Female Passengers Say They Were Targeted for TSA Body Scanners | Hacker News Reader

Female Passengers Say They Were Targeted for TSA Body Scanners

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114 pointspwg58 comments

While I'm very, very anti-TSA and this sort of thing wouldn't surprise me a single bit, saying you "found patterns in complaint data" is silly. Such data is obviously biased from the start; we can do far better than this, with simple actual statistics on persons examined.

But in the end, this is what you get when your "random screenings" aren't actually random in any way, not recorded for future analysis, and (due to the previous point) not audited for bias. You can make arguments why we wouldn't actually want random screenings in this stuff, but I think we all know that it's pure security theater regardless.

The desire of some people to look at others naked should come as a shock to no one. Plus, the abuse of the power of looking at people naked without retribution should surprise no one.

This cuts to the core of humanity: sexuality and power.

I rather enjoy opting-out of this crap. The TSA folks seem to respect it, especially when they ask the reason for their clipboard and I say "health." I've never been millimeter scanned and frankly the radiation aspects of it scare me.

What I don't understand is why anyone wouldn't opt-out. Even when I've been on the late side for my flights, the time a pat down takes doesn't make a difference in catching the flight.

I've been through it once before I even realized what was happening.

They didn't tell me "you are now being subjected to the new millimeter wave scanner" or offer me the choice of a pat-down, they just pointed and herded my fiancee and I through the machine without any mention of what it was or that I had a choice to not go through it.

It was only after that I realized it was the new scanner I had just gone through, and I only realized that because I read sites like HN.

So, to other travellers: when you've opted-out did you basically have to halt in your tracks and demand an opt-out? I guess I naively thought opting out would be more obvious... but I was wrong.

I usually try to play it cool until the moment the point me toward the radiation machine. Then I say "I'd like to opt-out". They are always very professional about it, and have a procedure (different in different airports) where you basically stand there and watch other poor suckers go through the machine, until they find someone to pat you down.

The reason I play it cool is because about 1/3 of the time they end up pointing me toward the regular metal detector at the last minute (I guess I'm not a cute girl...)

I always opt-out, and it's never been a civil affair.

The _least_ obnoxious was when the TSA agent heard my "I'd like to opt out" message, shouted "REFUSAL", made me stand _next_ to the scanner for approximately 15 minutes before finding someone who could pat me down, occasionally glaring at me for effect.

The pat-down was respectful, though it was done inches away from my 9 year old daughter, but the core of the issue, to me anyway, is that I object to both the new scanners AND the pat-down.

I've adopted an "only fly when I have to" policy, which meant 6 hour drives replaced flights to New York, but there is regrettably no way of avoiding all my business travel in lieu of driving.

I was raised by lawyers, and I think from that I learned how to present myself in a way that is both courteous and has a subtext of "the paperwork involved in fucking with me will crush you." The easy to articulate bits of this include good posture, eye-contact and precise diction. There's probably more to it than that which I'm unaware of. This also seems to work when I get pulled over.

@jchrisa, If you don't mind, please could you let know how to politely convey the subtext etc.? Thanks.

Wish I could help more -- I think if you appear deferrential to the law (more so than the officer), it helps remind the law enforcement officer that they are also subject to the law.

I fly frequently and always opt-out. My standard response is to wait until I am pointed towards the AIT scanner, then say "Respectfully I choose to opt out." Jchrisa is right, there is no reason not to be courteous, and there is a better way to handle yourself than to be grumpy or annoying.

Sometimes they do yell out "Opt Out" loudly, but I don't mind because it alerts someone to come pat me down, and when the security is short-staffed sometimes the wait can be a bit.

For the record, I've never been discourteous. While I might loath their professions, I do understand that they're just doing their jobs, and I respect and appreciate that.

Also, to jchrisa's point, I can't imagine what, if anything, I might be doing to foster negativity. I'm a professional white male. I sometimes travel in suits, which may set off some innate animosity, but I've experienced the same negativity dressed in plain clothes.

I've often been described as "friendly-looking" and "approachable", and am careful to ensure that my demeanor isn't in any way offputting while I'm at the airport.

