"No Scan, No Fly" At Heathrow and Manchester 821
Posted
by
kdawson
from the stand-and-deliver dept.
from the stand-and-deliver dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It is now compulsory for people selected for a full body scan to take part, or they will not be allowed to fly from Heathrow or Manchester airports. There is no optional pat down. Also, a rule which meant that people under 18 were not allowed to participate in the body scanner trial has been overturned by the government. There is no mention of blurring out the genitals, however reports a few years back said X-ray backscatter devices aren't effective unless the genitals of people going through them are visible."
Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially when traveling with small children security on Heathrow was always a show stopper for me. There a plenty of alternative hubs to fly from, unless you want to go to London.
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeahh... That's probably complete bullshit. I can just see British parents dragging their children through scanners that take pictures of their genitals.
If it is true, I see a precipitous drop in air travel in that country. Screwing with adults and their privacy is one thing, photographing naked children is some next level shit to put it bluntly.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
You think this won't spread to other airports?
Thats it (Score:5, Insightful)
The terrorists have won.
The war is over. (Score:5, Insightful)
Since we're constantly being told the terrorists are "jealous of our freedoms", I think they can now say job done.
Re:What happens (Score:5, Insightful)
The goons working in security have a laugh at your expense and photograph the monitor output with their cell phones. Later, they upload it to funnypixxxxx.com.
Please someone stop this. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I was a local sheriff or whatever the British equivalent is, I would wonder over to Heathrow and hang out in the viewing room. As soon as a prepubescent child popped up on the screen, I would whip out my camera, gather evidence and then arrest the "viewer" or "viewers" for viewing kiddy porn. This is an extremely serious charge that effectively changes your life forever. Then I would let the courts deal with it. It would suck to be the worker(s) at Heathrow, but it seems it takes extreme action to wake people in Britain up.
What would you prefer? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Another reason not to fly. Period.
Re:Speaking as a morbidly obese male (Score:5, Insightful)
Better yet, as you are a morbidly obese male and as the X-rays from this device are designed to reflect from human skin, you can easily hide any contraband, smuggled pets, bomb belts or illegal aliens within your rolls of flab and they will be completely undetectable by the device!
Re:What would you prefer? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Screwing with adults and their privacy is one thing, photographing naked children is some next level shit to put it bluntly.
Yeah, some guy in Australia, I believe, got sentenced to jail for pedophilia because he had pornographic pictures of cartoon characters, but it's OK for government employed perverts to be ogling our kids in the name of "safety". Top grade job UK government, fucking A+.
Re:not that bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Some of think this scanner is pornographic? really (Score:1, Insightful)
Firstly, it's not like these images are in any way erotic. I doubt very much they could ever really be used in fashion. Secondly, do you really think these screens are visible to the rest of the terminal?
No, of course they aren't. You might consider it a breach of privacy, but only the operator will see that blurry, monocrome image of your genitals.
Complain about civil liberties if you must, but at least use arguments that don't make you sound like utter retards.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Both sides of this arguments have entered Ridiculousland a long time ago.
If we assume that these body scanners actually help in preventing terrorist attacks on airplanes, it's silly to exclude children. Pictures of naked kids are only a problem if there's a reasonable possibility that they will end up in the wrong hands. Also, I doubt these scans have any erotic effect on even the most desperate pedophile except for those with some freaky scanner fetish.
Surely you don't think x-rays of children in hospitals should be banned? Or pictures of naked kids for medical purposes in files of pediatricians?
But the other side of the argument is the one making that assumption, that these body scanners will do any good in preventing terrorism. Sure, they may help a bit to prevent all sorts of smuggling and they will prevent people from bringing most weaponry on board. But what's to stop me from implanting some C4, or putting a balloon of liquid explosive in my bladder? Does that mean we'll start x-raying everyone next? Fine, I'll have the bone marrow in my legs replaced with high explosive, don't need it where I'm going anyway, right?
Terrorists will always find a way to get explosives on planes if they feel they need to. The only thing we can do is remove their reasons for wanting to do so in the first place.
