Now that the story of TSA scanners has been in the media for a few days, what does a pundit have to do to get some attention around here?
Some dramas seem tailor-made for the Internet’s ephemeral obsessions, and the kerfuffle over the Transportation Security Administration’s new airport screening procedures is a perfect example. It’s got all the ingredients to feed a media circus: a whiff of government overreach, children prodded to tears, bold push-back, splashy protests, federal employees apparently frisking nuns–an irresistible recipe seasoned by the immediacy of next week’s Thanksgiving travel crunch. […]
While you’d never guess it from the hysterical media coverage, most people are…pretty OK with that. The breathless headlines and expert discussion forums provide a distorted picture of public perception. According to a CBS News poll, 81% of Americans approve of the decision to use full-body X-ray machines to weed out terrorist threats. Sometimes the screams of an aggrieved minority drowns out the rest of the public, and this may be one of those cases.
This fucker pushes all my buttons. The first button is the “in it but not of it” button, where some media asshole contributes to a media circus while pretending he’s above the fray. Then you have the “premature poll” button. This whole story has been around for a few days, so relying on a poll to determine settled public opinion is about as sensible as quoting polls of the 2012 election.
The “aggrieved minority” bit is a bit of an echo of this guy, who says that only yuppies fly, and they should just shut their privileged pieholes because they’re not getting waterboarded at Gitmo or being denied the right to vote. Maybe he’s watched a little too much Mad Men, because the 60’s was the last time that flying was a privileged mode of travel.
Of course, these guys have nothing on the ultimate contrarians at Slate, who I’m sure are working on the definitive “X-Rays are good for you” TSA piece, despite the lack of evidence that they’re anything but dangerous.
aimai
I’ve got a fourteen year old girl who is taller than me and has some pretty nice bazongas. She got pulled over last year and patted down when she was thirteen and we were on our way to see her Grandparents in Florida. They had me stand next to her and she was patted down by a woman who was royally pissed at the guy who had insisted my daughter needed the patdown. It was patently obvious that there was no point except that the guy who ordered it was in a jerky mood. My kid looked frightened and bewildered but at least I was nearby and the whole thing was more or less professional.
I’m really not looking forward to making the pilgrimage again this year with two pubescent girls.
For god’s sake if the Dems decide to triangulate and move right can TSA screening be Obama’s “school uniforms” move?
aimai
JWL
I am a reasonable man, albeit one with a low threshold (extremely low) where putting up with officious bullshit is concerned. For all the good its ever done me. Still…
Odds are I will not get along with the deputy dogs of the TSA the next time I fly.
Cermet
But x-rays are good for you – I’ve had the equivalent of a few thousand “chest” x-rays over the last three years (yeah, I try not to think of that) and I haven’t once been kill in an aircraft by it flying into a large building – so, it is good for you. By the way, the airport whole body scanner does not use x-rays but rather the far, far lower energy and rather safe microwaves.
donnah
Our local newspaper ran a front page article on how the scanners work, and showed a photo of what the scanned images look like.
I’m sorry, but that is really invasive. I mean, it shows everything, including a tampon a woman might have in. It’s just going too far. I don’t feel comfortable having people looking at my intimate parts.
SiubhanDuinne
I love that the “solution” to TSA abuses proposed by rightwingnuts is to privatize airport security.
Because that worked so well in the early 2000s.
WereBear
It’s not so much that privatization is a “solution” as it’s a way for someone to make money.
But the truth never sells.
Michael
Hey, so what if the polling picked up a bunch of folks who are 60+ who never got more than 60 miles from home in their lives. Their opinions count for something, too.
Betty
Flying is not a privilege for many people but a necessity. Those who have been traumatized by sexual assault will be especially harmed by these unnecessary and invasive procedures. There are much more effective ways to keep the country safe- better intelligence gathering and better law enforcement. This outrageous, and people need to let their voices be heard.
Dennis SGMM
What percentage of those Americans who actually travel by air approve of the full-body scanners? Then there’s the sad fact that 53% of Americans believe that the Constitution “establishes a Christian nation.”
