TSA will soon be "psycho-bullying" people into body scanners

[Day]

Dude we waste so much fucking money on space and wars and shit the cost here is laughable, can't believe that's even an issue here. People like feeling safe. There's seatbelts on the plane lol. You think they are invasive, I and others personally disagree. You have every right not to fly and really stick it to them.

[bungiefan]

How about just don't fly if you don't want the scan or search? Not like it's a god given right to fly on an airplane. Maybe some of the people have such a big deal with it take the train or their car the lines won't be so bad at the airport and everyone will be happy. Jesus you'd think they were molesting you... do you have the same reaction to prostate exams or what the fuck?

Not a choice for Alaskans. Air travel is the only way to get around much of this state.

[Day]

Bullshit. Get your eskimo ass some dogs and a sled or a boat and paddle.

[Dalek]

I can think of at least 1. How many planes have we had fly into buildings since 9/11? Idiot.

At least one by my count. To say this is all about safety is incredibly shortsighted, what people are up in arms about is the continuing infringement and stripping away of their personal rights and freedoms. If you don't mind getting fondled, good for you. To disagree with the people who are genuinely concerned about your rights as a citizen is not only ignorant but against your best interests as well. Derp derp. It's kind of like the Tea Partiers and GOP supporters who think they're supporting lower taxes and reduced government when what they're really supporting a party whose interests are in direct opposition of helping said supporters.


"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." -- Benjamin Franklin.

[Day]

Benjamin Franklin didn't know everything FYI.

[Mertron]

i have no problem with the full body scan because i am hung like a horse and dont give a fuck who knows

anyone here against it has tiny genitals

[Antithesis]

i have no problem with the full body scan because i am hung like a horse and dont give a fuck who knows

anyone here against it has tiny genitals

http://www.bluegartr.com/customavata...tar31032_9.gif

[Dalek]

Benjamin Franklin didn't know everything FYI.

I'd hazard a guess that he knew what he was talking about a little bit more than you do?

[Max™]

I'll state conclusively that the current situation is EXACTLY the type of government abuse which he was warning against.

The government needs to be limited, and the citizens empowered, not the other way around.

[Silviya]

Man arrested after ejaculating during TSA pat-down

Someone posted this on Facebook. Never heard of Dead Serious News before so if it's like the Onion then please just ignore.

A 47 year old gay man was arrested at San Francisco International Airport after ejaculating while being patted down by a male TSA agent. Percy Cummings, an interior designer from San Francisco, is being held without bail after the alleged incident, charged with sexually assaulting a Federal agent. According to Cummings’ partner, Sergio Armani, Cummings has “multiple piercings on his manhood” which were detected during a full body scan. As a result, Cummings was pulled aside for a pat-down. Armani stated that the unidentified TSA agent spent “an inordinate amount of time groping” Cummings, who had apparently become sexually aroused. Cummings, who has a history of sexual dysfunction, ejaculated while the TSA agent’s hand was feeling the piercings. The TSA agent, according to several witnesses, promptly called for back up. Cummings was thrown to the ground and handcuffed.

A TSA spokesperson declined to comment on this specifc case, but said that anyone ejaculating during a pat-down would be subject to arrest.

If it's true I'm wondering what exactly he was charged with that warranted an arrest?

Edit: I've been informed that it's a fake article. Please disregard.

[Atreides]

CUMMINGS IS CUMMING

[zoobernut]

I would hazard a guess that it is fake considering that the mans name is Cummings and his partner is Sergio Armani. But you never know stranger things have been in the news.

[StareDownTheBarrel]

lol @ his partner's name being Sergio Armani

[Day]

No dude they are dead serious.

[Meresgi]

Dude we waste so much fucking money on space and wars and shit the cost here is laughable, can't believe that's even an issue here.

Ahh, glad after a long day at work i can come home, read this and have a good laugh.

[bigrougabagel]

Ahh, glad after a long day at work i can come home, read this and have a good laugh.

I personally think it may be sigworthy. Though I have yet to quote someone in my sig, so what do I know about sigworthitude?

