushed through, I find it telling that very few countries have implemented them, and some apparently only grudgingly in limited amounts.

That generously assumes their other security measures are effective.

parsley?

You mean like this?

In our "contractor state" where elected officials receive emoluments from corporations eager for federal gravy, a lot of expensive ineffetive, unnecessary stuff is acquired by government departments. What follows is a grand demonstration why it was "a good use of taxpayer money" (or lately "a good reason to sell more bonds to China"). So they get us coming and going. Burden us with the present or future cost. Then make us miserable as we travel, all to make these government contractors happy. Because when they are happy, their buddies in Congress are happy. And nothing is more important than the power elite in federal branches being happy. We should be glad our misery is keeping these potentates happy.

^^ We aren't any safer today than we were before TSA was created.

However, we are, as a nation, poorer because of TSA - in a literal sense thanks to waste of money they represent, and figuratively, given how we've allowed a mindless and unattainable quest for "security" undermine the values that this country was founded upon.

Cooking show musta been on in the background whilst OP typed his query ;-)


-11!

Probably IntelliSense gone awry. When the OP typed "pa" to begin "patdown" it filled in "rsley".