I’ll take Ignorance for $300, Alex.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
So if you were to write a message to the TSA on your body in Magic Marker, something fairly scatalogical but not threatening in any way, would they be able to read it when they scanned you? Because I might do that, assuming I ever fly again.
cathyx
Could they use their new power for good? Could they find cancerous lumps or masses? Maybe doctors could have these machines.
Stefan
Sometimes the screams of an aggrieved minority drowns out the rest of the public, and this may be one of those cases.
Sure, like when we interned the Japanese in WWII. Sure, the screams of the Japanese aggrieved minority were pretty loud, but 81% of Americans were OK with it, so what was the big deal? If there’s one thing that should be subject to majority-wins public opinion polls, it’s civil rights.
ChrisS
What percentage of those Americans who actually travel by air approve of the full-body scanners?
I’d like to see the results of a poll of air crew and people who log more than 10,000 miles a year.
How many violent acts are committed with a firearm every year and how many people are rushing to the government to protect them at any cost?
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@ChrisS: How many people die every day due to car accidents? But most of us accept the danger to the point that we don’t even think about it.
El Cid
@Stefan: Yeah. It’s a good thing that the Founding Fathers (those alien gods whose intent supposedly only right wingers can derive) actually accepted the philosophical assumption that there are rights inherent in each human’s existence, and which cannot be removed except which to do so means tyranny rather than any legitimate action of democratic government.
ChrisS
Too many people get caught up in the “What if … ?” hypotheticals regarding air travel.
Sure, lots of shit can happen. Very rarely it does. I maintain that biggest change in air travel terrorism was that until 9/11 there had been no suicidal hijackings. Prior to 9/11, terrorists tried to sneak bombs on planes without getting on themselves (which is why we have to answer the security questions when checking out bags “Have the bags been in your possession the whole time, did you pack your bags, etc.“). When faced with a hijacking, crew/passengers were instructed to sit and do as requested by the hijacker.
9/11 changed that once passengers learned that they were going to die anyway, they overpowered the hijackers. Though they tragically perished, they prevented further death and destruction. Metal detector, locked cockpits, and air marshals, plus crew/passengers knowing that they can fight back, will prevent 99.9% of terrorist threats.
The rest is just show and wanton authoritarianism.
Mike
and of course, he’s distinct and separate from the the lowly and unSerious “internet” and the crass and common “media”.
El Cid
@Brian S (formerly Incertus): If I’m recalling correctly, Wole Soyinka (famed Nigerian author, political prisoner, and Nobel literature prize winner) turned his advocacy not only against corruption and authoritarianism but against irresponsible driving and traffic management since the useless deaths from driving recklessly slaughtered so many of his fellow citizens.
Mr Furious
@donnah: Got a link to that story?
Benjamin Cisco
I sense a theme here…
srv
Americans just need to get over this physical space obsession. Try commuting by train in Japan or on a bus in Bombay and you’ll realize just how freakishly weird, hypersensitive and over-sexualized Americans are.
Violet
@donnah:
The images the general public has seen are the low-res images. If you see photos or video of the computer screens where the images are shown, you’ll notice the settings are such that they’re being shown in a very low-res fashion. The images the TSA screeners are seeing are much, much more detailed than people imagine. And much more detailed than the ones that have leaked.
And if you didn’t hate Claire McCaskill before:
Bitch needs to send one of her 17 year old female relatives through screening and see how they like it.
Omnes Omnibus
@srv: What does this have to do with being groped or scanned by the TSA?
HRA
Actually, it is not the equipment, it is who is making the choice to use it and who is supervising them. I have had the experience of seeing the superiority being flaunted by government workers stroking their ego while serving the public when in fact it made no sense. If possible, they need to be replaced or assigned duties elsewhere.
I have this thought racing in my mind of giving those jobs first and foremost to the soldiers returning from the wars. Does this sound plausible?
chopper
traveling both xgiving and xmas time this year. wife is freaked out about the x-ray machines, but also about the pat-downs. we’re also toting a 2-year-old, and if she gets patted down we’re going to turn around and go home, fuck that. course, that’ll cost us about $600 in airline tickets.
either way we’re boned. i’m thinking road trips next year. shoulda got refundable tix.
chopper
@srv:
japan? where creepy old dudes on the train grope women all the damn time?
