I don’t get it. I really don’t. Somebody out there help me. Airport bodyscans are an invasion of privacy? Really? How?
Okay, she's got an extra roll above the belt line, and his junk tilts to the right. Big deal. I'd be much more concerned with the strange growth on his left shoulder. Seriously, dude, get that checked out.
Putting aside the question of radiation – and believe me, no one loves a good conspiracy and coverup as much as I do – but I happen to think the government is probably doing a much better job killing us off by letting us breathe near cars than taking a peek at our flab.
So it’s gotta come down not to body scan issues, but to body image issues.
I think we should ask Gallup to do a poll on this: of the people who refuse the bodyscan on privacy grounds, how many of them are hot, and how many not?
Because, really, in terms of confidentiality, these images are about as specific as the silver guy in the Terminator movies.
Actually, less so. At least silver guy got to keep his hair.
And let’s just say that someone did put your bodyscan image up on the web, and included your name.
So what?
Will anyone really be that shocked to discover your upper arms are thickening a bit, or your flaccid penis doesn’t extend beyond your testicles, or your boobs are just a bit uneven, or that we’re not all built exactly like Beyonce or Daniel Dae Kim?
C’mon, now, we’re all more or less grown ups – I can see as much skin, and in much better color and resolution, at the beach on any given day as I can from these play doh images.
Is it any wonder the whole pre-Thanksgiving “Opt-Out” protest fizzled? 90% of the articles I glanced at can be summarized like this:
“Whatever keeps the country safe, I just don’t have a problem with,” Leah Martin, 50, of Houston, said as she waited Monday to go through security at the Atlanta airport.
Do you know what kind of shitstorm the TSA would be caught in if some whackjob got through with an explosive goodie or firearm that this gizmo would’ve picked up? All because someone didn’t want their spare tire being revealed?
Aren’t bees dying mysteriously? Isn’t there some ancient redwood out there being cut down at this very moment? Just because they renamed Area 51 “Desolate Palms,” do we really think it doesn’t exist anymore?
Find a cause, people, find a cause.
Or, if not, just be honest with yourself and the rest of the country: you’re embarrassed because you’re out of shape and your bald head is ugly. Welcome to humanity.
We live in a different age, that’s for sure.
The people most vocal about the scans would most likely be the first to chastise the Gov’t if another plane full of people were to get blow up. You really can’t have it both ways.
Scan away. Better than blown away.
Please Don’t Touch My Junk Song by David Choi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71XIiP8v95Y
TSA Tip Win: http://wins.failblog.org/2010/11/25/epic-win-photos-tsa-tip-win/
I agree with Roger that you can’t have it both ways. I personally would do the scan (and have done it when leaving Boston). But I do understand the reason why people would not want to submit to this. And I don’t believe it would be due to a question of vanity. But rather the idea of their rights being unfairly violated.
#1. in the scan, you can see their junk. And that’s cool, cause I am all about junk. But really what is the difference between seeing through ones clothes, and just telling people they need to submit to a strip search? Same thing basically. The scan just seems more polite and in the end no one has to shamefully put their panties back on.
#2. If you opt out of the scan, the pat downs are too invasive. **Once again, I’d take any pat down I can get… But I can understand why someone may not like to have this happen in full view of lookie-looos. (and this has happened)
I agree you can’t expect the airlines to be safe then not check people. But common sense would help too, random people should not be subjected to this, but rather the people who would really be raising some alarms in line. We should work to implement what the Israelis do… They have not had an incident on an airline is quite a while.
Oh… and the opt out “fizzled” because it only would have worked if TSA was putting everyone through the scan. They aren’t… and that day many of the scanners were not used.
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. — Benjamin Franklin
My objection is neither about radiation nor privacy. My beef is that this screening is not effective and a giant waste of money. It’s just security theater for show and accomplishes nothing. Let’s examine the issues:
1. Airport “secured” area is anything but secured. Hundreds of airport employees show up to work passing through an unmonitored metal detector in every single god damn airport in this country. If we are so freaked out about passengers hiding explosive in their butt cracks, why aren’t we concerned about airport employees doing the same?
2. Most belly cargo in airliners are not screened, not even x-rayed. Every commercial airliners carries tons of unaccompanied cargo not checked in by passengers (which are screened). Virtually none of this cargo in the lower deck of airplane are screened for explosives. Yet, we somehow have been conditioned to strip naked and take off our shoes at the airport security check point. It’s call missing the forest for the tree.
3. The manufacturer of these scanners have said that it cannot detect some of the liquid and plastic explosive – the main reason we are wasting money to get the machine in the first place.
4. Preventing people with evil intentions from doing harm to an airplane is the job of highly trained intelligence and law enforcement professionals, not something we should entrust minimum wage employees. If we are serious about airport security (which all evidence suggests we are not), then we should not have these lowly paid and under educated TSA screeners. We need FBI trained behavior analysts to be the front line screener.
My last point is really the most relevant… our Govt is interested in putting on a show, a security theater with lowly paid non-union employee as actors. There is no professionalism here that would be required to provide real airport security.
exactly, Irwin.
where are all the media sensationalism over the packaged bombs that was sent and intercepted? that seems far more dangerous and insidious than x-raying everybody.
and they’re never going to be able to check all those cargo containers on the shipping docks.
its just that certain people prefer racial profiling over body scans and pat-downs. those certain people are umm well ya know. not brown.
Actually the bee colony collapse issue was recently solved; it turned out that it was a combination of a virus and a fungus working together. The crazy thing is they had to autopsy a crapload of bees, which were hard to gather since they went crazy and flew away as their colonies collapsed, and then they had to grind the bees up to examine what was on/in them.
[...] new policies on this blog before, with pretty much the notion to people out there to just fuckin’ get over oneself. Now, I don’t know which Japanese sketch comedy show this clip [...]