Naked Body Scanners

[pnewton]

Forget it Deb. People on this thread are entirely beyond reason.

I am on this thread. I will have nothing to do with this. Yet you say I am beyond reason because I do not agree with you? What an incredible ego you must have. You sound just like Obama thinking that Americans oppose his plans just because they do not understand it well enough.

No. I am opposed to unwarranted search and seizures, as was our Founding Fathers. A search, especially an evasive one should be justified only when there is some probable cause. Yet 1ke and the TSA believes boarding a plane is probable cause that one is a terrorist. Either that or the Constitution has it all wrong about this silly search and seizure laws.

I do not carry whether you, Debra, the TSA and Obama do consider me to be unreasonable. I am not flying and my vacation money will be used to support the motel indrustry instead of the airline industry. That is America. This travesty at the airports is not. I hope the protest next week really mucks it all up.

Thanks Ike. Paranoia can be like that…

Practice your armchair psychiatry elsewhere, especially if you think disagreement with your brilliant and balanced mind can only be the result of mental imbalance.

 

[karbear]

I doubt that those instances that were caught on tape were the worst incidents.

And of course things will probably not get better on their own.

Thanks for the conversation. Some of your words seemed extreme at first, but when I went to reply, I found that I didn’t have a rational argument against them. No one else here does either. At this point, it is voluntary. I guess the opinion I’ve formed is that, as long as it is voluntary, there is a small amount of culpablity in it. The pilot who lost his job over it is brave. That was a big sacrifice. It’s horrible that people are forced into the choice of submitting or loosing their jobs. But what is worse than loosing a job, is loosing the chance to have a country where the integrity of the human person is preserved in law. I’m glad that I do have a car, even an old one and have a chance of getting to my mom for Christmas.

 

[jovnyc]

I’m a young married woman who hopes to have more babies in the next few years. I have no intention of submitting to any possible radiation and am trying to convince my husband to get groped instead since I don’t want him subjected to any radiation either. (He flies constantly for business). I do not trust the government bureaucrats to tell me the truth about health risks. They are far too invested in this. I say, bring on the dogs, profiling and doing this Israeli style. If the government in Arizona can’t even ask to see people’s papers, then what right does the government have to force me to undergo nude scanning, radiation, or sexual assault? This is Orwellian, dangerous and unthinkable in a free country.

As far as the OP’s understandable desire to see her mother for Christmas, check out us.megabus.com/. I’ve heard really good things about their prices and service. Hope that helps!

 

[karbear]

I’m a young married woman who hopes to have more babies in the next few years. I have no intention of submitting to any possible radiation and am trying to convince my husband to get groped instead since I don’t want him subjected to any radiation either. (He flies constantly for business). I do not trust the government bureaucrats to tell me the truth about health risks. They are far too invested in this. I say, bring on the dogs, profiling and doing this Israeli style. If the government in Arizona can’t even ask to see people’s papers, then what right does the government have to force me to undergo nude scanning, radiation, or sexual assault? This is Orwellian, dangerous and unthinkable in a free country.

As far as the OP’s understandable desire to see her mother for Christmas, check out us.megabus.com/. I’ve heard really good things about their prices and service. Hope that helps!

If all the men who didn’t want to loose their jobs chose getting groped and held up the lines, maybe this thing would end. Thanks for the bus info too.

 

[jovnyc]

I hope so but the Administration seems to be getting more stubborn instead of listening to citizen outcries. Very curious from people who are usually terrified of being sued.

Best of luck with your upcoming trip!

 

[vera_dicere]

I honestly don’t like the things, for radiation and modesty questions.

As for Church teaching, as others have said there’s nothing official regarding these machiens, however, we can simply use other teachings to help us. What is the intention of these machines? Security. They apparently blur faces and the images are sent to someone sitting in an office, so the people at the secuirty check poitn cannot view the images of the people who pass through. The pat down is meant to feel for weapons and other objects of harm. Again security.

Now, what about pap smears? They’re rather immodest, aren’t they? But what’s the purpose of them? Your health. Same with a rectal exam. Your health. These things, while unpleasant, are necessary.

However, the people doign the pat downs and operating the scanners, aren’t they usually screened before employment? My uncle has worked air port secuirty and the checks they ran on him before he was employed were invasive and lengthy. However, if one of these guards were using the scanner’s images for rude purposes then HE’S the one sinning. If one of those guards is patting you down for his own sexual pleasure, HE’S sinning.

But we cannot know what’s in the minds and hearts of those guards.

