Poll: Nearly two-thirds of Americans support full-body scanners at airports
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Ideally the poll would ask if those answering have ever been scanned; then at least show me the segmented results.
As I see it, 9/11 can't happen again. That is, an airplane will never again be hijacked and used as a missile. It's possible for someone to blow up a plane but not to turn it into a missile.
There are lots of places where a terrorist can kill 200+ people that don't have any security at all. Given this, I don't understand why having the level of security in our airports is justified. We've made it so that airports are a much harder target than a sporting event. Thus, airports are much safer from a terrorism point of view. Enhancements to security are not needed and a waste of time.
I genuinely would like to know why my reasoning is wrong in your opinion and where you draw the line.
I also agree with you that the hijack/missile scenario seems unlikely at this point (existing safety precautions seem appropriate).
I remain surprised (but happy) that terrorists have not gone after softer targets (malls, etc). For some reason, they remain very focused on airplanes (maybe the shock and awe effect). As a result, taking steps to make air travel as safe as possible seems reasonable.
Now - how we do that is an open question. We have already had an underwear bombing attempt. How do we prevent this from being attempted again? The only solution I have seen is the current scanners and sadly the "pat down". If there is a better one, lets deploy it. If not, then it seems the argument is personal privacy > the lives of the unfortunate passengers aboard the plane that explodes when the terrorists are successful. No?
If the underwear bomber had been successful, would you have a different view?
It's not a goal to try to prevent someone from doing this again. That's simply not possible. The goal is to make its success as unlikely as possible without causing too great a burden. Groping and virtual strip searches go too far in my opinion. The so called underwear bomber was stopped because when people see a man trying to ignite his underwear they stop him. We're not that helpless.
Life is risky. Zero people have died in the U.S. from terrorism on airplanes since 9/11. It's extremely unlikely that a terrorist will blow up a plane with the security measures that were in place 1 year ago. No need to go further.
The next place to hide explosives are vaginas and anal regions. Do you think those should be probed as well? If a terrorist blows himself up at a TSA checkpoint should we have a checkpoint in order to get to the checkpoint?
At what point does the security become theater to you?
"Groping and virtual strip searches go too far in my opinion." - Understood. Personally, I'm ok with the virtual strip search. If the physical search is a "professionally executed" pat down, I'm also ok with it. My wife and I fly multiple times/month and so far this has been our experience. If the search turned into "groping", I would have a different view.
"Zero people have died in the U.S. from terrorism on airplanes since 9/11. It's extremely unlikely that a terrorist will blow up a plane with the security measures that were in place 1 year ago." - We just had a few close calls. The terrorists appear to be adapting.
"The next place to hide explosives are vaginas and anal regions. Do you think those should be probed as well? If a terrorist blows himself up at a TSA checkpoint should we have a checkpoint in order to get to the checkpoint?" - This is indeed the rub. Where do you "draw the line?" - is always the issue when discussing giving up/forcing people to give up personal liberties for the good of others. Nevertheless, we do it all the time. For me the scanners/searches have not crossed the line. For you, they have.
"We" won't, bluntly enough. Nor will hyperparanoia do anything about the next stunt. What do you do when a lunatic swallows or rectally inserts some explosives?
The answer is that you accept that there are reasonable measures and unreasonable measures. Use only reasonable measures. Accept that there is a finite risk of someone getting past those measures. Recognize that you're more likely to die while driving to an airport than in flight from all causes, not merely the extreme outlier possibility of someone deliberately trying to kill people on your flight.
Edit: This was an immature personal attack, and I apologize. It really shouldn't be voted up; others have made the same point in a more constructive manner.
And not specifically related to the new policies, but see here for plausible analyses that by inducing travelers to drive rather than fly, the TSA is on balance killing Americans: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/115092...
"Flying is far safer than many other common activities whose risks we gladly accept, and that would remain true even if terrorists blew up a fully loaded 747 every year." - I have used this argument myself (yes I have argued your side as well). However, it does not capture the broader impact - economy etc (this may be why they continue to target planes). Frankly, I think the terrorists could accomplish their goals in many other far easier to accomplish ways but I wont help them here.
I understand your view. I just don't share it. You attacked mine by saying the scanners added zero value. I forwarded a link that while critical of the scanners also noted they were as "effective as a pat down". Unless you think pat downs add zero security, then we are back to security vs personal privacy.
“While officials said [the scanners] performed as well as physical pat downs in operational tests, it remains unclear whether the AIT would have detected the weapon used in the December 2009 incident,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress’s audit arm, said Wednesday in written testimony to the House Homeland Security Committee.
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/gao-raises-questions-abo...
Discussing this with my educated, liberal (Democrat) and wealthy (travel a lot) family, they think this security theater is wonderful. They have been so well conditioned that they are really fearful of terrorists. They think I am naive.
Personally I am far more concerned about my safety when driving my car than I am in the air.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/11/tsa_backscatte...
There's talk about the health risks of the machines, but I can't believe you won't get more radiation on the flight. Here's some data:
A typical dental X-ray exposes the patient to about 2 millirems of radiation. According to one widely cited estimate, exposing each of 10,000 people to one rem (that is, 1,000 millirems) of radiation will likely lead to 8 excess cancer deaths. Using our assumption of linearity, that means that exposure to the 2 millirems of a typical dental X-ray would lead an individual to have an increased risk of dying from cancer of 16 hundred-thousandths of one percent. Given that very small risk, it is easy to see why most rational people would choose to undergo dental X-rays every few years to protect their teeth.
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.
Given that there will be 600 million airplane passengers per year, that makes the machines deadlier than the terrorists.
Nate Silver on the hidden cost of these new airport security measures:
According to the Cornell study, roughly 130 inconvenienced travelers died every three months as a result of additional traffic fatalities brought on by substituting ground transit for air transit. That's the equivalent of four fully-loaded Boeing 737s crashing each year.
Roughly half of Americans objecting to the "pat-downs" is heartening, though.
Draw your own conclusions.
Now consider how willing most drivers are to trade a marginal increase in accident risk for a marginal increase in convenience (say driving 10 MPH over the posted speed limit to arrive at one's destination early).
In light of these risk preferences it is hardly surprising that many travelers are outraged at being forced by the government to undergo a humiliating and degrading procedure for such a minimal (and disputed at that) decrease in risk.
81% Of Americans Support Naked Airport Scans... If You Leave Out The Naked Part In Asking The Question(http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101116/17225811903/81-of-...)
Naturally, there's a huge number of permutations there, but this boils down to an awful lot of people perfectly willing to be looked at naked or felt up just because someone in charge says it needs to be done.
This is part of why I've gotten into arguments with other libertarians who want to rain abuse on TSA employees simply for working at the TSA. The truth is that the TSA simply isn't doing much that most Americans aren't perfectly happy to let them do.
I call this the "Girls Gone Wild" hypothesis, although it's probably a corollary to Milgram (though one testable with less ethical questionability, certainly.)