281–290 of 445 posts
You probably put to much stock in the whole "I've never been through the imaging machines" bit. It's not about remaining opt-out puritan or something. Fight when you can. I hope op reads this, buried in all the other comments. Please, for the sake of everyone, dust yourself off and opt out again. It doesn't matter if you do it every time. I opt out every time I can, but there have been plenty of times when I don't. T…
Isn't being felt up much more of a violation of your rights than going through an x-ray machine? My nutso-girlfriend refuses to go through them because of OMG CANCER, so instead I end up sitting around for a half hour while they manually search her. It's such a pain in the ass.
IMO This is silly. Yeah I understand why we don't want the NSA looking into all our emails and phonecalls etc... But its a security check at an airport... This has to be one of the silliest things to get wound up about.
If you don't think it's possible New York has been racially profiling people and searching them without cause, in a program called 'Stop and Frisk'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_stop-and-frisk_pr...
This isn't about Air Ports, this is about citizens and constitutional rights, rights that our government has taken an oath to uphold before anything else.
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office,
he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:
— “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will
faithfully execute the Office of President of the
United States, and will to the best of my Ability,
preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of
the United States.”Earlier quoted context omitted.
A few reasons: - They actively image your naked body. Metal detectors do not. - They record said image of our naked body for an indefinite amount of time. Metal detectors do not. - A human views the image of your naked body, and makes a subjective assessment of whether or not something suspicious has been detected, based on a wide range of parameters. A metal detector is a simple on/off detection based on an extremel…
This whole rant hasn't been true for over a year. All it shows now is a generic block body, with an indication of an area to check if the COMPUTER decides it needs to be checked. For the majority of people, it doesn't even show the body. It just flashes "OK" on the screen.
I've been flying more in the past few months, and the TSA has always been courteous and professional in those instances.
I don't know if something changed or it's all luck of the draw, but things seem much better these days.
There is an extremely simple solution: leave. I've not lived in the US for almost two years now. I've only had to travel back twice in that time. Meanwhile, in the same time I've visited France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany multiple times. None of those travel experiences were nearly as unpleasant or stressful as my two trips to the US. Furthermore, the technology communities that are growing up in these pla…
Person 1 - "point out problem that should be fixed". Person 2 - "give up".
BTW I quite enjoy the passive aggressive questions. If they ask if I know the machine is safe I always agree with them that the machine is safe. They find that amusing in SFO and annoying in BOS. I don't fly through LAX so they might be more annoying there.
I find that most of the time the TSA people, if you treat them with a bit of a sense of humor, are usually pretty nice about the whole opt out thing (though they do do the passive agressive stuff). However I'm white middle aged guy with a wedding ring. So perhaps I get, by far, the easiest side of TSA 'attitude'.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[deleted]
Some fights are worth fighting if only to retain your dignity. I won't volunteer my rights; if they want them they will have to take them by force (i.e., the threat of not being allowed to travel). I won't do them the favor of ignoring the gun in the room.
When they ask why I opt-out, I explain about the numerous times I have filled out the comment cards mentioning the real danger of cataracts because you don't tell people to close their eyes. Explain that my engineering background fully understands both the x-ray and mm-wave technology. I explain that even the weak, yet not disclosed, powers of mm-wave back scatter can, over time, cause damage to your eyes.
This gives them something to think about, that isn't the typical "freedom" complaint they hear. I hope, one day, to overhear a TSA agent tell people to close their eyes.
First, the threat to your eyes is real. But, my underline reason is by making people close their eyes it will give a sense of vulnerability that the current systems don't have. I am hoping, one day, that this is the tipping point needed for more people to opt-out.
An engineer can dream.
> I give up. The terrorists have won. Or maybe you could recognize that flying is a privilege, not a right, and that you have other options if you want to make a stand in your beliefs, such as picking a different airline, going to your destination by some other means or, you know, not traveling. These entitled smug conspiracy theorists who act like prima donnas irritate me. "The terrorists have won" because you had t…
I think it should be a solution -- given both 1) cockpit doors are now secured, and 2) passengers won't let hijackers take over a flight, the risk of any in-flight incidents is borne by the passengers, and if an airline wants to compete on less invasive scanning, they should be able to do that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Body scanners are like a big "Fuck You, Citizen" from your government. First, we know they don't work, because they only work up to the epidermis, and sometimes not even that well, as lots of dangerous things have gotten through them. If you wanted to get something on a plane, put it up your butt or somehow else in your body and it will work 100% of the time. Just don't carry a gun strapped to your body. (Though that…
50% false positives is no problem at all as long as the false negatives are low.