Originally Posted By Mr X And when a train gets bombed, what will be your answer then Spokker? I'm sorry but "give up your dignity or just stay home" is not an acceptable alternative for a free nation imho.
Originally Posted By Labuda "And when a train gets bombed, what will be your answer then Spokker?" I'd be MUCH more worried that the train would derail.
Originally Posted By ecdc This liberal isn't okay with someone being required to show their prosthetic breast or being effectively strip searched, and I don't know any who are okay with it. Taking one extreme, appalling example and saying. "See! This is what they want for YOU!" sounds awfully like right-wing noise machine tactics. All I've said is I don't care if the scanners are in use as it relates to privacy. I'm not commenting on the efficacy or extreme search measures. As for "I'll take my chances," I understand the sentiment. But it's not just about you; 9/11 caused far wider devastation than just the awful deaths of the people involved. The Obama administration has more to consider than just the people on the plane.
Originally Posted By Lisann22 The freeze lasted about 5 minutes. The entire area of security came to a halt, along with escslators and elevators. For those that have traveled through ATL you know the area is probably one of the bigger security areas. No one was to move, you could have been putting on your shoes, lifting your laptop off the conveyor belt, loading a kid in a stroller. They took down a guy for not stopping. The security workers all took off running to different areas, checking differenf locations. That is wgat was kind of jarring at first. They called out check points, "Southside clear?" "Clear." When all responded, the head guy said something like, "Ladies and Gentlemen this has been an emergency incident drill blah blah blah. People applauded.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost >>>I'm half remembering an old schwarzenegger movie - maybe Total Recall - where they had panels that you walked by and on the other side a skeletal image of the person walking could be viewed in real time. Hollywood trickery, but I fine idea.<<< I can't say if it was in Total Recall or not but it was in True Lies. Pretty cool actually. I've got nothing to hide unless the lead in my butt shows up and then I have a lot of explaining to do.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost One thing that does bother me now concerning the metal detectors is that my belt buckle, although fairly small, makes it go off every time. Now not to get too graphic but I am kinda, sorta on the heavy side (OK, I'm fat), so therefore I have no hips. When I take my belt off, I am in real danger of having my pants fall down. Most people I know would prefer a terrorist attack to that.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <All I've said is I don't care if the scanners are in use as it relates to privacy. I'm not commenting on the efficacy or extreme search measures.> Yeah, me too. Efficacy and cost are separate questions (and important ones); I'm just saying I don't mind a scanner on privacy grounds at all. It's a glorified x-ray and no one's getting their jollies looking at them. Efficacy is a hard one to gauge. These things are pretty new (hence their appearance in the news) at US airports, and it's near impossible to gauge what terrorists might now abandon a "smuggle explosives on a plane" plot until they figure out a way to defeat this type of scan. The dog that didn't bark is notoriously hard to quantify.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***The freeze lasted about 5 minutes. The entire area of security came to a halt, along with escslators and elevators. For those that have traveled through ATL you know the area is probably one of the bigger security areas. No one was to move, you could have been putting on your shoes, lifting your laptop off the conveyor belt, loading a kid in a stroller. They took down a guy for not stopping. The security workers all took off running to different areas, checking differenf locations. That is wgat was kind of jarring at first. They called out check points, "Southside clear?" "Clear." When all responded, the head guy said something like, "Ladies and Gentlemen this has been an emergency incident drill blah blah blah. People applauded*** Thanks for the info Lis... And this is just as I suspected. The "people applauded" at the end is just poetic. This is Security Theater, nothing more. Has anyone heard of ANY other security or law enforcement group that performs their "emergency drills" in front of a live "audience"? Do cops routinely burst into banks in the middle of the day guns drawn and yell "everybody down!", in order to drill for a robbery scenario? What a farce.
Originally Posted By Mr X <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40291856/ns/travel-news" target="_blank">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40...vel-news</a> / TSA pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine 'I was absolutely humiliated,' said bladder cancer survivor By Harriet Baskas A retired special education teacher on his way to a wedding in Orlando, Fla., said he was left humiliated, crying and covered with his own urine after an enhanced pat-down by TSA officers recently at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. “I was absolutely humiliated, I couldn’t even speak,” said Thomas D. “Tom” Sawyer, 61, of Lansing, Mich. Sawyer is a bladder cancer survivor who now wears a urostomy bag, which collects his urine from a stoma, or opening in his stomach. “I have to wear special clothes and in order to mount the bag I have to seal a wafer to my stomach and then attach the bag. If the seal is broken, urine can leak all over my body and clothes.” On Nov. 7, Sawyer said he went through the security scanner at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. “Evidently the scanner picked up on my urostomy bag, because I was chosen for a pat-down procedure.” Due to his medical condition, Sawyer asked to be screened in private. “One officer looked at another, rolled his eyes and said that they really didn’t have any place to take me,” said Sawyer. “After I said again that I’d like privacy, they took me to an office.” Sawyer wears pants two sizes too large in order to accommodate the medical equipment he wears. He’d taken off his belt to go through the scanner and once in the office with security personnel, his pants fell down around his ankles. “I had to ask twice if it was OK to pull up my shorts,” said Sawyer, “And every time I tried to tell them about my medical condition, they said they didn’t need to know about that.”...