I'm not saying that I'm the nicest guy in the world or anything, but it genuinely surprised me to hear that other people who opt out don't share my experience.

I've opted out a few times. My experience has been pretty much like jchrisa. Just tell them that you are opting out when it's your turn.

They would find someone to pat you down along with another officer to watch the process. Pat down takes less than a minute but wait time for officers to become available can be up to 5-10 minutes.

Basically, yes. It's very easy to end up herded through unless you're paying attention. Now I watch carefully and see which lines are going through the big scanner and which are going through the smaller metal detector. Most of the time, I can just get in the metal detector line, no muss no fuss.

However, when it is unavoidable (happens at smaller airports when there are fewer lines in my experience), I just stop in front of it and say in my most polite sweet little thing voice "no thank you" or "I don't want to go through the radiation scanner" when I'm told go through it. I've had people try and tell me it's safe and (gently?) badger me into doing it (at which point sometimes I try and offer a reason, but mostly I just say "I don't care"), but every time I've been on my toes enough to refuse, I've gotten the patdown instead. The TSA folks have sometimes gotten kinda freaked out/uptight or antsy, but it generally blows over pretty quickly and 80% of the time doesn't take much longer than the regular screening. The rest of the time, it takes them 15 minutes to find another lady agent to do the patdown, so I always start through security a little sooner if I can't see separate lines for a metal detector-only screening.

I also refuse to go to the 'private' screening area. If they're going to grope me, I'd rather it be in public in full view of everyone else.

If anyone ever tells you the scanners are "safe," you need only mention (innocently and with utmost politeness, of course) that they have been banned in the European Union over health concerns.(1)

(1)http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2011/11/15/europe-b...

That's for the X-ray backscatter scanners; millimeter-wave scanners are in common use in the US as well, and are safe as far as we know.

"as far as we know"

Is there good, unbiased evidence of that? I don't trust the manufacturers nor the government, but I also don't believe because electromagnet waves are involved, it is inherently toxic.

X-rays have enough energy to break molecular bonds in your body (ionizing radiation), millimeter waves do not.

Is there a way, at a glance, to recognize x-ray vs millimeter machines?

Even if there is, I'm guessing it would be hard to tell at a glance whether the machine was calibrated by someone with a physics degree or someone who'd be delivering pizzas if it weren't for the growth of the security industry.

In the US, the backscatter x-ray machines are two giant ugly blue boxes that you stand between. The mm wave machines are more futuristic-looking, white cylinders that you stand inside of. (photos here http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/practical-travel-safety-issue...)

The technology deployment is airport-specific, so you will only find one or the other at any given airport, e.g. O'Hare uses Backscatter, Midway uses mm wave.

La Guardia is the one airport serving a major US city that does not have any of the new scanners, which can be nice if you typically opt-out.

Thank you, this is very useful.

I can in no way substantiate this, but the xray ones are usually two large (maybe always blue?) mostly rectangular blocks that you stand in between. The millimeter machines are usually rounder and have clear bits. The illustrations here might help: http://www.jaunted.com/story/2010/1/5/163631/3181/travel/Ful...

edit: never mind, the flyer talk pics are much better.

Currently deployed scanners operate in the 24-30 GHz range. Generally, microwave radiation is considered safe as long as it's not intense enough to cause burns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave#Health_effects

There are X-ray backscatter scanners in use in the U.S. For example, they are used in San Jose airport, which is probably the airport most used by HN readers.

ha! I will bust out my best sweet thing voice and biggest innocent eyes next time some one tries to tell me that. Even if it does only apply to the xray machines.

Yeah, it's not presented as an option. All you have to do is say, I don't want to go through the machine. At most airports you can normally just pick the metal detector line and avoid the opt out completely.

I'm flying in April and plan to opt out (I don't fly often). I'm down to less than one eye. I don't really want to irradiate what's left.

I wanted to the last time I flew, but it was so crowded and TSA was being so rude to everyone and had already handled my baggage so roughly that they dropped my Macbook on the tile floor (Logan International), that I just went through the scanner rather than bothering with it and raising a bigger fuss.

I'd say a lot of people feel pressured into "just complying" because of long lines and mean looks.