Violet
@chopper:
There are still a lot of airports that have the metal detectors and even airports with the scanners have both. You can find ways to evade the scanners if you do some research. However, just because you went through the metal detector doesn’t mean you won’t be selected for the pat down.
I’m traveling again soon and will opt out. I want to see what they do. Plus, I don’t need that extra radiation. I don’t trust the government telling me it’s safe and that the machines are carefully maintained. The science isn’t in for long term exposure from the machines, nor have they tested on machines that weren’t perfectly calibrated. You really think the TSA is carefully monitoring the calibration of the machine? Ha.
Stefan
Americans just need to get over this physical space obsession. Try commuting by train in Japan or on a bus in Bombay and you’ll realize just how freakishly weird, hypersensitive and over-sexualized Americans are.
You are aware that women in Japan and India are subjected to frequent groping and sexual assault when out in public, right?
Stefan
I have this thought racing in my mind of giving those jobs first and foremost to the soldiers returning from the wars. Does this sound plausible?
No, absolutely not. Give it to the guys with PTSD who’ve spent the last few years kicking down people’s doors and learning that the best response to resistance is with violent and overwhelming force? Yeah, that’ll go well when an Arab-American starts to mildly object to an invasive grope…..
Violet
@HRA:
If they are still active military, yes. If they have left the military, not so much. There’s no difference between the expected behavior of someone who used to be active military and a civilian if the organization they work for doesn’t have rules and regulations that govern their activity and someone in a supervisory position to enforce those rules.
Omnes Omnibus
@HRA: I say no. TSA screening is law enforcement, or akin to it. The military should not be involved in domestic law enforcement. Soldiers are not trained for it, they are not necessarily suited for it by temperament, and, most importantly, we are not a military dictatorship where soldiers run things.
srv
@chopper: See, there you go. Now Americans will be afraid to go to Japan because they think the trains are just filled with perverts and pedophiles.
Perhaps we can just have the TSA folks dress up as Catholic priests, right? Actually, that’d make a great SNL skit.
Stefan
If they are still active military, yes.
If they are active military, they shouldn’t have any task that gives them enforcement powers over American civilians. Posse comitatus and all that….
Violet
@Stefan:
But if they’re not, then they’re just civilians and it doesn’t make any difference if they’re hired vs someone else. It’s all about the organization that is hiring them, that organization’s rules, culture (do they encourage ogling “hotties” or groping large-breasted women?) and ability to enforce its own rules.
So if the whole thing is changed so soldiers are in charge of security, then fine because that’s the new rule and at least the soldiers have a clear chain of command and are trained to follow orders. The issue of whether or not the military is allowed to do that constitutionally is a separate issue.
srv
@Stefan: People seem to have forgotten all about the troops carrying machine guns at the airports already… Posse comitatus is so yesterday.
HRA
@Stefan:
I was thinking more on the line of having them employed after service. A relative had a hard time finding a job after military service in the Gulf War.
@Violet:
I agree.
wenchacha
As I understand it, the “scatter” x-rays only penetrate the skin layer of our bodies, so it’s not deep radiation that kills cancer cells. However, the TSA is saying that it’s a tiny amount of radiation, no big deal. Well, yes, a tiny amount for a whole body mass, but not so tiny for just the mass of skin which covers a body.
Doctors are questioning the risks of skin cancer to people who fly frequently, the young, the aged who are more prone to cell mutations, and people with immune disorders. Then add the doofs who might “fiddle with the knobs” for a clearer picture and mayhap turn the x-rays up to eleven.
I am totally pissed off that Mike “the Living Corpse” Chertoff is part of the company that has sold these machines to TSA. Were there any competing bids for this thing? It’s just like Neilsy Bush selling his bullshit educational software to Texas schools because his last name is Bush.