[Norellicus]

Why the TSA Can't Back Down
Dec 2 2010, 12:15 PM ET 51

Organizers of National Opt Out Day, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving when air travelers were urged to opt out of the full-body scanners at security checkpoints and instead submit to full-body patdowns -- were outfoxed by the TSA. The government pre-empted the protest by turning off the machines in most airports during the Thanksgiving weekend. Everyone went through the metal detectors, just as before.

Now that Thanksgiving is over, the machines are back on and the "enhanced" pat-downs have resumed. I suspect that more people would prefer to have naked images of themselves seen by TSA agents in another room, than have themselves intimately touched by a TSA agent right in front of them.

But now, the TSA is in a bind. Regardless of whatever lobbying came before, or whatever former DHS officials had a financial interest in these scanners, the TSA has spent billions on those scanners, claiming they're essential. But because people can opt out, the alternate manual method must be equally effective; otherwise, the terrorists could just opt out. If they make the pat-downs less invasive, it would be the same as admitting the scanners aren't essential. Senior officials would get fired over that.

So not counting inconsequential modifications to demonstrate they're "listening," the pat-downs will continue. And they'll continue for everyone: children, abuse survivors, rape survivors, urostomy bag wearers, people in wheelchairs. It has to be that way; otherwise, the terrorists could simply adapt. They'd hide their explosives on their children or in their urostomy bags. They'd recruit rape survivors, abuse survivors, or seniors. They'd dress as pilots. They'd sneak their PETN through airport security using the very type of person who isn't being screened.

And PETN is what the TSA is looking for these days. That's pentaerythritol tetranitrate, the plastic explosive that both the Shoe Bomber and the Underwear Bomber attempted but failed to detonate. It's what was mailed from Yemen. It's in Iraq and Afghanistan. Guns and traditional bombs are passé; PETN is the terrorist tool of the future.

The problem is that no scanners or puffers can detect PETN; only swabs and dogs work. What the TSA hopes is that they will detect the bulge if someone is hiding a wad of it on their person. But they won't catch PETN hidden in a body cavity. That doesn't have to be as gross as you're imagining; you can hide PETN in your mouth. A terrorist can go through the scanners a dozen times with bits in his mouth each time, and assemble a bigger bomb on the other side. Or he can roll it thin enough to be part of a garment, and sneak it through that way. These tricks aren't new. In the days after the Underwear Bomber was stopped, a scanner manufacturer admitted that the machines might not have caught him.

So what's next? Strip searches? Body cavity searches? TSA Administrator John Pistole said there would be no body cavity searches for now, but his reasons make no sense. He said that the case widely reported as being a body cavity bomb might not actually have been. While that appears to be true, what does that have to do with future bombs? He also said that even body cavity bombs would need "external initiators" that the TSA would be able to detect.

Do you think for a minute that the TSA can detect these "external initiators"? Do you think that if a terrorist took a laptop -- or better yet, a less-common piece of electronics gear -- and removed the insides and replaced them with a timer, a pressure sensor, a simple contact switch, or a radio frequency switch, the TSA guy behind the X-ray machine monitor would detect it? How about if those components were distributed over a few trips through airport security. On the other hand, if we believe the TSA can magically detect these "external initiators" so effectively that they make body-cavity searches unnecessary, why do we need the full-body scanners?

Either PETN is a danger that must be searched for, or it isn't. Pistole was being either ignorant or evasive.

Once again, the TSA is covering their own asses by implementing security-theater measures to prevent the previous attack while ignoring any threats of future attacks. It's the same thinking that caused them to ban box cutters after 9/11, screen shoes after Richard Reid, limit liquids after that London gang, and -- I kid you not -- ban printer cartridges over 16 ounces after they were used to house package bombs from Yemen. They act like the terrorists are incapable of thinking creatively, while the terrorists repeatedly demonstrate that can always come up with a new approach that circumvents the old measures.

On the plus side, PETN is very hard to get to explode. The pre-9/11 screening procedures, looking for obvious guns and bombs, forced the terrorists to build inefficient fusing mechanisms. We saw this when Abdulmutallab, the Underwear Bomber, used bottles of liquid and a syringe and 20 minutes in the bathroom to assemble his device, then set his pants on fire­ and still failed to ignite his PETN-filled underwear. And when he failed, the passengers quickly subdued him.