Re:Please someone stop this. (Score:3, Insightful)
If I was a local sheriff or whatever the British equivalent is, I would wonder over to Heathrow and hang out in the viewing room.
No you wouldn't. The viewing room will be the other side of security, and only authorised people will be allowed in there in the first place. Unless you're explicitly employed to deal with airport security, you won't be an authorised person.
Re:Some of think this scanner is pornographic? rea (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are Harrison Ford, or Miley Cirus, or some other celebrity, do you really think that the operator is NOT going to whip out a pocket camera and image the screen, and sell it to some of the low-life websites that exploit such things for cash? Or, what if he simply posts it on the internet? Of course not every operator will do that, but there's always a bad apple in every basket, somewhere.
Re:Really? (Score:1, Insightful)
How many international flights have there been globally the last 10 years?
How many terrorist attacks have there been on international flights during the same time frame?
How does the number of pedophiles convicted globally during the same time frame relate to the number of terrorist attacks?
What have the highest likelihood of occurring; you and your children being on the same flight as a terrorist pulling of an (successful) attack, or images of your children being naked ending up in some scan operating pedo's possession?
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:4, Insightful)
It's good that I enjoy camping more than I enjoy beaches.
Pictures not stored or captured FAIL (Score:5, Insightful)
The image generated by the body scanner cannot be stored or captured [...]
So... how did they get the pictures into the article?
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:0, Insightful)
Jeez, what's the big deal?
Why are we so quick to promote a high level of body-image self-consciousness (and then turn around and blame it solely on the media) for such mundane things as our naked bodies. Especially given the high risk of flying in the past decade we should be glad to IMPROVE airport security and *hopefully* speed up the entire security check process at the same time (i'm presuming here that after a few iterations full body scans will improve the efficiency of security check queues, in comparison to being padded down).
Now don't get me wrong, there are a number of regulations that need to be monitored and enforced in this situation and only through open criticism and critical review can all (or at least most of) the issues be ironed out prior to large scale usage. But as society evolves I hope we move towards a system that does not help reinforce the body-image issues that are prominent in the world today.
Let's especially stop raising nakedness onto such a high pedestal. And fortunately, compared to North America, a fair number of European Countries have already gone leaps and bounds in minimizing this issue.
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not the choice. The choice is a "quick" scan of their kids genitals and a 0.000001% chance of flying with terrorists, or no scan and a 0.00001% chance of flying with terrorists. It's really a no-brainer.
Seriously, we've never had genital scanners before and airplanes have been remarkably safe. In 2001, including all the 9/11 casualties both on the planes and on the ground and also the unrelated AA 587 crash, the rate was one death per 250 million passenger-miles.
According to the NTSB, the US fatal highway accident rate is 1.3 deaths per 100 million vehicle-miles, with an average of 1.6 occupants. By my math this comes to about two deaths per 250 million passenger-miles, double the risk of flying in 2001, which was already eight times higher than the risk of flying in a typical year. (I don't have equivalent figures for the UK.)
Should we install genital scanners at highway entrances?
When will it end (Score:5, Insightful)
When will this "War on privacy" end? Most likely only when and if people stand up to it. And they won't as they do not see it as a treath to whatever they have. I rather sit in a plane with a potential terrerist and riks to be blown to smithereens then people taking away my privacy rights because of some bullshit security.
The drive to the airport is still more dangerous then the flight itself and that includes being killed by terrerists.
When looking at it now, the stazi of Eastern Germany were boyscouts.
You should not fear anything but fear itself. But as long as the media is selling news as entertainment, we will be hearing about these outrages dangers that almost never happen. Man bites dog is news and this means that dog bites man isn't and won't be shown. That means that people do not get all the information they need to do some basic risk assesment.
You had nothing to hide, right? (Score:5, Insightful)
You had nothing to hide. Privacy didn't affect you.
Until some goon started to look at your balls when you board a plane... lol.
