(Credit: John Wild (johnwild.info))
This image of an adult man was taken using a Rapiscan Secure 1000 backscatter X-ray scanner |
Two months ago, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that the federal stimulus legislation would pay for the purchase of hundreds of controversial full-body scanners.
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“We have received minimal complaints,” a TSA spokeswoman told CNET yesterday. She said that the agency, part of DHS, keeps track of air traveler complaints and has not seen a significant rise.A growing number of airline passengers, labor unions, and advocacy groups, however, say the new procedures–a choice of full-body scans or what the TSA delicately calls “enhanced patdowns”–go too far. (They were implemented without much fanfare in late October, amid lingering questions about whether travelers are always offered a choice of manual screening.)
Unions representing U.S. Airways pilots, American Airlines pilots, and some flight attendants are advising their members to skip the full-body scans, even if it means that their genitals are touched. Air travelers are speaking out online, with a woman saying in a YouTube video her breasts were “twisted,” and ExpressJet pilot Michael Roberts emerging as an instant hero after he rejected both the body scanning and “enhanced patdowns” options and was unceremoniously ejected from the security line from Memphis International Airport.
I would think that most people would not want to go through one of these scans. Plus, frequent flyers would build up a lot of radiation.
Terrible story and IF true that TSA agent should be arrested plus I sure hope they got the guy who raped her at 11.
This being the internet and I not knowing you sorry I can’t take just your word for it. People make stuff up all the time to support their points (see Alfred Persson)
Its a big country and the TSA has thousands of employes I’m sure a bad one gets hired every now and then just like with and large employer. I bet a few bad school nurses or priest get a job every once and awhile too.
Should we not let minors fly or go to church or school?
Law enforcement “Post Certification” is a State thing as far as I know but if you are suggesting that only TAS officers involved in pat-downs pass that part of your States Post Certification that has to do with pat-downs and treatment of minors I’d probably go for that.
I rather it was as easy to get on a plane as it was in the 1980s but these are the times we live in.
The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures. The amendment specifically also requires search and arrest warrants be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. It was adopted as a response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, which is a type of general search warrant, in the American Revolution. Search and arrest should be limited in scope according to specific information supplied to the issuing court, usually by a law enforcement officer, who has sworn by it.
To frisk someone is legal in certain situations with less level of suspicion, however, to conduct a frisk, officers must be able to point to specific and articulatory facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant their actions. A vague hunch will not do.
I support the US Constitution, and can therefore not support these searches of genitalia or body cavity searches which have no real probable cause. To allow the government to simply allow for any searches of property and person, including genetalia and body searches, because we want to “feel” safe is not appear to be enough justification because to do so, the government can then say we can totally disregard the 4th amendment completely.
Now some may say, “don’t fly then”, but the reality is that in the 21st century society, most of us cannot not fly anymore than we can not have electricity and expect to thrive in this society.
Police states are very secure and have low crime rates, but they are not states of liberty and justice for all.
Howard,
They’re not going to arrest the TSA agent, that’s how these “enhanced” pat-downs are performed. They’d have to arrest every TSA agent that has ever performed these.
The bottom line is no child should ever be subject to these sexual assaults. They have not committed a crime, nor are they suspected to have committed a crime.
Same goes for these scanners. To send a child through one is creation and distribution of child pornography.
The first video (life is too short to watch both) seems to put the lie to what the woman claimed. But, the body language of the woman with the boarding pass is classic. “You are beneath my contempt.”
I was surprised to see these agents standing right there, very close to the x-rays. X radiation follows the inverse square rule so they wouldn’t need to be far away to be safer.
Read somewhere they are not allowed to wear dosemeters because that might frighten passengers? Or was it to make sure there is no evidence if an agent files for health damages?
It’s national security at all costs. It started with the Patriot Act (which technically violates the fourth amendment).
I think if a terrorist wants to blow up a plane they can swallow a bag of some explosive before boarding the flight, and then set it off on the flight. No scanner or pat-down is going to detect that.
Small dose of radiation? Same as flying eh Howard. Well worth the convenience of flying. I thought it would be possible to have that convenience and not give up my rights or risk my health. Your posts misdirect and down play valid concerns.
Stop wasting time posting and get back to your job at the TSA
Here’s a new trick to piss off those tsa jerkoffs.
carry a spare pair of pants, and when they strip search you, drop your pants take a dump in their hand. say you were scared of being molested and it was uncontrollable.
if everyone did this they would stop the searches quickly
Pilots are beginning to protest via their unions against the x-ray screenings-
For Pilots, It’s Molestation Over “The Dick-Measuring Device”
http://slatest.slate.com/id/2274662/entry/4/
“Our members are just absolutely outraged,” the president of the US Airline Pilots Association said.
The TSA just wants to measure their members.
# 13 Howard – If you want the to fly you agree to these security measures if you don’t like them don’t fly.
‘Scuse me, young feller. I don’t have any choice. I have to fly to keep my kids in college and my wife in bourbon. When I started my career I had to walk through a metal detector and turn on my computer. Sometimes. If they’d told me then someday I’d have to pose naked or let some 250 pound onion and garlic smelling gorilla have a feel of my dick, I wouldn’t have believed it.
Now, it’s not that I’m particularly shy, I group showered with a bunch of Marines when I was younger. My belly may gotten a bit bigger but my cock hasn’t gotten any smaller. I still shower at the gym with no door on the stall for the pleasure of any who pass by. But I don’t let ‘em have a feel or take a photo for the kids.
And, was it you or someone else, that said there’s only a little risk. About the same as flying three or four miles up. Well, the way I look at it, that means the risk has been doubled!
Fortunately for me, I haven’t been groped, yet. But when the time comes, I’m gonna do my best to get an erection. And if I’m successful, I’m gonna ask the gorilla for his phone number and mime a little kiss…
#20 Typical teabagger hot air. Mehh
#4 Indeed, they’re quite visible.
#6 I concur with #7. Wherever you see Dallas, that’s your spot.
#11 I think Mr. Beal need a CT brain perfusion.
#15 You even talk like a latin american sheeple. Yeah, wait until your comandante fix those thing. I bet it’s just that Comandante Obama doesn’t know this is happening. Pathetic sheeple!
#30 Sheeple mind in action.
I’ll use the scanner when Michelle does. They got one big enough for her butt?
Wonder if the “Scan” leaves your Privates GLOWING IN THE DARK ?
Chalk up another reason to not trust the TSA strip-mall security employees. Straight from TSA, they call the scanners “dick measuring devices”, and admit that the reason for these ‘ENHANCED” pat-downs is to embarrass people into choosing the machine instead.
Then comes this, a traveler takes a photo of the TSA security booth at an airport to find this on their computer screen:
http://gizmodo.com/5688087/the-tsas-sense-of-humor-makes-me-nervous
Rapiscan Secure 1000 Scanner…is the i a typo?