From Fast Company:
Privacy watchdog group EPIC and legendary consumer watchdog Ralph Nader claim the full-body scanners are easily hackable, store nude pictures for unknown periods of time, and don’t even catch terrorists. Worse: They run a version of Windows XP.
Get a life people at we won’t fly. Body scanners are for the publics safety not to invade privacy. Use your time and efforts to feed hungry children or protect abused children and stop crying about protecting the public in the are you freaking terrorist!!!!
Oh Paul, You must work for, or have something to do with the aliens at TSA. Those Body Scanners are for the Government to store nude pictures of Citizens to instill fear among us. The US Government ARE the terrorists. If I ever see you on the street, I’m going to come up and demand you let me take nude photos of you. Ya know, in the name of security and all.
I have NOTHING to do with the ‘aliens’ at the TSA. I’m a regular person and plan to fly on the day before Thanksgiving. Clearly you are mis-informed. The body scanners don’t store ‘nude’ pictures of us. Get informed before you comment.
Further, you have no authority to demand that I or Paul do anything. Like it or not, the TSA DOES have that authority. You don’t like it, don’t fly. Just don’t disrupt my flight out of town.
You’re paranoid if you think that the US Government are the terrorists. Get some therapy, for everyone’s sake.
Just one (hundred) examples of how misinformed you are.
https://gizmodo.com/5690749/these-are-the-first-100-leaked-body-scans
maybe your comment would make sense.
If anything the TSA has escalated to doing could be shown to actually have resulted in increased public safety, then you could sensibly claim that they are “for the public’s safety.”
They whole thing that Nader (as much as I otherwise find him irrelevant) and EPIC are demonstrating, is that they don’t actually serve the purpose they claim to serve. It is a charade, and there is no evidence that they make any of our lives better or safer.
There IS evidence that they HAVE and will be used to invade privacy, degrade individual rights, and make all of our lives, individually and collectively worse.
So if that is the life you want. Go get it.
I, for one, am glad that organizations like wewontfly aren’t willing to settle, and won’t “get a life” if that “life” is a brutal, Orwellian one.
As for feeding children, etc. Who’s to say we don’t also do those things. You’re also here, also reading, commenting, and whining on a blog.
Paul, are you trying to be funny or ironic with that statement? Your grammar is shocking and your points are invalid. Groping children, and damaging their DNA with radiation is child abuse. It is unfortunate that you don’t see that, but it’s no surprise considering you have probably done absolutely no research into the subject or technology. May I suggest you look at MIT’s studies that show this type of radiation “unzips” DNA. May I suggest you look closer and realize that these scanners show the human body, naked in detail, that they breach public decency and child pornography laws in many western countries. Of course you wouldn’t be interested in any of these things because you have bought into a fear based mindset. Terrorism is instilling fear in a population in order to gain a political objective, and that’s exactly what the TSA is doing with it’s technology and policies. You need to wake up.
The TSA has never stopped anything. These devices do nothing or security except to further condition folks you don’t wish to see the obvious for themselves and accept the gov’t propaganda.
You mean like the abused children who are being photographed naked in the TSA scanners and groped by TSA officials?
We are protecting children from being abused…by pervs at TSA who want to fondle the people and children. If you want to go feed children, do it. Don’t tell us what to do…you’re not the boss of ME!
Hey Paul…what the TSA does only gives the flying public a “feel good”. It does nothing to protect us. The machines also bombards the body with radiation. I’m supposed to give up my safety for others? I’ll drive 6 hours or less rather than put up with radiation and groping. Now add the fact that this IS a privacy issue, and that people need to educate themselves, some critics, should use their life on educating themselves.
In regards to public safety, only the full-body scanners are understandable, as they could perhaps show that someone has hidden explosives in their underwear like the infamous undie-bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. But the pat downs that include the genital areas are still unacceptable, as they are like having a fox guard the chicken coop- they are asking for something bad to happen.
They’re not ABOUT invading privacy, but they DO invade privacy.
oh no..they are all about invading you to condition you to the next phase of this police state.
Hi Paul.
I’m a New Zealander. I fly, as part of my job involves presenting results to peers — and most of my research colleagues do not live in New Zealand. But… there are conferences everywhere. I can choose which one to go to: do I go the the Australian College, the UK meeting, the European meeting, or the one in the US.
I don’t go to the one in the US. This is why.
1. The TSA is rude and intrusive, They are untrained and unskilled.
2. US Airlines are simply appalling.
3. There is nothing in the US meetings that is “world beating” — mainly because in my field the academics in the US have to make money from the Uni from their clinical practice or drug trials. And the world beating stuff will be presented at the European or Canadian meeting…
So… I go elsewhere — in fact I co-pay to visit relatives in Canada and return via Vancouver because the TSA is so horrible
I am not the only person who does this. If you all want to be competative in the tourism and conference industries, you need to fix the TSA. Or Paul, your country men will not have an economic life.
It pains me to admit that you’re right.
And at the risk of sounding like a rude, “Ugly American” – the people in this world that the United States should most be worried about leaving with a good impression, are the ones that get treated the worst, as they fly inbound and outbound. The first and last thing they remember about the U.S. is the creepy TSA.
At least Spain has the respect to wait until you’re expecting a package from back home, before you see its darkest side.
What are the words of Ancient Wisdom? “Peace and Safety! Peace and Safety! they will cry. But they will have neither.
Next time I travel I will opt for the pat down. But before going to the airport I will consume a few chalupas, a few heads of broccoli and when they do the pat down I will welcome them with successive blasts of methane gas.
Let us know when and where so we can avoid that airport!
And then watch the assholes try to fine you $10,000… but id love to see that happen and watch their faces.
For once i have to agree with Nader……
it’s all a charade. Put in place to invade your most personal of items…your body. they don’t make ANY of us safer! Heck, how many bomb threats or crazy incidences have we had in the last year alone? you want me to feel safe? How about you at least metal detect the cargo that’s UNDER the plane. Did you hear about the guy a few years ago who literally shipped HIMSELF across the country because it was cheaper than flying? His box didn’t go across ground, it was under a passanger plane in the cargo hold. They didn’t catch him until he was already delivered! Yet they want us to submit to these scanners and blatent sexual assault for our “Saftey”. What a load of crap.
Why don’t we tell that idiot Napolitano, the TSA, the government in general, and American citizens that it makes ZERO sense to search our “privates” for weapons & explosives, when the ENTIRE border is open to thousands of people arriving everyday, who bring anything they want? What a stupid, hypocritical, intrusive scheme this is!
Plus as we know, the Israelis, who for years have been a constant target, in the middle of the “badlands” have a working security system that is so good, they haven’t had a plane high-jacked. Why do we constantly have to re-invent the wheel by committee, when it’s already worked out?
Makes me crazy!