Sorry everybody, but I find it more disturbing that my every move is recorded and stored than that some person checks my genitals. The genitals are pretty much the same for everybody - my travels, my bank account, my posts online, my phone conversations - those are things that make me unique. Those matter far more.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in they day before the Wave of Pedo Fear, actual nekkid babbies running about the house were pretty common. Of course, that was before we discovered that genital representation has a huge blast radius and turns all nearby adults into baby boffers, just as bare ankles uncontrollably arouse men.
I'd go on, but have ASCII pron requiring fappage...
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Please someone stop this. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd then hope that the courts turn round and say "Look, there is a difference between silhouettes/nudity and pornographic content. Learn it and stop wasting our time with these stupid cases."
Unfortunately, due to modern conditioning that nudity = porn = evil, regardless of context, I don't suppose that would actually happen.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Pictures of naked kids are only a problem if there's a reasonable possibility that they will end up in the wrong hands"
"Surely you don't think x-rays of children in hospitals should be banned? Or pictures of naked kids for medical purposes in files of pediatricians?"
Did you really just equate My child's DOCTOR with some TSA (or what ever they call them in England) screener?
Are you ok with the Greeter at the entrance to Wall-Mart seeing your child naked?
How about the taxi driver?
Clearly, for this thing to work, they need to see your genitals.
Why then don't they have a strip search?
Quick, effective, cheap, and doesn't expose you to an x-ray. what could be better?
and it's not like "the wrong people" are going to see you naked...
these scanners are terrorism.
remember when it was pleasant to fly?
never again citizen.
Somebody has to see you naked before you fly... (Score:5, Insightful)
...I can't help but think that the terrorists have won.
Re:Thats it (Score:3, Insightful)
Most people in the UK aren't angry, they just don't care about it at all. And my voice, my opinion, my vote, means nothing and changes nothing. I don't think the terrorists are winning, but I do see their actions helping the govenment get the ubiquitous surveillance it wants.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you are not the only one. Fewer and fewer people are flying and it isn't just the financial crisis. I'm lucky enough to live in Germany with its 300Km/h trains, which for journeys of 3-4 hours is now offering real competition. Flying itself can be faster but if you add-on weather uncertainties and all the queuing/waiting for security scans as well as the issues over lost baggage - I'ld just rather take the train.
Unfortunately the UK is an island so going to most places is more difficult (but Paris and Brussels remain quite reachable).
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Terrorists will always find a way to get explosives on planes if they feel they need to
True, and actually, if someone shoves a C4 capsule up their ass, this stupid machines won't detect it. Hell, they can even swallow a complete explosive device and they can't do shit. So, why all the trouble, all the privacy violation? How many terrorist attacks have actually happened against aircrafts? More people die on the road or in aircraft accidents than on terrorist attacks. All this "air security" is complete bullshit, and people are "fine if we're secure". Come on! Two hours to board an stupid airplane is fine? Naked pictures of your child is fine?
What I find more intriguing is the real reason behind all of this crap. Distract people from real problems? Collapse the air transportation system? Mess with our minds? Totalitarian control?
I think the famous quote fits perfect here:
Don't go to England
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
>Jeez, what's the big deal?
Hey, it's not like anyone was using their civil rights anyway, right? Why should anyone care when government becomes even more obnoxious and intrusive?
-jcr
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd say there's a bit of a difference between kids running around naked at home or in the garden than having pictures of them all over teh intarwebs. The latter will happen, given the grade of people employed as airport security.
Re:Speaking as a morbidly obese male (Score:4, Insightful)
Read the article, please. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially given the high risk of flying in the past decade
compared to what exactly, being hit by a meteorite?
Images CAN be stored and captured. (Score:5, Insightful)
and
"The equipment does not allow security staff to see passengers naked, she added."
And both of those statements are absolute, 100% bullshit.
First, when those machines were originally designed, it was a specific requirement that they be able to store a digital representation of the images for later offloading or transmission. It was part of the specification. To say that they can't do it is a complete fabrication. Granted... presumably they have the ability to turn this feature off... but that is very far removed from "cannot"!
And as far as not being able to "see passengers naked"? Give me an effin' break! The picture accompanying the BBC article clearly shows otherwise. They might be faint, but you can see the guy's scrotum and penis. And I have seen other pictures and videos taken using these scanners, and you can see whatever the hell you want.
