You kinda left out the following two paragraphs that round out your quote:

Redundant!
 

My facts are straight.

Radiation is radiation of the same sort in this case and show more than airport security needs to see anywhere.

And if someone is stupid enough to ingest explosives or is willing to attach pouches of liquid nitro in select containers along their clothing lines does the "filter" on the backscatter X-ray even "help"? No. Even without the "filter", these peddled goods are a waste and will do little more than result in lots of embarassing false alarms.

Only "security" idiots -- with money on the line -- would peddle this kind of nonsense against any purported "liquid-explosive" scenario, real or imagined.

I've seen demonstrations where these x-ray devices can be readily fooled by water carried on person in pouches aligned with clothing lines that I see no reason why these devices would do any good against such a purported scenario either, especially as such a porter's just asking for a Darwin Award. :eek:

I saw that quote. Unbelievable. Trust the TSA? HAHAHAHAHA

And, assuming that one knew about the technology, they could put on a "fat suit" and smuggle god knows what into the airport. Actually I see the B/S Xray as a security risk.

It is an ouline, but it is NOT chalk. I can see the man's package. There was a movie a while back starring Arnold Schwartzenegger where he was in this futuristic world and everyone walked down this corridor and the security set on one side of the screen and people passed on the other side of the (wall) and they could see peoples skeletons and anything they were carrying. No need to slow everyone down. Now come on wouldn't it be nice if people just walked down a few corridors and were screened without even slowing down. No lines, no harrassment, no shoe removal, no dumb questions. But we have got to get to that point and it takes steps. Maybe this is just one of those steps.

I don't like an invasion of privacy anymore than the next guy. But terrorism is real and it is here and we have to make progress. We need a machine that can just read peoples mind and as we pass through security, they ask do you intend on committing any crime and then the machine reads their thoughts and marks the ones that are thinking yes. Then we launch them into a furnace for recycling and boom, all solved :D

?
 

It IS a step indeed! However, where it is leading is the issue.
So far, the winners are the equipment manufacturers.

The "War on Terrah", like the war on drugs, will never be won. As one security analyst said: "If we build a higher wall, the terrorists will just bring a taller ladder."

We as a nation need to determine how much we are willing to spend and how much of our liberties we are willing to surrender in what will turn out to be a vain attempt to stop the next terrorist attack.

How many young people died last year from cardiac events while participating in a sport? I think the number approaches 7,000. How many people died in terrorists attacks in the U.S. last year? 0.

The apologists will say that it's because of all the money that we have thrown at security that's prevented another attack. I say "Prove it."

In the meantime, we know the number of young people who have died during athletic activities; we know the number of babies who have died due to preventable prematurity; we know the number of old folks who have died due to inadequate health care coverage; we know the number of hospital patients who die each year due to hospital-acquired staph infections - let's go to war against these known problems, not some hypothetical terrorists.

I'd love to see a well-known and respected somebody - I don't know who - present that kind of information to the citizenry who will then decide where their priorities lie.

Yeah, I live in a dream world.

I agree with you, to a point. The amount of money thrown at the WoT is ridiculous and I liken to the shotgun approach to target shooting, both in application and end result. Unfortunately, to prove or disprove that this is working is simply impossible. Proving something based on a certain outcome when that outcome can be argued to have existed anyway is like chasing the wind. Neither side will win. And by that I mean we shouldn't just stop funding the WoT.

I'm not an expert, but I've worked with certain agencies enough to know that there are bad people who do get caught. Though not from the front lines, which would argue the realistic aspect of just putting in technology on the front lines simply for technology's sake. Again, the shotgun approach, if we build it we will catch them. Maybe, maybe not, and in the meantime we anger the very people we are proposing to protect.

I think we stop this shotgun crap and focus on targeted threat reduction. I don't know how to do that, i'm sure we all can come up with ideas, but that's why we pay taxes and elect (hopefully) smart people to DC who have the know how and access to these answers. Right now I'm not so sure which is why we have the throw the baby out with the bathwater mentality.

But as many have said on this forum, if the American Public think it might make them safer, then the government will do it.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

There's a thread over at cruisecritic on this very subject (RCCL forum) with a whoooooole lot of people spouting the "anything for security" refrain.

<looking for head banging emoticon>

How long until the first "celebrity backscatter" images pop on the internet?

At which point, of course, the rules will be "enhanced" so as to exempt various categories of pax.

Inherently rendering the whole backstatter system useless from a security standpoint. But not from a War on Whatever profiteering perspective.

Like Deep Throat told Woodward, "Follow the money."

Like a fella mentioned before, the difference between the tits I saw at Mardi Gras this weekend and this, is that all those women (and some men) were doing it out of free will and weren't being being put in the situation of "do this or you lose your ticket, or you drive." I admit the latter hasn't happened yet as it's still voluntary, but, like the shoes, it will. They'll get this 'test' installed in a few more major airports over the next year or two, then we'll have some 'scare' at one of the airports that doesn't use them... then everyone (with the exception of FT) will say: "If only we had that x-ray machine there, we could have caught them." viola! These machines get mandatory status in all airports for all people flying within and to the US.

I have zero faith in any of the front end systems the TSA has implemented. Getting back from Mardi Gras yesterday, flying from LAX to SFO the TSA took my toothpaste. I understood as it was a 4 oz container and against the rules, but the problem is that that particular container went 150k miles in the last nine months, in and out of the US dozens of times, across the country a dozen times and back and fourth from SFO to LAX and BUR. Not once was I questioned about it in those dozens of flights...