Is there anyone willing to work for the people, the government and not use it as an opportunity to line his own pockets? I guess if Scalia and Cheney don’t give a shit about conflicts of interest, nobody else needs to either. The whole thing disgusts me.
Violet
@wenchacha:
Although I’ve looked, I haven’t seen anything about the maintenance schedule for these new backscatter machines. X-ray machines in medical settings (and research settings) are calibrated and checked regularly. The maintenance schedule for these machines should be made public, as well as the log of the actual maintenance. So far I’ve not seen any evidence that they are being maintained except for random TSA officials saying they are. Sorry, that’s not good enough.
Why are the TSA employees who work near the machines not issues radiation dosimeters so they can keep track of how much radiation they are exposed to on daily basis. Others who work around radiation, such as in a medical setting, wear them. OSAH should get involved.
Tony Alva
I’m with SRV here… We Americans are soft. I’ve listened to the masses complain about our collective aversion to ANY sacrifice and we’re asked to climb into the USS Enterpirse photon body scanner that some disinterested TSA worker is going to look at and the interwebs blathering meter hits the roof. BFD, you don’t want to be fondled, get in the damn thing and be done with it. I’ve got a fucking flight to catch. “Oooh, they’re going to see me naked!!!” “This is so oppressive!” Just. shut. up.
matt
Yesterday in the SLC airport we watched a blushing TSA employee administer the enhanced pat down to an elderly man in a wheelchair. Unbelievable.
Violet
@Tony Alva: Perhaps you and your loved ones are immune to cancer, specifically skin cancer, but for those of us who are at risk, the new machines present a danger. There is sufficient evidence that the government has not tested the machines for the effects they cause when a person is exposed to them multiple times. Nor is there a maintenance schedule available and they have not been tested under non-maintained circumstances. If you travel only occasionally, perhaps it’s not an issue. For frequent fliers it’s a health risk.
Additionally, the new machines in no way make us any safer. How do nude scans of flyers guarantee that the printer cartridges in cargo won’t explode? Answer: it won’t. It also would not have caught the underwear bomber. Nor the shoe bomber. In fact, all of the recent bombing attempts WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CAUGHT by this new technology.
I’m all for good security. I’m NOT for Security Theater, which this is.
RalfW
I could not care in the slightest if some TSA person sees my jewels on a teevee monitor. Roughly 3,147,254,041 people on earth have junk more or less similar to mine, and there’s no shame in that.
What I object to is the Xray radiation. I have no confidence that corporate Merika has built these machines well enough that they’re idiot proof and I am confident there are enough TSA idiots that some people are gonna get some “oops, we set the machine on stun” dosages. Not long ago, we heard of people having routine CAT scans and getting more than their lifetime max radiation dose because untrained rubes ran the machines.
(Ranging into TMI here) I have one very tender testicuticle. Have had for 20+ years, Doc says “eh, you’re fine, whatev” but a pat-down of my gentleman-business might be nausea-inducing painful.
So, uncertain Xray dose or risk of getting racked by a dude in latex gloves. Happy Christmas, RalfW!
I also, too, object to the whole theater of it, when stopping terrorists looks a lot more like the intelligence (and a bit of luck) that went into intercepting the recent package bombs shipped from Yemen.
Stefan
People seem to have forgotten all about the troops carrying machine guns at the airports already…
I haven’t. I see these idiots in Grand Central Station all the time in their camoflague fatigues, like we’re some sort of comic opera banana republic. It’s all theatre. What are they supposed to do if a bomb goes off — start shooting their automatic weapons into the crowd?
Stefan
So if the whole thing is changed so soldiers are in charge of security, then fine because that’s the new rule and at least the soldiers have a clear chain of command and are trained to follow orders. The issue of whether or not the military is allowed to do that constitutionally is a separate issue.
What? You can’t just say “whether it’s legal and constitutional or not is a separate issue”. That’s the entire issue. We don’t live in a military state, and soldiers are not and should not have any role in day to day domestic security enforcement, barring some sort of civil war or rebellion (I’m looking at you, Texas).