I have come to expect bullshit from government, but such bald-faced and blatant lies take me by surprise.
Re:Thats it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:2, Insightful)
Total recall is coming true, or is Hitlers henchmens grandchildren running the world now?
Sigh.....
If 10 nukes can get rid of all Trists, do it now, then we can have peace, and no TSA goons.
Statistically, its more likely a bee will kill you, and really, why bother going for a plane, there are more people waiting in the queues than in any plane.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Another reason not to fly. Period.
Annoying thing is sometimes life just gets in the way of making such decisions. I hadn't flown since 2001 until March last year taking all my trips to Europe via boat, bus and train. That is until my girlfriend got a cushy job in Spain necessitating monthly trips or no girlfriend. And much as I like the environment (and my privacy) not flying just wasn't a choice - and neither will it be, naked bodyscanners or not!
Re:Please someone stop this. (Score:3, Insightful)
If they're viewing CP, and you take a photo with the screen in it, congratulations - you just created CP.
Go to jail, move directly to jail, do not collect £200.
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
While generally agreeing with you... ...when you use those stats remember they are a bit deceptive. Yes, airplanes have very good safety when expressed as deaths per mile; but not so great when in deaths per journey, which is a more usable metric especially in case of airplanes (since short or long high altitude cruise doesn't make that much of a difference for safety). Generally, when travel by rail or bus is practical, it's also safer.
Where can we complain? (Score:2, Insightful)
Completely ineffective privacy protection (Score:5, Insightful)
So we are told that privacy is not compromised because the people viewing the images are in another room and cannot tell who they're looking at. Well, they're going to need *someone* to know who they're looking at, or else there's no bloody point in this system. Specifically, they need to be able to say "Bob, the feller in the machine has got a gun on his left calf". And Bob needs to be able to say "OK, I'm on it. Keep me updated with news from the other queues".
Well, if they can tell Bob that, they can also say, "Hey Bob, this one's got a tiny dick. And that sexy fucking bitch who just went through with the baby had the biggest fucking nipples you've ever seen". And Bob can reply "Alright, I'm pulling her over. I'll find her name and you Google her"
This system has no meaningful privacy protections. The protection that's most likely to be effective for any one of us, is going to be the large volumes of passengers they are dealing with, which reduces the time available for them to take a prurient interest in one particular passenger.
Good question (Score:4, Insightful)
How many terrorist attacks have happened against planes? Well, depends how far you go back. You see, all the security is nothing new and BEFORE they were put in place, attacks happened far more often. That an entire generation has grown up without constant hijackings, that says something.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially given the high risk of flying in the past decade
What high risk?
How many people have died thanks to terrorist incidents on aircraft in the last decade? How many people hove flown in aircraft? Divide the first number by the second to get the risk and you'll see it's a very small number indeed.
Re:not that bad (Score:3, Insightful)
The scans can be as detailed as they want. The two scans shown in TFA are almost the only ones you can find in the Internet - precisely because they look pretty harmless. Go to the manufacturers' sites, and you will find no sample images at all.
Why? Because the scanners can see the pores on your skin if they want to. The general public won't like that, so they restrict real samples of what the scanners are capable of. It would be a public service if some /.er could provide real samples of what the scanners can do.
They may well start out providing only vague images; there are also efforts to provide some sort of pre-analysis so that the operator only sees a sketch. However, once the scanners are in place, it will be easy to justify increasing the resolution to provide better security. In the end, it's a fair bet that the scanners will display the equivalent of high-resolution, black-and-white photographs.
Anyway, it really is all theater. As pointed out in other posts, obese people can hide objects under their fat rolls. Non-obese people can hide objects in bodily orifices (this is already a standard tactic in drug-smuggling - nothing new at all). Anyway, just get an accomplice in the duty-free, and pick up your package after clearing security. These scanners are so entirely irrelevant to the real security issues that one wonders what the real motivations are...
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
I largely agree with you, a fear of nakedness can never be an excuse for less security.