On the other hand, I've been in airports where the agents are just as friendly as can be.

I always opt out. I fly ~6 times a year (so twelve trips through security). Different airports are different. SFO is the worst I have dealt with. I get questioned by that security gate about why I am opting out in an agressive manner.

My real reason of opting out is to slow down the whole operation more than health concerns. Sometimes the pat downs are actually relaxing (like some sort of strange spa treatment). Sometimes they are rough when going up the leg until they meet resistance...but most of the time they are gentle.

> I've never been millimeter scanned and frankly the radiation aspects of it scare me.

The fact that Michael Chertoff had a financial interest in the scanner company while TSA was examining them for safety should tell you everything you need to know.

TSA needs to be shut down.

I've found that wearing gym shorts makes my opt-out pat-down go much more smoothly.

I make a point to opt out every time on principle, too, and while I do get a tiny modicum of satisfaction of telling the clipboard-wielding screener to write down "because it's un-American" as my reason for doing so, I've noticed an increasing delay in getting the physical inspection.

I fly a lot, and the delays have gotten longer and longer over the past year -- recently I've been left waiting for 30 minutes or more. I would be surprised if this wasn't an intentional policy to coerce flyers to subject themselves to the pervscanner machines, just like when they originally instituted the policy of fondling your nutsack if you opted out. This is an effective strategy, I think, because when traveling on business that extra time really does make you want to say fuck it, I need to review the changes to the presentation one more time, I'll just go through the fucking porno machine.

IMO, the indignities Americans allow the TSA to subject them to are just one more sign of an empire in decline. Flying into the USA feels like entering a draconian police state from a sci-fi movie -- even compared to flying into an actual draconian police state like China, for fucks's sake.

Is the statement from the TSA claiming they are mapping each individual body scan to a standardized body model? Doesn't this distort the scan and therefore reduce its value? I don't quite understand how they could adjust it so that it can no longer see the shape of an individual's breasts, for example, but can still identify suspicious bulges on the body. I don't mean to be crude, but I am very suspicious about this claim.

From what I understand, this system is only being installed on millimeter wave scanners and not on backscatter devices. In my experiences, the backscatter devices are much more prevalent.

You are correct. Here is more info (plus a small photo) of what the new AIT software upgrade looks like: http://www.tsa.gov/approach/tech/ait/index.shtm

Even with the new software, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a team of TSA employees looking at the raw images in a dark room somewhere.

If you accept the proposition that the software is a more reliable inspector than a person, the mapping makes perfect sense.

There is no doubt that software will be more consistent than various humans, but that doesn't say much about whether it is more useful.

Really disturbing - but not unexpected. Give people the power to choose who they want to see naked and it's inevitable that some people will abuse this power, I think.

The conclusion by a friend's father, when he went from Minneapolis to Chicago and back, was that the TSA only pulled a side young females (20s & 30s) for full body scans.

I've been pulled aside twice in about 10 or so flights. I'm male, old, and have a gut. Anecdotes != data.

My regular comment has been, "I don't mind the scans, but I'd appreciate it if they would stop giggling."

This has been my experience with my family, too (wife and two young kids). We've stressed about the pat-down v. scan each time we've flown, but the scanners haven't even been on when we've flown out of PGH.

During 2010 and the first half of 2011, my significant other (female) was randomly selected for the scanners 11 out of 12 times. The 1 time she wasn't selected was because the scanner was not in operation. I (male) was randomly selected 0 times.

Every time she asked for a pat down, the female TSA worker (who would be performing the pat down) would scowl at the young male worker. It seemed that female pat downs were in higher demand, making her job harder.

Now that more scanners have been installed at the airports we frequent, the TSA workers try to send almost 100% of the people through the scanners. Though, my significant other now gets directed over to the metal detector if there is a long line for the scanner.

Well, anecdote doesn't tell you how often this happens, but it is an existence proof. I think I would expect a priori that some TSA agents would be trying to do a good job and some would just be in it to letch on passengers. The question is how prevalent the later is compared to the former, and why the TSA isn't trying to distinguish them themselves.

I hate the TSA and everything, but can't you just look at someone and imagine what they look like naked in much higher resolution than the body scanners provide? People are afraid of being naked, but we all pretty much look the same.