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Maybe if we all started peeing ourselves during the pat-down they might stop doing them!
Originally Posted By MisterTophat <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skkCpnCm7iM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...CpnCm7iM</a> Little boys need to be strip searched to get on a plane. <a href="http://rhwengr.newsvine.com/_news/2010/11/16/5476645-cair-tsa-may-only-pat-down-muslim-womens-heads-and-necks" target="_blank">http://rhwengr.newsvine.com/_n...nd-necks</a> But Muslim women who wear hijab can pat -themselves- down, or have a TSA agent pat down -only- the head and neck. Your tax dollars at work.
Originally Posted By ChurroMonster The real problem is that we have done things to make certain people hate us enough to kill us. They have even told us what those things are but we still do them. Our military is occupying Muslim lands. Until that stops Muslim extremists will keep trying to kill Americans. No matter what security measures are put in place they will keep trying to find ways to circumvent them while making all of our lives more unpleasant. How many times did radical Islam attack the US before we kept American military bases in Saudi Arabia after Iraq War I? Exactly zero. Wouldn't it be better for everyone if we just stop pissing off fundamentalists? We fight for freedom but ironically lose freedom in the process. Something has to change.
Originally Posted By plpeters70 <<Something has to change.>> Well, getting over our addiction to oil would be a pretty good start. At least that would stop the huge amounts of money flowing into these countries that then go on to fund these fundamentalists.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder I'm still trying to figure out exactly what "freedoms" we're losing here. Freedom from being somewhat safe? While no system is foolproof, ever, the concept of deterrence is missing from this "dialog". The world is ever changing, ever evolving, and there are some ideals that are going to take a hit now and then. Citing extreme examples in the wake of some yahoo griping about getting his "junk" felt up really doesn't make for any kind of constructive discourse. It strikes me that the same people who say the Constitution is a living, breathing document that needs to be construed as such in order to find such express concepts as the separation of church and state and a woman's right to choose (which I agree with) then turn around and try to apply such a strict definition to a right to privacy (also not in the Constitution) when it comes to the right to travel (again, not in the Consitution), are going to need to cool their jets until it all gets legally sorted out. The rights to privacy and travel, along with the other things I cited above, were all established and refined by case law. I imagine that in due time likely the Supreme Court will be asked to decide what's proper at an airport screening, and hairs will be split between traveling and doing it by flying or other conveyance. I doubt very much any court will ever say a person has a right to fly when there are other alternatives available to for travel. But when it comes to making public policy, safety is often an overriding concern. It's an everchanging world. If the government can eventually make a reasonable argument that national security mandates such searches, then either get used to this or take the bus or boat.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan But the larger, important question is: Do pat-downs and screening really work? Perhaps if a few people are caught trying to smuggle weapons or explosives onto a plane using these methods, they'd seem more worthwhile. George Will in his column this weekend called these searches "security theatre" and to a large extent, I agree. That said, perhaps pat-downs and contour screenings are the best we've got for now. The sad fact is that while we do seemingly everything possible to prevent another 9/11 scenario, one has to believe that terrorists would be looking at different ways to produce mayhem and maximum casualties. The Times Square foiled attempt comes to mind. It isn't hard to imagine other scenarios. Living in a free society carries a tremendous amount of risk, and we're going to have to decide if we can stomach that fact or if we're willing to truly do "anything" in the name of security.
Originally Posted By MisterTophat "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." This doesn't strike me as ambiguous, SingleParkPassholder. When these people are selected for screening, it is done so without warrant and without probable cause. Why should I cool my jets when the government of this free country, and demonstratively so many of its citizens, dismissively pick and choose which parts apply from the people's only contract with their government? To me, the whole thing applies, and I refuse to give an inch just because its more convenient for some of you to go through the nuke-nudie-scan or the grope down.. I don't feel the least bit safer on a plane with any of TSA's nonsense. But its a risk I take to travel. Extrapolating from there, I'd feel completely content walking on a plane where none of the passengers are screened. There are exponentially more innocent passengers like myself than there are villainous terrorists out there. The odds are dramatically in my favor. One can only hope more airlines like this sprout up: <a href="http://www.seaportair.com/" target="_blank">http://www.seaportair.com/</a> BTW -> Did you know you could circumvent the nuke-nudie-scan by putting the contraband in your mouth?