I think yesterday is when I 'truly' lost faith in any of their systems... and all over some Colgate.

NBC Nightly news is going to do a piece on this tonight (Sat @ 6:30 pm EST).

It will likely be sume puff piece that extols the virtues, ignores or glosses over the risks and has plenty of socer moms named "Lisa" and "Jennifer" saying "Oh, ANYTHING for SECURITY..."

--P

See how this goes?

I love it: They'll test volunteers and will later conclude that there were not too many protests amongst people who volunteered in the first place !?.:rolleyes:

Pause for a second and look at this great photograph. A government official looking at you naked, hands up, in full suspect mode. I love the "hands up" pose. And the use in prisons. Do people even think symbolically anymore? An entire population trained to raise their hands at the drop of a hat, as if they were suspects or inmates. Sigh.

Throw these clowns out. People should be in the street, protesting.

doubt anyone of the perpetual complainers here would accept that even if it meant no lines and no visible security.

I don't know, is it done without exposing humans to X radiation?

--PP

Here was the original image that TSA could see on their backscatter screens.

And then they backpedaled and are showing this so-called chalk/cartoon image as what will be seen.

So which one is it?? :confused: :rolleyes:

Well, the quote from the EPA website says: "Do not confuse the backscatter system with metal detectors. Metal detectors do not use radioactive material."

hmmm...

The image is whichever one we say it is, Citizen. You do not need to know anything more.

I think half of us would be sent to the furnace for thinking "...and my taxpayers pay this guys salary" or "how hard is it to tell a battery from lipstick" or "will my laptop be swabbed for the third time in 3 days, or will they finally learn what a laptop is?"

I'm usually thinking something like that going through the WTMD.

Same here.
Or
"Is it possible to have an IQ in the single digits?"
"Will they learn that a solid deordorant is not a liquid?"

I tend to stick w/the simple, 'IDIOTS'!!

Idiot girl.

I'd love to see this issue taken up on Oprah, complete with larger-than-life "chalk outlines" of women's bodies, both the before and "improved" pictures clearly showing tampons, IUDs, cervical caps and/or pad outlines. That would do the trick.

It's unfortunate that it would seem it takes mob mentality of one sort -- let's call it, "Winfrey Populism" -- to fight mob mentality of another, the Sheepleship of Citizens. :(

I literally grieve when I look at what Americans voluntarily put on Myspace and realize that privacy has no future in the United States of America.

Oh, that's rich. So you end up getting "exposed" in more ways than one...nice. :rolleyes:

And now the rest of the world is "catching up"... Myspace Australia, Japan, UK, Europe... but that's O/T i guess.

It will never be mandatory, you will always be able to opt for another form of screening. If you empty your packets and everything out well and aren't carrying anthing to set off the regular metal detector than you shouldn't have to deal with it at all.

You're kidding yourself.

Honestly i do think it will come to a point where people put enough pressure due to privacy issues associated with the body form shown onscreen. It seems to me that the inate nature of most citizens to just accept little inconveniences for safety's sake will be compromised by their inherent self esteem issues.

I hope you're blessedly right.

Shame that it takes an issue about vanity for people to wake up and protest for the right thing. :(

perhaps if some unflattering celeb's pics (showing the naked truth :eek: ) got out that would spark some protest?

I don't have any intention of going through that screening machine. It's getting to the point where a person has little dignity in the screening process. I was in Phoenix when they had the puffer machine to detect explosives. I was "selected" to go through that machine and had a skirt on that day. I had to hold my arms down at my side to prevent my skirt from coming up around me and I needed about 3 more arms to hold it down from the air blast I got. Shortly after they instituted the "remove your jacket" rule I was asked to remove a zip up sweater/knit jacket. I told them I had nothing on beneath it and they got huffy with me and sent me through the extended screening process.

I carry a tiny black purse, so I usually put my shoes, jacket and purse in the same plastic tub and my laptop in another tub. On a trip from TUL to DFW it was freezing so I had a big wool coat with me. That day I used three tubs, putting the large coat in a separate tub and my same purse/shoes/jacket in the other tub. When my tubs started coming out my purse was missing and they had not annouced they were sending it back through for additional screening. I started hollering, yes yelling where is my purse. Some TSA person had rearranged my stuff, removed my purse from the tub number 1 and put it UNDER my big black coat in tub number 3. My coat was the last tub to come out as I put my least important/valuable item at the end of my tubs. It took me a minute to find my purse as it didn't occur to me to look under my coat. A TSA supervisor rushed over and asked me to check and see if anything was missing. There wasn't anything missing, but it seems to me that they take unneccessary liberties with our belongings and bodies.

Those who post on MySpace, etc., do so voluntarily; they are not be forced or coerced into disclosing any information about themselves, whether in words or pictures.

The TSA, on the other hand, is denying those of use who value privacy, and at the risk of being slammed, even modesty, that very right.

Or you will be given the cherished "option" of not flying today.

If I win the lottery, I promise I will present myself at one of these horrendous machines, refuse and then mount a 4th Amendment challenge on both the reasonableness of such a search and the infringment of the security of my person.

i miss the humor? why do you need to win the lottery to do this?

Agreed -- Because of what mind-boggling numbers of people believe is their privacy boundaries -- there are none! (your first paragraph), Gen-X and the Millenias don't think your second paragraph is an issue. That's what's really scary. To boot, Gen-X is already getting into positions of authority.

Send me the name of a lawyer who will represent me pro bono then.