Don't understand your point. Should we say to women: "you have no right to feel violated because the blurry outline of your breasts and vagina looks very similar to the blurry outline of that woman behind you (trust me I've seen a lot of blurry vaginas)"?

as an aside, I have to say I felt pretty uncomfortable seeing a man send my SO through the scanner; we weren't expecting it at our airport and she didn't really know what it was until she was already through. The power dynamic was a big part of this.

Why do you care about the gender of the rent-a-cop that tells you to stand inside an x-ray machine? He doesn't see the images, and even then, what difference does the gender make? There are plenty of people that are sexually attracted to people of the same gender.

I don't like the body scanners, but I could care less if someone sees me naked. The reason we should fight body scanners is because the cost/benefit ratio sucks. It takes too long to move a line of people through these things, so they aren't used on everyone. So all you've done is thwart terrorist groups that only have one member.

There could be no airport security at all and it's unlikely that many more people would die. If we lost one 747 a year, it would be a rounding error compared to the number of people dying in car accidents or from excessive consumption of unhealthy food. So why do we spend any time solving this non-problem? It just doesn't make sense.

I think the point to be made is that not everyone has the same comfort zone as you do. You may not care about strangers seeing you naked, but other people do. Being naked in front of someone can be an intensely vulnerable experience, and the feelings of vulnerability can be compounded by a wide range of factors, including power differentials, the fact that they are strangers, or that those strangers may be letching on your naked body.

For instance, I don't particularly care about being naked in front of people, but when I feel like I'm being objectified/letched on, that makes me uncomfortable, regardless of my state of dress.

Where do we draw the line? Some people feel uncomfortable when they aren't carrying a gun. Should we let those people carry guns onto planes?

Uh. what? I was trying to explain that feeling uncomfortable or violated was a reasonable reaction to a virtual strip search for people who aren't you. What the actual bleepity bleep does not allowing weapons onto planes have to do with the price of peas in Persepolis?

In most Canadian airports passengers step on a map which randomizes some numbers and then determines if you go for scanning or not. Of course, you also have the option to opt out.

On a side note, did the guy say "gingerale" at the end of the video?

Yeah, this is a sort of problem with well known solutions which aren't being used in the US for reasons that are entirely opaque.

I wonder if finding sketchiness in those image results could be automated. Everyone through the machine stands in the same position, they're just of sort of various statures.

I mean, the supposed upgrade would mean that they are reducing the ability of operators to observe images. What's the point in it then? At a certain point, the humans won't be able to beat software.

I know the reasoning of security theater(that none of this actually matters), but it's pretty fun to imagine what we could solve with technology and software.

It's a little difficult. If an employee screws up badly, they can be fired. If the software screws up badly, we can fix it, but people still lose their trust immediately.

I'd prefer this technology goes away, but if it doesn't, I'd be more comfortable if there was an impermeable wall between the people who see the scans and the people who select passengers for scanning. I don't see why they even need to be at the same facility. Why isn't there some central scanning office somewhere where all the scans are reviewed? That would eliminate a lot of the opportunity for abuse.

Of course you introduce the risk of network issues shutting down the scanners - but - uh - no big loss

Because I would prefer an image of me being sent to a centralized center where faceless, unnamed government employees equivalent to postal workers make decisions about my character without any option for petition, verification, or identification.

I flew through Kiev airport last week, and the metal detector was in front of the scanner... so if the detector beeps when you step through, you get told to halt in the scanner. If it doesn't beep, you walk through.

No idea what would have happened if I'd tried to opt out, and the relative levels of their English and my Russian meant I didn't really feel like finding out.

SO when will we end this security theater cluster fuck? I say if all depts have to face budget cuts body scans go away

Never under Obama or most Republican candidates (you can take a guess who's against the TSA), unless there's a major public outcry, at least as big as the one for SOPA.

Ugh. Its a licence to sleaze with ease. And no comeback. Deplorable. Makes one's flesh literally creep.

HN has been mocked repeatedly for having stories about TSA scanners on the front page... Yet here we go again.

Anyone care to explain how this is relevant to hackers?

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