What’ I’m trying to say, is intention is an important factor in determining if these things are sinful for the user or the operator. And it all boarders of the intentions of both.

Like I said, I don’t like them. But I know I’m going to have to use them when I travel.

Of course, one of your former presidents once said “Those who give up a little libertiy to gain a bit of security, deserve neither and will loose both” or words to the effect. I think a lot of the secuirty hype is just that, hype. Terrorists are goign to bring planes down if they want to, and whether or not they have naked images taken of them when they board - they’ll find a way. [granted, they’re not really “naked” images]

 

[EvelynEVF]

It’s hard to know what’s true and what’s not. There are reports of an Indian film star whose immodest picture was printed off the machine and he autographed the dang thing.

The images on the official TSA blog are enough to make me say no way.

 

[karbear]

As for Church teaching, as others have said there’s nothing official regarding these machiens, however, we can simply use other teachings to help us. What is the intention of these machines? Security. They apparently blur faces and the images are sent to someone sitting in an office, so the people at the secuirty check poitn cannot view the images of the people who pass through. The pat down is meant to feel for weapons and other objects of harm. Again security.

Thanks Vera, Like you said, we can use other techings to help us. I’m afraid that, in my case, the intention would not be security, but permission to fly. I guess if I go to a doctor, it is a voluntary choice to trust their professionalism. If thy are not, then I made the best decision I could. If I chose to hand over a picture that looks (very naked imo) to a goverment beaurocrat in exchange for their promise of security, maybe I’m guilty of nothing more than being a fool. But it seems, that if I do do that, with even the best of intentions I am also handing over my permission, to assume police powers of unwarranted search and seizure as well. These powers could be used to assault the integrity of the human person. Not just my integrity, but others. I combine that with an elementary knowledge of history, and I wonder what type of value choice I am actually making. Am I saying that my security on this flight is more important than protecting the right against unwarranted search and privacy invasion for the innocent? I don’t know, I’m actually just thinking this through as I am typing.

There was a woman saint who freely chose death rather than rape. I want to live in a society where I am free to make those type of value judgements (security vs. dignity) for myself.

 

[royal_archer]

Thanks for the conversation. Some of your words seemed extreme at first, but when I went to reply, I found that I didn’t have a rational argument against them. No one else here does either. At this point, it is voluntary. I guess the opinion I’ve formed is that, as long as it is voluntary, there is a small amount of culpablity in it. The pilot who lost his job over it is brave. That was a big sacrifice. It’s horrible that people are forced into the choice of submitting or loosing their jobs. But what is worse than loosing a job, is loosing the chance to have a country where the integrity of the human person is preserved in law. I’m glad that I do have a car, even an old one and have a chance of getting to my mom for Christmas.

We as Catholics have been asked to sacrifice much more in order to avoid sins that are much less obvious. Think of all of the Martyrs who didn’t give their jobs, but their lives because they refused to submit to the immorality of their day.

 

[1ke]

I am on this thread. I will have nothing to do with this. Yet you say I am beyond reason

I did not say **all **people on this thread are beyond reason.

I did not say that you, pnewton, were beyond reason.

because I do not agree with you?

And I certainly did not say that I based my statement upon someone *not agreeing *with me.

What an incredible ego you must have. You sound just like Obama thinking that Americans oppose his plans just because they do not understand it well enough.

I neither said nor implied any such thing.

No. I am opposed to unwarranted search and seizures, as was our Founding Fathers. A search, especially an evasive one should be justified only when there is some probable cause.

And, I do believe that a case will likely make its way into the court system to test whether or not various security measures are constitutional or not. So far, none of the security measures have been challenged successfully in court.

Yet 1ke and the TSA believes boarding a plane is probable cause that one is a terrorist.

Did I say I believed that? No, I don’t believe I did.

Either that or the Constitution has it all wrong about this silly search and seizure laws.

Did I say this? No, I don’t believe I did.

I do not carry whether you, Debra, the TSA and Obama do consider me to be unreasonable.

I consider *this post to which I am replying *beyond reason as it is just full of made up things I never said. You are quite irate over NOTHING.

Yes, I would say that making up a bunch of stuff in your head that you think I am accusing you of personally and then posting it is a bit rabid.

I am not flying and my vacation money will be used to support the motel indrustry instead of the airline industry. That is America. This travesty at the airports is not.

And, this is your right and your choice to make. I don’t believe I’ve told anyone that they should or should not fly. In each post I’ve simply stated what the current requirements are and what choices a person has-- including not flying.