Why not? Why should the handful of people who set up security measures be allowed to tell everyone else what a sufficient level of decency & dignity is for them? Being able to tell someone when they're allowed to be dressed or not is extremely personal, and more-or-less the last hurdle to cover before you as-good-as own them.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
X2
with it becoming more and more obvious that doctors and nurses in operating rooms can't remain professional and discreet, why does anyone expect a $7 an hour security guard will? You do know there will be pictures showing up on some website at some point. Probably similar to peopleatwalmart.com. But instead of some overweight person grazing in the candy aisle wearing a leopard print, it will be pasty anatomically correct and higly detailed people.
If we have learned anything since 9/11, it only took 3 planes to crash before the passengers are willing to take on any potential security threat. Any incidents since then have been thwarted, not by the stupendously effective (ha!) security but by the other passengers will to live. There is zero need for the scanners.
Re:What would you prefer? (Score:3, Insightful)
If they decide not to scan children, then that's a further level of stupidity!
Considering that children are already used as mules to smuggle drugs, I don't see why an exception should be made for them "just because they are children". In fact, there are advantages to putting an explosive device on a child: you just don't tell him, and usually they are too innocent to ask. If you implement a policy that children don't get screened, I can forsee a lot of exploding diapers in the future... after all it's not as if you care about a kid when you want to bring down a whole airliner.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:2, Insightful)
The risk of *that* is pretty low, unless you happen to be Arthur Dent.
"Oh no, not again"
Full body scans won't do any good (Score:3, Insightful)
Implementation of full body scans as described won't do much except harass the traveling public and invade our privacy. The terrorists will just move into a new method of bringing their weapons on the aircraft. [dailymail.co.uk]
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:3, Insightful)
In that case, why bother with the body scanner? Just require everyone to fly completely nude.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
You do realize that you can see beads of sweat on these pictures right? They are a little more detailed than what you see on the media releases.
Also if we had these for 9/11 do you think it would have stopped it? Let's see what did they have to threaten the passengers:
1. Box cutters: sure a body scanner would have picked this up but so does a metal detector.
2. Vague threat of bomb onboard: yep body scanner would have done nothing for it. Maybe the guy cleaning the plane is one of the cell?
why bother with airplanes (Score:4, Insightful)
All that these new security measures are doing, is moving the target from the "protected" airplane, to the unprotected queues of people at the airports.
Looking from an attacker PoV, which "mission" sounds better:
A) a high risk bomb smuggling operation to blow up ~200 people in an airplane with minimal explosives.
B) fit as much explosives as you can to your luggage and queue to the airport security check line at the most active time.
Scenario B has almost no chance of you getting caught before you can blow things up.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Olymipics (Score:1, Insightful)
The security theatre you're referring to will be the Olympics.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, after 9/11, I'm not even sure if the armed guards would be necessary. 9/11 "worked" because people thought that cooperation with the hijackers would allow them to make it out alive. Now, things have changed - I'm pretty sure the passengers of a plane won't just sit by and wait until they crash into the Pentagon in case of another hijack.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Making explosives is just not hard for a dedicated person with basic reading comprehension and math skills. Your best bet is to ban education and close libraries, and well, the internet is right out.
The total lack of things blowing up all around us, combined with the relative ease by which an adversary could do so, tends to poke a giant fucking whole in the theory that specific measures to protect against all these people who aren't blowing anything up.
Its not about the right to blow stuff up. Its about the right to be secure in your person and have a little privacy. This invasion is unjustified. If i thought there was even a small chance that a full on "finger in the ass" cavity search meant the difference between me landing safely and dieing ina fireball, I would assume the position without a second thought. No machine needed.
I simply don't buy it. I don't care if this "feels" less invasive. Its still my privacy going away, for what I see as no benefit to anyone, not even myself as a flyer.
All I see is my privacy being taken away and my tax dollars being wasted to do it for some authoritarian wet dream.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
The right I was referring to is the right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. Do you actually equate privacy with violence, or are you just trolling in a particularly stupid manner?
