Travellin' Fool

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.

EasternTraveler

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.

EasternTraveler

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

elpinta

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

doober

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.

Travellin' Fool

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.

xamsx

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>

seat17D

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."

haywiresf

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.

txrus

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

VideoPaul

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

Droneklax

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 !?.

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.

rufflesinc

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

VideoPaul

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

--PP

Cholula

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??