Airport Body Scanners

[Kevin_Kennedy]

For the first time, some airline passengers will skip metal detectors and instead be screened by body scanning machines that look through clothing for hidden weapons, the Transportation Security Administration said Tuesday.

An experimental program that begins today at Tulsa International Airport will test whether the $170,000 body scanners could replace $10,000 metal detectors that have screened airline passengers since 1973. Airports in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, Albuquerque and Salt Lake City will join the test in the next two months, TSA spokesman Christopher White said.

Body scanners replace metal detectors in tryout at Tulsa airport - USATODAY.com

The article says that passengers are free to refuse the invasive and excessive scanner and do the traditional metal detector and pat-down, but I wonder how long it will be before these body scanners are mandatory in every airport and you are no longer able to refuse. This would be where I'd draw the line and say that flying just isn't worth the hassle any longer.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Good one less person to worry about flying and taking a seat I might want.

Lets let airplanes get blown up cause you feel security is unimportant.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Good one less person to worry about flying and taking a seat I might want.

Lets let airplanes get blown up cause you feel security is unimportant.

I didn't say security is unimportant, I said that this was excessive.

 

[Andrew2382]

I have no problems with it...I am sure David will be applying for the job so he can see all the cocks going through the machine....that or he is screwed because now they will be able to see his gerbil he is hiding

 

[Andrew2382]

when i went through fort lauderdale this past weekend they had a cool machine...blew little bursts of air that detect explosive material...first time I ever saw it

 

[auditor0007]

I have no problem with it.

 

[KittenKoder]

While being excessive ... it will make all those who fear terrorists on every jet look the fools they are. I love it, now there is no excuse for suspecting everyone who looks different.

 

[strollingbones]

wow idea job looking at cyber nudies of people between the age ranges of what...zip to 90? o yea i see a rush of applicants...andy...i am gonna have to rep you for that gerbil crack....

then you can explain to me ...how you knew about gerbils?

 

[jillian]

While being excessive ... it will make all those who fear terrorists on every jet look the fools they are. I love it, now there is no excuse for suspecting everyone who looks different.

I thought the thread was about body scanners; are we making it about profiling?

 

[strollingbones]

o hell i am all for profiling in the war against terrorism....for the most part we are not having white teenage girls blowing themselves up...or black teenage boys...
why waste your resources on people who are little or no threat?

 

[strollingbones]

morphing threads....o my!

 

[jillian]

I think we have to be intelligent about risk assessment. Sometimes that requires profiling.... not exclusively, but really, it's silliness for my 70-ish parents to be taking their shoes off to go through security.

 

[strollingbones]

i have qreat qualms about airport security...i think its real damned lax but then again i think having to remove my hoodie and toss it into a scanner is funny as hell....i did not think it was funny when the jackass in front of me in san fransico refused to remove his shoes and began a civil rights fuss with the tsa people....i was already running late and had to made security fast...

 

[editec]

In a few more decades they'll be requiring bone marrow testing before you can get on a freakin' subway.

 

[brownlou]

The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either.-- Ben Franklin

 

[Amanda]

I think it sounds creepy, I don't want to be scanned.

 

[Andrew2382]

then don't fly a plane?

Flying a plane isn't a right, it's a privelage

 

[AllieBaba]

That's right. Buses still run (and they're ridiculously expensive, I might add) and you can always drive. Or walk. Or ride a horse.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone.....Abraham Lincoln, who was Republican but who has somehow become the lefty Prez. du jour, suspended habeas corpus during wartime. So did Roosevelt.

Benjamin Franklin was an interesting and intelligent guy, but he wasn't a god. Perfect democracy and freedom is just as much a myth as perfect communism.

 

[Amanda]

That's right. Buses still run (and they're ridiculously expensive, I might add) and you can always drive. Or walk. Or ride a horse.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone.....Abraham Lincoln, who was Republican but who has somehow become the lefty Prez. du jour, suspended habeas corpus during wartime. So did Roosevelt.

Benjamin Franklin was an interesting and intelligent guy, but he wasn't a god. Perfect democracy and freedom is just as much a myth as perfect communism.

And it might be worth adding that Abe never flew anywhere. Neither did Franklin - even in wartime. And even though he was interesting and intelligent he couldn't make a decent soufflé to save his life... and yet there he is on the $100 bill. So just think about that. What does that tell ya?

 

[AllieBaba]

And although we fought using guerilla tactics, that isn't the same as terrorism. Franklin had not been exposed to women and children being targeted and slaughtered.

Though half the problem was the fact that the British military treated American households as their own. You could be killed or thrown in jail for refusing to provide any British soldier with room and board.