World's largest association of pilots boycotts body scanners
bigbrotherwatch.org.uk
bigbrotherwatch.org.uk
1) Refuse the body scanner and request a manual pat-down.
2) Ask to have a supervisor, or a second TSA staff, present during the pat-down. Explain that this is to ensure that no sexual harassment occurs.
3) If you are a guy, ask to have a female TSA staff member perform the pat-down. If your request is denied, calmly explain to the TSA guy that you are homosexual and that a pat-down by another guy will turn you on and will make you sexually extremely uncomfortable.
4) During the pat-down, make comments such as "Oh yeah, I like it when you touch me there!", or "Can I get a happy ending?"
6) Miss flight and lose non-refundable airfare
It was the pilots that boycotted the sscanner this time.
further points are the best way to go for a loooooooong
journey in a little room. They have way more time than you
have and they know it.
Unfortunately the people doing those jobs are extremely low on the chain of command that is setting the policies and paying the bills.
Disclaimer: I do not like the security theater. I'm just wondering if there is a better way to get more effective results without wasting your time and making the day frustrating for security people (who will most likely not be quitting their job or changing the policy).
Maybe if the TV news stations actually had an interest to bring it to people's attentions...
Maybe if a large percentage of people actually did it. Large enough of a percentage that it created huge delays, flight cancellations and caused huge amount of profit loss. Hurt them where they actually care about, their wallets/bank accounts.
There is no way TSA can clear a flight full of people using patdowns fast enough. All we need is enough people to refuse - no need to make special requests or other muck up the works.
I disagree. Why in the world should the authorities care that the lines for "opt-outs" are incredibly long, and the machines are getting low usage?
>There is no way TSA can clear a flight full of people using patdowns fast enough
When you get to the airport and there is a 3-hour backlog for patdowns but no line for the ionizing radiation backscatter, are you going to miss your flight?
And what happens with people who go through the scanner, but get flagged for a patdown anyway...
You should be at the airport a couple hours earlier...
I will take some standard (t-shirts, shorts) clothing and metalize them, them I will sell them in airports, as a signal of protest. With your clothes metalized x-rays can't pass thought.
The article is here, unfortunately behind a pay wall: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727715.800-whos-afra...
They were eventually pulled when reports of burns and stunting of bone and cartilage began to emerge.
It's the little vignettes of history like this that remind me how many grand-experiments there are out there using us all as the unwitting test subjects.
Is the Pilot Union’s boycott a kneejerk reaction to the measured warning about potential radiation damage?
Maybe.
But never underestimate how quickly politicos helping to equip our airports with $100 - 200k a pop units will happily ask for forgiveness, not permission.
Citation for shoe stores - http://www.hemonctoday.com/article.aspx?rid=28218
@ARTICLE{oiuytgfyhujik:11,
author = {{oiuytgfyhujik}},
title = {{on: World's largest association of pilots boycotts body scanners}},
year = {2011},
journal = {{Journal of Ironic Internet Postings}},
note = {\url{http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1885309}}
}'Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought
"Well isn't this nice..."'
... but the last line is still sarcasm, not irony.
That was what I was pointing out.
It's like 10,000 spoons, when all you need is a knife.
It's like meeting the man of your dreams, and then meeting his beautiful husband.
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break.
Does the qualifier "it's like" affect its intent?
So we have the action of a protagonist causing the opposite effect of what was intended--irony. The items Alanis lists are mainly really annoying.
Alanis is a regional manager, overseeing several stores. Her office is located in a specific store. Alanis decices to institute a 'no smoking' policy on breaks for all stores, but not her own store (where her office is located - she loves to smoke cigarettes).
Corporate agrees and it becomes company policy. Impressed by Alanis's HR policy, they transfer her to an ailing store, where smoking is banned and she cannot undo corporate policy.
This is additionally confounded by the fact that British people really do mean "sarcasm" when they say "irony." (At least, most of the British people I've spoken with do.)
I've never experienced this in actual conversation with British and/or other non-US English speakers. But the internet definitions I'm finding seem to all include 'sarcastic but somewhat subtle' in the definition of ironic. For me the definitions of sarcasm and irony do not intersect. Sarcasm is intentional whereas irony is at best random or more often a signifier of implied 'fate'.