The truth is that exactly two things have made air travel safer since 9/11: reinforcing cockpit doors and convincing passengers they need to fight back. The TSA should continue to screen checked luggage. They should start screening airport workers. And then they should return airport security to pre-9/11 levels and let the rest of their budget be used for better purposes. Investigation and intelligence is how we're going to prevent terrorism, on airplanes and elsewhere. It's how we caught the liquid bombers. It's how we found the Yemeni printer-cartridge bombs. And it's our best chance at stopping the next serious plot.

Because if a group of well-planned and well-funded terrorist plotters makes it to the airport, the chance is pretty low that those blue-shirted crotch-groping water-bottle-confiscating TSA agents are going to catch them. The agents are trying to do a good job, but the deck is so stacked against them that their job is impossible. Airport security is the last line of defense, and it's not a very good one.

We have a job here, too, and it's to be indomitable in the face of terrorism. The goal of terrorism is to terrorize us: to make us afraid, and make our government do exactly what the TSA is doing. When we react out of fear, the terrorists succeed even when their plots fail. But if we carry on as before, the terrorists fail­ even when their plots succeed.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/...ck-down/67337/

Still think you're better off this way, Day?

[Norellicus]

Oh my christ, they really are going there

Next step for tight security could be trains, boats, metro
By Jordy Yager - 11/23/10 02:09 PM ET

Editor's note: This story and its headline have been clarified to show that the Department of Homeland Security has not indicated it plans to use body scanners to tighten security at transportation sites beyond airports.

The next step in tightened security could be on U.S. public transportation, trains and boats.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists will continue to look for U.S. vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary.

“[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through,” Napolitano said in an interview that aired Monday night on "Charlie Rose."

“I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime. So, what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?”

Napolitano’s comments, made a day before one of the nation’s busiest travel days, come in the wake of a public outcry over newly implemented airport screening measures that have been criticized for being too invasive.

The secretary has defended the new screening methods, which include advanced imaging systems and pat-downs, as necessary to stopping terrorists. During the interview with Rose, Napolitano said her agency is now looking into ways to make other popular means of travel safer for passengers and commuters.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, introduced legislation this past September that would authorize testing of body scanners at some federal buildings.

Napolitano’s comments were in response to the question: “What will they [terrorists] be thinking in the future?” She gave no details about how soon the public could see changes in security or about what additional safety measures the DHS was entertaining.

The recently implemented airport screening methods have made John Pistole, who heads the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the focus of growing public ire.

On Monday, Pistole said he understood peoples’ privacy concerns and that the TSA would consider modifying its screening policies to make them “as minimally invasive as possible,” but he indicated the advanced-imaging body scans and pat-down methods would remain in place in the short term, including during the high-volume Thanksgiving period of travel.

Lawmakers from both parties have received hundreds of complaints about the new methods — some have likened the pat-downs to groping — and have called on Pistole to address the privacy concerns of their constituents, who were not informed about changes ahead of time.

Many lawmakers say the public should have been informed before the pat-downs and body-imaging techniques were put into practice. As a result, any move to implement new security screening measures for rail or water passengers is likely to be met with tough levels of scrutiny from lawmakers.

Pistole, who spent 26 years with the FBI, told reporters Monday that he rejected the advice of media aides who advised him to publicize the revised security measures before they took effect. Terrorist groups have been known to study the TSA’s screening methods in an attempt to circumvent them, he said.

Napolitano said she hoped the U.S. could get to a place in the future where Americans would not have to be as guarded against terrorist attacks as they are and that she was actively promoting research into the psychology of how a terrorist becomes radicalized.

“The long-term [question] is, how do we get out of this having to have an ever-increasing security apparatus because of terrorists and a terrorist attack?” she said. “I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful."

DHS and intelligence officials are not as far along in understanding that process as they would like, Napolitano said, adding that until that goal is reached, steps need to be put in place to ensure the public’s safety.

“We don’t know much,” she said. “If you were to try and devise a template about what connects this terrorist to this terrorist and how they were raised and what schools they went to and their socioeconomic status, or this or that, it’s all over the map.

“I think there’s some important work that’s being done on that but … the Secretary of Homeland Security cannot wait for that.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/administ...and-the-metro-

[Byrthnoth]

Christ, why not just adopt a foreign policy that doesn't lead people to try and kill us?

[aurik]

What a silly suggestion.