I hope the protest next week really mucks it all up.

I think the “no fly” protest for Thanksgiving will be similar to the gay pride sick-outs staged every year. Not very well attended, or not-attended, as the case may be. But, we will have to see how things unfold next week. I imagine *most *people who have already purchased tickets will probably not cancel them, since the airlines will not refund their money.

Practice your armchair psychiatry elsewhere, especially if you think disagreement with your brilliant and balanced mind can only be the result of mental imbalance.

Did I say anthing remotely resembing this? No, I don’t believe I did.

 

[royal_archer]

I’m a young married woman who hopes to have more babies in the next few years. I have no intention of submitting to any possible radiation and am trying to convince my husband to get groped instead since I don’t want him subjected to any radiation either. (He flies constantly for business). I do not trust the government bureaucrats to tell me the truth about health risks. They are far too invested in this. I say, bring on the dogs, profiling and doing this Israeli style. If the government in Arizona can’t even ask to see people’s papers, then what right does the government have to force me to undergo nude scanning, radiation, or sexual assault? This is Orwellian, dangerous and unthinkable in a free country.

As far as the OP’s understandable desire to see her mother for Christmas, check out us.megabus.com/. I’ve heard really good things about their prices and service. Hope that helps!

Great comparison to the AZ laws!

By the way, If the amount of radiation were known, then in theory people could figure out how to trick the system. So I am guessing the actual levels are classified and any numbers released are not accurate.

 

[royal_archer]

If all the men who didn’t want to loose their jobs chose getting groped and held up the lines, maybe this thing would end. Thanks for the bus info too.

There are people trying to get a national opt out day on Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving in the hope of causing a backlog.

 

[royal_archer]

I honestly don’t like the things, for radiation and modesty questions.

As for Church teaching, as others have said there’s nothing official regarding these machiens, however, we can simply use other teachings to help us. What is the intention of these machines? Security. They apparently blur faces and the images are sent to someone sitting in an office, so the people at the secuirty check poitn cannot view the images of the people who pass through. The pat down is meant to feel for weapons and other objects of harm. Again security.

Now, what about pap smears? They’re rather immodest, aren’t they? But what’s the purpose of them? Your health. Same with a rectal exam. Your health. These things, while unpleasant, are necessary.

However, the people doign the pat downs and operating the scanners, aren’t they usually screened before employment? My uncle has worked air port secuirty and the checks they ran on him before he was employed were invasive and lengthy. However, if one of these guards were using the scanner’s images for rude purposes then HE’S the one sinning. If one of those guards is patting you down for his own sexual pleasure, HE’S sinning.

But we cannot know what’s in the minds and hearts of those guards.

What’ I’m trying to say, is intention is an important factor in determining if these things are sinful for the user or the operator. And it all boarders of the intentions of both.

Like I said, I don’t like them. But I know I’m going to have to use them when I travel.

Of course, one of your former presidents once said “Those who give up a little libertiy to gain a bit of security, deserve neither and will loose both” or words to the effect. I think a lot of the secuirty hype is just that, hype. Terrorists are goign to bring planes down if they want to, and whether or not they have naked images taken of them when they board - they’ll find a way. [granted, they’re not really “naked” images]

While I agree with what you are saying, there is a nuiance. Intrusion for medical reasons is unavoidable while the submittal to the intrusions for vacations, etc. is avoidable. If I as a father choose to have my wife and kids felt up or expose them to the likely potential of getting felt up in order to avoid a few hours in the car or in order to enjoy a vacation at a specific vacation, then the bennefit of the trip has to be compared to the moral cost. Bottom is that it is not appropriate to compare the morality of the exposure to the morality of security, the morality of the exposure needs to be compared to the harm of not taking the trip.

 

[John21652]

Don’t touch my junk

From the 19th Nov.The Seattle Times

That riff is a crowd-pleaser because everyone knows that the entire apparatus of the security line is a national homage to political correctness. Nowhere do more people meekly acquiesce to more useless inconvenience and needless indignity for less purpose. Wizened seniors strain to untie their shoes; beltless salesmen struggle comically to hold up their pants; 3-year-olds scream while being searched insanely for explosives — when everyone, everyone, knows that none of these people is a threat to anyone. We pretend that we go through this nonsense as a small price paid to assure the safety of air travel. Rubbish. This has nothing to do with safety — 95 percent of these inspections, searches, shoe removals and pat-downs are ridiculously unnecessary. The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling — when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists, we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches. The junk man’s revolt marks the point at which a docile public declares that it will tolerate only so much idiocy. Metal detector? Back-of-the-hand pat? OK. We will swallow hard and pretend airline attackers are randomly distributed in the population. But now you insist on a full-body scan, a fairly accurate representation of my naked image to be viewed by a total stranger? Or alternatively, the full-body pat-down, which, as the junk man correctly noted, would be sexual assault if performed by anyone else? This time you have gone too far, Big Bro’. The sleeping giant awakes. Take my shoes, remove my belt, waste my time and try my patience. But don’t touch my junk.