Tony Alva
@Violet: In the air all the time. As I said, beam me up Scotty and get out of the way. Breathing air gives you cancer. Me, I’m wearing my best silk boxers from the Balloon Juice swag shop with the Tunch “Feed Me” pattern on them just to brighten the screeners day. There are bigger issues to tackle like the mass consumption of Red Bull and vodka at Saturday tailgate parties…
Stefan
I could not care in the slightest if some TSA person sees my jewels on a teevee monitor. Roughly 3,147,254,041 people on earth have junk more or less similar to mine, and there’s no shame in that.
I don’t know if you have a family, but do you object when they see your girlfriend’s or wife’s or young daughter’s jewels on the monitor, and smirk and giggle to themselves over it?
RosiesDad
At the end of the day, our security screening at airports is stupid and ineffective both at the passenger entrance areas as well as the vendor/service areas of the facilities. But someone will get rich selling new devices that someone else will figure out how to defeat within a matter of months.
Violet
@Stefan:
Then why are they at the train stations?
I was speaking hypothetically in answering the initial question. Right now, the constitution apparently says soldiers can’t be involved in security enforcement. Fine. The constitution can be changed. That’s the beauty of it. My answer was in relation to if it was allowed.
@Tony Alva:
Question: If the next bombing attempt comes from a woman hiding explosives in her vagina or a man with a bomb up his rectum, will you support the implementation of vaginal and anal security checks? Is there a limit?
For me, this is the limit. I have been subjected to the enhanced pat down. It’s invasive, humiliating, and somewhat traumatizing. I can only imagine how awful it would be for a rape or abuse survivor. It, along with the nude-o-meters, does not make us safer. I support security that makes us safer. I do not support giving up my rights as an individual and being sexually assaulted just to fly from one place to another. ESPECIALLY when those checks do not do anything that other, less invasive forms of security inspection do equally as well.
Tony Alva
I heard that when you get into the life pod scanner thingy the TSA agent could if he wanted to hit a button and you’ll be turned into little particals and end up real tiny like the kid in Willy Wonka.
Get Chris Matthews on the phone…
TooManyJens
@srv: Your response to Japanese and Indian women complaining of being sexually assaulted on public transportation is “Americans are fraidy cats”?
Stefan
Then why are they at the train stations?
Because we’re stupid and passive sheep. They shouldn’t be there. Lots of things which are illegal and shouldn’t happen still do happen because not enough people object.
SpaceSquid
This is remarkably far from what the blog post you linked to actually says. The crux of its argument is that there are far worse things going on in the United States (or at least have been very recently) and it’s interesting that it’s this that’s causing people to start shouting. The point isn’t that only the privileged fly, it’s that the ranks of those who fly include the privileged. He’s arguing that if these measures were only applied to Muslims and the poor, hardly anyone in the media (and maybe the public in general, at least in many cases) would give two shits.
In short, he isn’t arguing “X is worse than Y so no-one can complain about Y”, it’s “X is worse than Y so why are complainst about X so conspiciously absent?”
RalfW
@Stefan: Well, I don’t have a wife or kids. I haven’t yet asked if my boyfriend if he cares.
Here’s the deal as I see it: These people will be looking at 1,000s of images of bodies each day. Thousands. You, or me, or even a 15 year old girl will be on the screen for about 3 seconds. I just can’t get worked up about it.
But I’m a libertine with a Swedish mom and I think the human body is a precise, fine instrument inspired by god (but that also farts, so god has a sense of humor).
Looking at images of the human form is just that – looking at images. If the person looking snickers or acts juvenile, then they are diminishing themselves, they have announced that they are immature, uncomfortable in their own bodies, and foolish.
And I just don’t care about them if that is their mentality. My dignity remains in tact.
ricky
Why on earth would anyopne in his or her right mind want to drive on our totally unsafe roads to get to an airport to go halfway across the country or world to visit business associates you can trick into a Mohawk on Cisco.
singfoom
@Tony Alva: There are indeed many issues that are more important than this, but this issue segues nicely into many things that are of concern to me. I don’t take issue with the screeners seeing my form, but I don’t like the idea of additional radiation.
