Objections to TSA's full-body scanners are rising | Hacker News Reader

Objections to TSA's full-body scanners are rising

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31 pointseplanit25 comments

I don't understand why people are OK with electronic strip searches. When they make these useless machines mandatory, I'll consent to being scanned in them. Until then, a $15/hour TSA employee who wants to invade my privacy on the pretense of securing an airplane can at least look me in the eyes while he does so.

It may be my intimate familiarity with crappy data management and retention regimes, both in DHS and outside of it, but regardless of how I've acquired this perception: I have zero faith that TSA can/will protect the data they're collecting from abuse, misuse, and inadvertent disclosure. The people manning these checkpoints are simply not adequately trained. Real law enforcement officers can't handle privacy and data retention. It is unreasonable to suggest that the TSA could do a better job with more sensitive material.

When they make these useless machines mandatory, I will cease to travel by air.

Here. Here.

I ALWAYS opt for the pat-down and, regretfully, can no longer fly into the UK. If the trends continue, I'll simply stop flying general aviation in the U.S. outside of exigent circumstances. Luckily, both the northeast and the pacific northwest have train service.

Aside from the legal, privacy, and baseline human dignity issues, there's the very unknowable health risks.

I have a degree in electromagnetics (technically EE) and we know FAR TOO LITTLE about BOTH the short-term and long-term cellular effects of this specific kind of radiation exposure.

It's not JUST the raw radiated isentropic power (which IS very low), it's the specific sets of wavelengths involved, the orientation of the tissues with respect to the incoming radiation, and the frequency of exposure.

What happened with the UK?

Nothing. It was just recently announced that the full-body scanner machines will shortly be mandatory for all U.K. international arrivals.

I'm just about there anyway.

"I don't understand why people are OK with electronic strip searches."

They're not just OK with them, they actually want them. Read The Naked Crowd by Jeffrey Rosen.

I flew through BWI airport a few weeks ago, and saw signs posted in the security line indicating they're piloting the new full-body imagers.

I wasn't thrilled, to say the least.

I was far less thrilled when I reached into my backpack at the end of a very long series of flights and realized my swiss army knife had made it through security, in the mesh side pocket of my carry-on backpack the whole time.

How 'bout the TSA focus on mastering the basics (like, um, finding knives when they go through the x-ray conveyor belt) before they add new tech with questionable benefit and high potential for abuse?

I keep a Swiss Army knife on my key chain. I fly fairly often, and sometimes I forget to put it in my checked bag. Post-9/11 I've forgotten 4 times. I've only had them catch it once.

Did you have to buy it back on ebay?

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=NTSA

(These are all NTSA seizures.)

They just need better privacy settings, where the default is to make your scans publicly available on facebook.

Aren't the examples a bit silly? "agents had found such items as a pocket knife hidden on someone's back and a syringe full of liquid concealed in a passenger's underwear"

The pocket knife should be detected by the classic metal detector (or are they implying that these are not working correctly now? (yes I know they aren't)). The syringe with liquid would be pretty easy to conceal in other ways (or just taken legally, looking like a diabetes pack) if someone really wanted to do that.

Our paranoid idiot government (or, more accurately, "our paranoid idiot government that believes we're also paranoid idiots just like them)...

has given the idiot terrorists all the tools they need to completely bankrupt us while obliterating our rights.

All they need to do is find another idiot to blow up his underwear in a movie theater and then we can have scanners there too!

And then another idiot can do the same in a Wal-mart or whatever... and more scanners!

What idiot is in control of THIS game?

Note to investment advisors: Invest in idiots! They seem to be having a great run!

> our paranoid idiot government that believes we're also paranoid idiots just like them

Actually I think they're correct about that. The general public doesn't seem to remember that they're at as much risk from random lightning strikes as from terrorism, and that the death toll from 9/11 was comparable to traffic accidents that month.

I'd like to know the TSA's success record in detecting threats to our safety. I'm not talking about some dude with a knife in his pocket, or a drug dealer with a vial of whatever in his underwear. I'm talking about some guy with the intent AND the means to do harm to an airplane or a passenger in an airplane. How many of those type people have the TSA stopped? A Google search returns very little in the way of results, so I'm lacking data in making a decent determination on their success/failure rate.

Are we even told about these events, if they occur?

Their answer would be that the existence of the TSA security system has certainly prevented many people from trying in the first place.

One way they could make it less worrisome for passengers is to have the room where they view the body scans separate from the room where the scanner is. From the images I've seen, it doesn't seem like you'd be able to recognize a person from their body scan -- I suppose unless they had a very, shall we say "shapely", body.

First, it's way creepier, and harder psychologically, to know someone is watching you if you can't see them.

Second, http://www.google.com/images?q=TSA+full-body+scan

... for you. (I ought to have said, "less worrisome for me."). The thought that the operator could just look up from their screen, after "looking in my pants", so to speak, is what feels awkward to me.

I was pretty amused when all it took was a feigned-friendly smile (and boobs?) to some TSA employee at SFO international terminal (flying Virgin America) to skip the nonexistent line for the full-body scan and just walk through the metal detector instead.

Although, then, another TSA guy who seemed to have nothing better to do determined that he wanted to test to see if my contact lens solution was legit. Happened to ignore the rest of my two baggies filled with liquids and aerosols though... I feel so much safer now.

Not connected to US really, but does anyone know the current rules for London airports? There was some talk (in January, I think) about no alternative like pat down available there. Is that still the case? I couldn't find any official information about it now.

I thought the UK evaluated the full-body scanners and found them ineffective.

I will do a strip search if they can promise me that there is zero chance the plane wont blow up.

Of course, they can't promise anything like that with certainty. The stupidity of the TSA is that we are wasting enormous amount of time and money for very little benefit.

I miss the days of coming off an airplane, walking down the tunnel, and immediately seeing the face of a loved one.

Zero chance the plane won't blow up? Man, I hope I don't wind up on your next flight.

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