 

[karbear]

Don’t touch my junk

OMG, I needed some comic relief. Thanks

 

[Miriam1947]

This is awful.

TSA pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine
‘I was absolutely humiliated,’ said bladder cancer survivor

msnbc.msn.com/id/40291856/

 

[Newbie2]

Could it be that the touching is short lived while the photos may come back to haunt you for years?

I’d think there would be some common sense safeguards on saving images. For example, the image could be automatically deleted unless they had TWO supervisors verify that there was some sort of contraband visable, in which case the image would have to be saved to support the strip search. But the default could be programed to delete before the person left the immediate security area.

How is a drug sniffing dog more intrusive than a full-body scanner? The test of whether technology is a search for 4th Amendment purposes has generally been whether that technology does something a law enforcement officer could do without a warrant. E.g. a GPS tracking device attached to a car or package is OK, because the police could follow the car without a warrant – it just saves the police time to attach a GPS tracker. But a heat-imaging sensor detecting extreme energy usage and warmth in a house (for purposes of finding out whether someone was growing marijuana w/heat lamps) was found not to be OK, because it gave the police a look “inside” the house that they wouldn’t have been able to get by themselves, unless they got a search warrant.

Courts have repeatedly held that a drug-sniffing dog is not a search for the purposes of the 4th Amendment – it just sniffs the ambient air, something that humans could do but dogs do better, and people cannot have a privacy interest in the ambient air.

A scanner that essentially looks under people’s clothes, IMO, is different than a dog sniffing the ambient air, because people do have a privacy interest in remaining clothed. Whether that difference will prove to make a difference in the court challenges to the policy remains to be seen, but I don’t think it can be dismissed lightly.

LOL. I get “crotched” by my canine patients almost every day in my veterinary practice. A dude’s hand on my junk, though…I don’t think so.

If everybody called their congressman and senator, they would find an alternate method of screening in a New York minute.

 

[royal_archer]

I’d think there would be some common sense safeguards on saving images. For example, the image could be automatically deleted unless they had TWO supervisors verify that there was some sort of contraband visable, in which case the image would have to be saved to support the strip search. But the default could be programed to delete before the person left the immediate security area.

But you as the subject of the image really have no idea of what the image is being used for or what safe guards are or are not in place.

If government employees with high level security clearances, traveling as passengers are asked to go through these scanners and pat downs, the goverment doesn’t even trust those highly screened employees. Therefore why should I trust common TSA agents who have not gone through the same scrutiny?

 

[Miriam1947]

Leave it to Israel to come up with something that sounds pretty darn good to me. This is an excerpt. Read the rest at the link.

Israeli airport technology detects intent of terrorists

Built to replace human selectors or random check ups of visitors, the SDS-VR-1000 is based on the assumption that sophisticated terrorists might not be included in suspect lists. Not many terrorists walk into an airport waving a banner announcing who they are. They don’t carry handguns or try to conceal explosives as they debark from an international flight into the United States. And just as rarely do they have police records.

So how can US officials go about identifying potential terrorists? A new solution is Israel’s Suspect Detection Systems (SDS) - a company that has developed an advance automated filtering tool for identifying potential suspects with hostile intentions among masses of tens of thousands visitors.

Consider it a personal polygraph machine, that will make air travelers infinitely safer, says SDS CEO Shabtai Shoval, a former division manager at Comverse Technology who founded SDS along with former head of the Israel Police’s polygraph division Yeshayahu Horowitz and former deputy Mossad chief Amiram Levin.

israel21c.org/technology/israeli-airport-technology-detects-intent-of-terrorists

 

[Newbie2]

But you as the subject of the image really have no idea of what the image is being used for or what safe guards are or are not in place.

If government employees with high level security clearances, traveling as passengers are asked to go through these scanners and pat downs, the goverment doesn’t even trust those highly screened employees. Therefore why should I trust common TSA agents who have not gone through the same scrutiny?

That’s a good point. What is lacking, as usual in Government, is common sense.