Just because you have a cavalier attitude about it doesn’t mean that everyone else does. The choice of either being scanned or groped is a binary choice that I’m not interested in.
Again, I think the primary complaint here is that this is all ineffective and offensive. If people thought it was effective and offensive, it would be a different discussion.
I used to fly twice a week. Luckily, I’m not a road warrior anymore, but if I was, I wouldn’t want to be scanned all the time and I wouldn’t want to be groped all the time.
Nor would I want anyone’s wife or children to be scanned or groped.
My concerns are for my health and my constitutional rights. Sure, I agree with you, this falls lower on the scale than other constitutional issues going on right now, but can you not see that every little issue counts?
Why not use the air puffer machines? Or something that instead of scanning you, is a booth that samples the air around you for particles of explosives?
I think quite a number of people merely want our security to be effective and NOT invasive to this point.
Remember the old Benjamin Franklin chestnut, “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Violet
@RalfW:
Do you think you should be able to choose who gets to see you naked or that you should be forced to strip whenever anyone tells you to do so? I think the choice should be mine.
What if the next bombing attempt is from something hidden in a body cavity. And then the next form of security is vaginal and anal inspections. Would that be okay? Is there a limit? Where is that limit? For me, the limit was awhile ago. I don’t think the government has any right to do the things it is doing.
Whether or not the actual security inspections bother you personally is not the issue. The issue is whether the government has the right to do what it is doing, whether the security techniques do any good (they have not been demonstrated to do so) and are they safe. I believe there is a big FAIL next to all of the above.
RalfW
@Violet: As I said, but will now emphasize, I’m a libertine about my body image. Of course I would not submit to a cavity search just for the very mixed privilege of flying. I do draw lines, all the time, as to what is OK or not. Being fine with something up to a point does not mean the point moves and vanishes off into the distance.
And my libertine attitude is mine. I do not confuse it with broad public opinion. I can add my voice to the discourse, and suspect that some people (maybe few, I dunno) will agree to some extent. I may even hope to persuade or at least nudge a few to consider my view.
But really, I think we need spend much more time and energy objecting to the Patriot Act-type intrusions. Our digital cavities are being searched right now in ways that I find more objectionable than a clothed, gloved pat-grope.
bobbo
After he uses the word “kerfuffle,” you can pretty much guess where he’s going.
Violet
@RalfW:
I don’t disagree, but there’s something about seeing and feeling the invasion of privacy that makes it a bigger deal. Is the government wiretapping you right now? How can you tell? Is it affecting your daily life? How do you know? But the TSA inspections are affecting you, if you fly. You feel that hand on your testicles or labia. You go through the porno machines. You watch the TSA agents ogle your daughter, wife or girlfriend. You know it’s happening. It’s a lot easier to protest when you know it’s happening and it’s happening to you now.
And don’t knock organized protests over this issue. There’s a chance that people will wake up to this government intrusion and start asking, “What else are they doing?” Maybe not, but organizing for one issue makes organizing for another issue easier.
I think those of us against Patriot Act-type governmental overreach should welcome this level of complaint. At least the populace is complaining about some kind of governmental intrusion. Gotta start somewhere.
befuggled
@matt: In the eighties a Palestinian tried to get a bomb on a plane using his pregnant Irish girlfriend. There’s no reason a terrorist couldn’t use his grandfather, or somebody else’s grandfather, to do the same (willingly or otherwise).
Mark S.
The CBS poll doesn’t provide a lot of context, so I don’t think it’s the ace in the hole this Swampland guy thinks it is. But regardless, I have a feeling this will foil zero terrorist plots, but probably more than the no liquids rule.
j
Sounds an awful lot like the Teabaggers. A tiny group of mouth breathing knuckle draggers yelling and screaming…and eventually becoming THE story of the year.
And on a smaller scale, that idiot woman from Alaska. Until that loonie “makes” “news” she IS NOT NEWS! Any teenager can Tweet or have someone put up a Facebook page. I wish the MSM would forget she even exists.