TSA Body Searches

[scannon]

TSA's new logo.

[Croc]

Having travelled recently and found the nude-scan machine out of action I had to submit to one of these searches. I can only say what a bizarre and surreal experience it is having your crown jewels "polished" through your pants by another guy. :bs:

 

My lisping wisecrack to the very unhappy TSA guy at the time was not taken well "oooh Sweetheart - are we married now?"

 

So who is flying for Thanksgiving? :leaving:

[snookwheel]

TSA's new logo.

 

Now THAT's funny!:smilielol5:

[Off Road SHO]

Now that's a great logo!

 

I think we could solve all this hoopla by just having your choice of who patted you down. I mean really, just have a bunch of gorgeous gals and guys in their early twenties and in great shape, standing in a line. You could then choose your patter downer. Just think of all the starving college students and movie star hopefuls we could keep employed, not to mention people would think of just about any reason to go fly somewhere. I think tipping could be involved too, weed out those that can't learn how to pat down properly.

 

Tom

[Sean]

I suggest wearing a kilt, with the traditional undergarment worn with a kilt (none).

Pat that down!

[Mondo]

Wearing a Kilt... that's funny!

 

I don't like it, but if you had a choice of getting on a plane with the current checks or one without it, which one would you take?

 

I didn't think about a broken scanner, but what reason would you prefer the pat-down over the scanner?

[Croc]

No reason to prefer being felt up over being scanned. Scanning is quicker and less intrusive. Sure the TSA guys usually are sniggering at the images but so what...let the muppets have their jollies - they have nothing else in life to look forward other than flipping burgers.

[Kitcat]

Croc:

 

Love your "marriage" comment:)!

 

I can't imagine anything more terrible than looking at neked pictures of the average middle age, overweight traveler. I don't think even the rare buff female wld be enough to offset that parade of horribles.

[slngsht]

This says it all

[WestTexasS2K]

If you travel frequently what is the effect of multiple exposures to the radiation of the scanners. Is it equal to 50 x rays a year? The long term effects of multiple radiation doses are pretty well documented. I don't fly frequently a few times per year not a big deal. If I travelled two or three times per week then it might be a different story.

 

I also have a huge problem with the approach used on small kids. I train my kids no adult is touch you in that area. If they do kick the he'll out of them and run.

 

I agree with Benjamin Franklin who said those who give up freedom for security deserve neither.

[bsimon]

http://tpiwwp.com/out.php/i5686_TSA.jpg

[Croc]

Brilliant!:rofl:

[WestTexasS2K]

Very funny , but sadly mostly true.

[Mondo]

Looks like radiation is probably the least concern. Everyone agrees you'll get much more from the flight than the scanner.

 

 

"... "We feel the amount of radiation is so negligible, that it has no impact whatsoever on health," said Luis Casanova of the Transportation Security Administration.

 

The TSA says going through the full-body scanners amounts to the same radiation as one one thousandth of a chest x-ray. A private physicist found it up to ten times that amount. Or one one-hundredth of a chest x-ray.

 

Others say the real effects just aren't known because they haven't been adequately studied.

 

So what's the truth?

 

Michael D. Story, Ph.D. is an associate professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas in the Division of Molecular Radiation Biology, he does research on radiation for NASA.

 

His overall assessment of the scanners? "The risk in this case for cancer is extremely low. An individual should not be worried about that at all," Story said.

 

Story said the dosage from the body scanners is at least 200 times less than that a passenger receives during a typical airline flight.

 

In other words, he says, if you're not worried about the radiation you get flying, you shouldn't be worried about the radiation from the scanner..."

[scannon]

One of the TV news shows said that the radiation from the scanner is equal to about 3 minutes of the radiation you will get on the airplane. I can't verify that factoid but I wouldn't be surprised if it is true.

 

Just found this from a USA Today Health site:

 

"The Transportation Security Administration says radiation from one scan is about the same as a person would get from flying for about three minutes in an airplane at 30,000 feet, where atmospheric radiation levels are higher than on the ground. That amount is vastly lower than a single dental X-ray."

[rnr]

This article has a more interesting take on how even the smallest probabilities will have an effect: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dorf/20100113.html

 

More importantly for our purposes, assuming that the radiation in a backscatter X-ray is about a hundredth the dose of a dental X-ray, we find that a backscatter X-ray increases the odds of dying from cancer by about 16 ten millionths of one percent. That suggests that for every billion passengers screened with backscatter radiation, about 16 will die from cancer as a result.

Understood in individual terms, it is difficult to imagine any rational passenger being concerned about that risk. According to one expert quoted in the New York Times story, a high-altitude flight exposes an airline passenger to as much added ionizing cosmic radiation in four minutes as the backscatter X-ray delivers. (High-altitude flights increase radiation exposure because the Earth's atmosphere, which absorbs radiation, is thinner at high altitudes.) Someone who is willing to accept the very small risk from radiation exposure through high altitude flight is thus highly unlikely to be concerned about the very much smaller incremental exposure due to X-ray backscatter scanning.

Nonetheless, the issue looks somewhat different when the likely consequences of the radiation exposure are considered in the aggregate. Globally, about 2 billion passengers fly each year, so screening all passengers with backscatter X-ray scans could reasonably be expected to result in about 32 excess cancer deaths per year. If all of the foregoing assumptions are correct, that represents a real cost, and thus encourages us to look carefully at the likely benefits of full-body backscatter X-ray screening, to examine the cost-benefit tradeoff.

[bsimon]

I really think the radiation issue is rather mute. The real issue is the back scatter porn machines won't stop some Jihadist from getting on the plane with a pound of Semtex crammed up his bum. I can imagine the next step in reactionary passenger screening will be be rather more invasive and personal.:ack:

[Mondo]

I wish we would get off the political correctness stance of screening/checking every person. I understand preferring passive techniques for everyone vs subjective methods. But Grandma, a toddler, a family going on vacation? Really?

Israel's method is to verbally talk to every passenger and follows up on suspicious mannerisms/answers. I imagine the objectiveness & training are too much to scale up for every passenger but it seems people trained in this could excuse a lot of passengers while they wait in line for their tickets.

[MoPho]

Just wait until some monster blows himself up at the security check in line, then we are really screwed

[turboeric]

We don't seem to have recognized that with every increase in "security theatre", the bad guys have changed their approach to compensate. Ultimately, I suspect any improvement in security is illusory, while the loss of liberty, privacy, dignity and enjoyment in travelling is very real. We lose, while the bad guys are merely inconvenienced.