Full Body Scanners - Good or Bad?

[Rhinox]

What a load of shit.

Even worst is the old tired argument the SS used "If you got nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about".

Yes I envoked Godwin motherfuckers. If this is optional like someone mentioned if you refuse strip search I'm all for it but if its mandatory fucked that noise

[aduidarnenye]

This is interesting:

http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm

Sabotage accounts for only 9% of all airline disasters since the 1950s. I think there were a few before that. I found a record of a bombing in 1933. All told, I could only find about 25 bombings when I did some research (lazily on Wikipedia) and about the same number in attempted bombings, the 9% includes planes shot down and hijackings.

[Woozie]

That's pretty high. I would have expected much less x_x

[BRP]

This is going to make carrying firearms onto planes extremely inconvenient. I hope you are happy America.

[Cyn]

I'll just make sure to find a line with a really cute TSA chick running the scanner so she can see how huge my cock is.

(the scanners are pretty fucking retarded)

[Kazen]

I feel bad for the people running the scanner, for every hot person they get think of the hundreds of not so hot/old people they get.

[Cantih]

It's more a money issue for me, but even if I could afford it I wouldn't fly. Between the TSA and the airline companies, just fuck it.
It's part of why I'd like to see continental high speed rail architecture, while there likely be security on that as well, it may not be as bad since you can't exactly fly a train into a building.

Unless you want me to try and drive over the Atlantic, your opinion is ignorant.

It's slower, but I'd love if passenger ocean travel made a resurgence. Something more destination focused than cruise ships.

This can really go on for so long though, you can only piss off so much of your "casual" (vacation, family visiting) consumer base. That will only leave business users, people who HAVE to travel.
Personally, if anything really kills mainstream air transportation, it's going to be AR/VR telepresence. Once you can get an important guy on location simply by having a yob carry a hockey puck with cameras, microphones, and a speaker, that's that.

[Akucaen]

most of the full body scanners on the market are based on terahertz waves (T-Rays), well there is evidence that T-Rays kind of shred DNA.

I don't give a fuck about political correctness, racial profiling is fine with me. Seriously target and search the people most likely to do something leave everyone else to more reasonable levels of inconvenience.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24331/


We consider the influence of a terahertz field on the breathing dynamics of double-stranded DNA. We model the spontaneous formation of spatially localized openings of a damped and driven DNA chain, and find that linear instabilities lead to dynamic dimerization, while true local strand separations require a threshold amplitude mechanism. Based on our results we argue that a specific terahertz radiation exposure may significantly affect the natural dynamics of DNA, and thereby influence intricate molecular processes involved in gene expression and DNA replication.

personally I like my DNA to replicate the natural way with as little influence from sources of radiation as possible.

I think this bears repeating since people seemed to skip over this the first time. T-rays have a potential health risk and should be researched far more (since there's still contradicting evidence) before being put into production.

[arus2001]

NBC had a segment on these earlier this evening during the 6:30 news. Thought I heard one of 'em mentioned they used some sort of radio-frequency scanning. Dunno if that's the same thing as T-Rays, but it struck me more as some kind of sonar in that respect.

[Kuya]

Radio frequency, and you say it sounds like some kind of sonar?

[arus2001]

Bleh, radio = music = sound = blipblipbloodyblip.

I know it's not literal, but applications of sonar are kind of how I figured the mapping process would pan out.

[Kuya]

Radio frequency is electromagnetic radiation.

[Araelus]

The wind was so loud on that one I could tell where far away objects are and how fast they are moving based on wave reflection.

(was what I expected you to say)

[Chicomagiko]

X-Men shit

I'm with this guy. Bring on the mutant powars.

[Khamsin]

I don't get what people mean by "It only makes us feel safer."

Technically, anything that gives security personnel new information makes us safer. The issue seems more to be whether the small amount of extra safety is utilized efficiently by the staff and is worth the trade-off in inconvenience.

However, there really is no way to know just how safe airport security makes us. Nobody is going to attempt to bring something through the checkpoints that they know are being searched or scanned for. So security will rarely, if ever, find someone with explosives or a weapon. The only way to know for sure how safe it makes us is to remove security altogether and see how many planes get blown up.

The best they can do is, whenever something new gets through, patch that hole and wait until something else gets through. What else do you expect them to do? Pretend you're in charge of the country's airports. If you don't like what's being done, what would your solution be?

Personally, I think most things could be caught with a combination of full body scan, x-ray, and metal detector. If they can make the scanner and x-ray as fast to use as the metal detector, and just usher people through quickly, then that'd be good. Plus the usual baggage scan, which aside from carry-on could be conducted separately.

[archibaldcrane]

Radio frequency is electromagnetic radiation.

So...it's light?

[Kuya]

I suppose. It's like light.

[Dense]

The best they can do is, whenever something new gets through, patch that hole and wait until something else gets through. What else do you expect them to do? Pretend you're in charge of the country's airports. If you don't like what's being done, what would your solution be?

I don't want to single you out, but you made the best counter-point.

However, you are forgetting that nothing got through. The bomb didn't work, and the perceived threat could have been avoided entirely with intelligence, not extra security. Furthermore, in the wake of the panicky reaction, more security measures are thrown onto the average citizen as "security measures." Not to mention the profiteering.

A better solution would be something akin to the US Marshall on board the plane for international flights, and foregoing the rigorous security detailing, profiling and privacy. The problem with something like that, is that the authorities are much less concerned about terrorists than they are with drug import/export, illegal goods import/export, etc. This opens all kinds of doorways into tracking people who are not breaking any international laws.

[Kaylia]

If you don't like what's being done, what would your solution be?

Ban anything that is linked to middle east from your plane! (someone had to).


You probably had the best replies so far in this thread. I agree completely.

I suppose. It's like light.

Light make it sound more harmless than it could be thought.

[Cesaria]

I think we're forgetting this is an Optional service, and is only given if someone 1) Declines a full body search and 2) Looks suspicious.

Unless you go to the Airport looking and acting like a suicide bomber you won't need to worry about it.

Their profiling is decidedly shonky - my mum and step-dad flew to the States from the UK for a holiday on the 26th (white, middle-class professional couple - so not exactly the type to "look" like a terrorist if we're stereotyping here). They got off the flight and were pulled to one side and shunted into the "suspects" room - full of arabs and whoever had met the latest image of whatever a terrorist is looking like this week - they were the only white people in the room, my mum's convinced they were there to prove there wasn't racial discrimination going on. Kept for three hours - shouted at by security en masse to sit down and shut up, no toilet facilities etc - until my mum went and asked politely what was going on - and they immediately ushered them through and straight out within about 10 minutes with massive levels of apologies. While they appreciated what was going on in the aftermath of the Xmas nutter - my mum, who is normally very calm and laidback about things that need to be done, is actually at the point where she won't holiday in the States again after it.

So nope, "don't go to the airport looking like a suicide bomber" isn't quite it really.

I already avoid flying if at all possible (I prefer being on the guaranteed winning side when gravity's involved anyway) - because I find the security, mainly the way you're treated like shit when going through security at some airports, quite upsetting to be honest. I don't mind the need for it - but how you're treated, spoken to like shit, grabbed by the arm and pulled physically out of the line for a pat-down search is getting ridiculous.