61–70 of 91 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a hack, just go through the first class line regardless of the class you're flying in. I know several people who do this, and none have been questioned about it. The obvious response is: "Why should paying the airline more money get people better treatment from the Federal government?".
Presumably because the airlines fund the priority lines.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you think it isn't ? There are over 800 million airline passengers in the US each year. If this radiation causes cancers in 1 in a million thats 800 people/year.
If this procedure causes 800 cancers per year then the flights themselves would be causing nearly a hundred thousand cancer cases per year. The radiation from the scanner is far, far safer than the exposure you receive during the flight that caused you to get scanned in the first place.
Almost no politician would ever vote for removing this awful "security" measure. They would risk being blamed when another incompetent terrorist mastermind passes security and hopefully gets stopped by, now much more vigilant passengers. Going to the courts seems like a good way around that - sue the TSA. If someone with experience on these types of issues could comment I would be very interested to learn if this has…
Make a list of congressmen and senators that require you to let nude photos of your children to be taken by government employees. It's all about how you frame the argument
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not even the nudity that bothers me, personally. It's the radiation. I didn't sign up for unshielded exposure to dangerous levels of radiation when I bought my airplane ticket. Ultimately, I think a public health angle would have been a far more effective tact to take in the lawsuit or in the arguments against these scanners. It's the trump card. Privacy always loses an argument to fear and "security" in our pos…
From Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_X-ray ) The Health Physics Society (HPS) reports that a person undergoing a backscatter scan receives approximately 0.05 μSv (or 0.005 mrems) of radiation; American Science and Engineering Inc. reports 0.09 μSv (0.009 mrems). At the high altitudes typical of commercial flights, naturally occurring cosmic radiation is considerably higher than at ground level. T…
"However, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, have argued that the amount of radiation is higher than claimed by the TSA and body scanner manufacturers because the doses were calculated as if distributed throughout the whole body, but the radiation from backscatter x-ray scanners is focused on just the skin and surrounding tissues"
"Furthermore, other scientists claim the health effects are backscatter are well understood whereas those from millimeter wave scanners are not"
Some of the machines being deployed by the TSA are millimeter wave scanners, BTW.
And if somebody did detonate a backpack full of nails in the security queue how they react - more security and make the queues longer?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can both sides play the "think of the children" card in the same fight?
On that note, who says only two sides can play the "think of the children" card? To demonstrate otherwise, I'm going to make a third side which says that naked children aren't inherently that big a deal, and that greater harm comes from the implicit sexualization of children, and the paranoia about sexual predators that it causes. I don't really mind backscatter machines in airports; I find them funny and entertainin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can both sides play the "think of the children" card in the same fight?
On that note, who says only two sides can play the "think of the children" card? To demonstrate otherwise, I'm going to make a third side which says that naked children aren't inherently that big a deal, and that greater harm comes from the implicit sexualization of children, and the paranoia about sexual predators that it causes. I don't really mind backscatter machines in airports; I find them funny and entertainin…
> people start screaming for someone in the government
> to DO SOMETHING!!1,
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A good first step would be to eliminate separate security lines for First Class/VIP and everyone else. I suspect security lines would end up being shorter if our elected officials had to go through exactly the same process as the rest of us.
As a hack, just go through the first class line regardless of the class you're flying in. I know several people who do this, and none have been questioned about it. The obvious response is: "Why should paying the airline more money get people better treatment from the Federal government?".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Make a list of congressmen and senators that require you to let nude photos of your children to be taken by government employees. It's all about how you frame the argument
I suppose so, but such blatantly manipulative tactics make me feel unclean.