"We don't understand sarcasm and we carry guns"
Verbal irony, which is closely related to but not identical to sarcasm (though there is quite a lot of debate on exactly the relationship among psycholinguists) is most certainly intentional.
"I don't wear my seat belt because if I'm uncomfortable I'll drive more dangerously."
"Sounds like you've really thought that one through."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony#Verbal_irony discusses this further and refers to specific research on this topic.
"-Synonyms 1, 2. Irony, sarcasm, satire indicate mockery of something or someone. The essential feature of irony is the indirect presentation of a contradiction between an action or expression and the context in which it occurs. In the figure of speech, emphasis is placed on the opposition between the literal and intended meaning of a statement; one thing is said and its opposite implied, as in the comment, 'Beautiful weather, isn't it?' made when it is raining or nasty."
Most of the study subjects reported dizziness, headaches and the infamous restless paw syndrome, which made it pretty much impossible for them to continue flying safely.
It seems entirely plausible that they have exposed mice to backscatter scanners for extended periods and studied the reactions/effects. That study I would be interested in, but it seems rdtsc was making a funny. I understand now.
Luckily we lived abroad mostly in oil camps or I would be four legged by now...
Years later a good portion of them lost their feet or portions of them because of the radiation burns and various cancers.
See also: our food.
I wonder if the pressure really should be applied to the airlines. Obviously they are in a tough spot, but once they start to really lose profits, they would be sure to run to DC screaming. Just a thought.
I'm going to the US soon and I don't like the body scanners.
You get a, rather invasive, pat down. But, if everyone refuses, it will cost them enough time that they should have to stop.
If everyone refuses, I hope, it will be simply too costly to continue ... but I'm still not sure if allowing myself to be literally manhandled is any less an invasion of my privacy except insofar as there's no photographic evidence that can be stored indefinitely.
The machines are capable of storing the pictures, and all we have is the promise of a long abusive government agency that they are not.
Not that this makes me any more OK with subjecting myself (and inflicting upon others) what is essentially a strip search.
Sounds like a great day out - especially if you are into uniforms!
Will I contribute to the hate of the body scanners? You bet, I have a wife and planning to make a family. She's been going through medschool, I've been working nonstop for years, without a vacation. We were planning on going to a few places now that she finally has a break from all the studying, but this TSA situation is literally stopping us. This is crossing the line of invasiveness.
Their jobs are immoral and should be illegal and yet they still choose to do it. I have no respect nor mercy for such people. Stop using the idiotic "trying to do their job" as an excuse. The WWII war trials proved that you are responsible for what you do. "Just doing my job" is no excuse.
It must be this way, otherwise "just doing my job" can be used to justify anything. How many bad things have happened because it was someone's job and it never occurred to the person to simply quit?
They're the ones who came up with this. They're the ones who are able to keep themselves from being subjected to this. They're the ones who can put a stop to this.
If you agree with the first 2 points, it seems to me that making the wrong-doer personally accountable is a reasonable response. Yes, their boss several thousand miles away also needs to be held to account, but so do the people physically executing the searches.
If groping someone's genitals doesn't cross a line, what does?
Request a supervisor and or second agent be present for your screening to ensure you waste as much of their time as possible.
I went through SFO on the weekend and said I didn't want to go through the machine. You're made to feel pretty stigmatised, you have to stand there while the TSA officer repeatedly yells out "We got an opt-out. Male opt-out." across the hall.
The pat down itself was extremely thorough but considering how much the TSA gets bagged on Reddit, the officer was incredibly professional. It didn't feel lewd or dirty. Sure, it was violating and I resented having to be put through the experience, but the guy was just doing his job and it was obvious he'd been extensively trained. All up it took about 5 minutes of my time.
What worried me the most was that afterword he asked "The TSA is conducting a survey, why did you opt-out?" I replied that I didn't like my freedoms being taken away. However, thinking about this later, I realised that if in a year they release stats that say "only 1% of people opt-out, and only 5% of those people do so for medical or religious reasons" then it is going to be a hell of a lot easier for them to push for the scans to become mandatory.
With a straight face:
"Because I get sexual gratification from having my genitles fondled. Your job is sort of like prostitution, but you get paid by the pimps rather than the customers."
Then walk away.