-jcr
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
So they spend millions preventing a rare event, yet allow sale of tobacco that kills millions a year
It is sadly ironic that you complain about a government limitation of your freedom by suggesting that they limit your freedom.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:2, Insightful)
Peoples fear is scarier than terrorism.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:1, Insightful)
A couple things...the failed attacks have been as much about terrorist incompetence as it has passenger heroism.
I just have a hard time caring whether some doctor or security guard is having a chuckle over my saggy ass or hairy balls. Immature? Sure, but an egregious violation of my civil rights? Meh...
I find it much more concerning, for instance, how many poorly trained, roid-raging, gun-wielding policemen we have running around violating people's civil rights in much more substantial ways (life, liberty, property and all that). There's enough corruption in our government and law enforcement that it's really hard for me to care about my sack being posted on Airportscanner.com
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just a penis, there's no shame about this.
It's not the nudity that's shameful, it's the submission to an unreasonable demand from the brain-dead security theater assholes who pretend that obedience is the way to safety.
-jcr
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:2, Insightful)
I entirely agree.
I'd have far more respect for their argument if supporters of this law were to post images of themselves under this machine, for random strangers to see. Even there, it's a tenuous argument (just because some people don't mind, doesn't mean no one will), but the fact that they don't even do this suggests that they aren't even being honest about how much they value their personal privacy.
If a person wants to see a random person without clothes, can he do so? No, and he'd probably be arrested for even asking. Can we even see the people who will be watching us (with clothes or not)? Apparently not.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You had nothing to hide, right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Those matter for your security. Having parts of your body covered preserve your privacy. The two are different. I doubt you'd enjoy having a webcam in your bathroom, even though what you do in there is about the same as what millions of others do in their bathrooms. That would invade your privacy, even though it would hardly affect your security. Both are important.
I suppose your point was that if the scanners are there for security, which you value more than genital privacy. Funny thing is, they don't increase it measurably, and they decrease privacy.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
a fear of nakedness can never be an excuse for less security.
In your opinion, what can be an excuse for less security? Surely there is a limit; what do you think should this limit be?
Better way to beat the scanner... (Score:4, Insightful)
Wear leather underwear. Backscatter doesn't penetrate skin? Try penetrating this cow skin!
Re:Honestly (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you feel about these employees checkout out your wife and daughter's breasts and asses?
I have no problem with it. Just like I don't care when a doctor sees them. Being a doctor myself, I know that there's nothing "magical" that happens once you get your degree. We're still human, And you know what? You DO get used to seeing naked people, and it stops being a big deal.
Frankly if these machines mean I no longer have to take off my shoes and belt and watch, so much the better. Scan away.
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Had the man not been convicted before of a similar offence, I'm fairly certain the outcome (and press coverage) would be considerably different.
Oh, you think? Are you willing to step forward and be a test case then, if you're so sure?
(And "similar" offence? Abusive images are in no way similar.)
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:4, Insightful)
X3
The "random selection" is not very random. It is highly biased by the minimum wage security guards.
I am white but have an Asian (Islamic) last name. Out of 12 trips in the past six years I have been picked out for a random pat-down 11 times. I assume this is because white people who convert to Islam are the most likely to be radicalised in the eyes of the security people. I was born with that name.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
In the last two years over 80,000 people died on US highways, but there wasn't even one death from flying in a commercial airliner. [usatoday.com]
You're more likely to die from falling down your basement stairs, and far more likely to die at the hands of your own family than a terrorist.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:4, Insightful)
Peoples fear is scarier than terrorism.
Yep, they try to spread terror through random(ish) acts of violence that sometimes result in deaths. They are not simply trying to kill everyone who doesn't follow their particular brand of imaginary friend. Well, not yet anyway!
The best way to fight it is to not be afraid. Sure there are risks involved in flying (and anything else they target), but the extra risk directly attributable to the erstwhile terrorists is actually pretty small. The problem is that the media (TV and paper news) seems to be on their side and loves nothing more than going into Headless Chicken Mode, running around screaming "Something Must Be Done" and "Won't Somebody Think Of The Children" which amplifies and spreads the fear, and of course sells!
How about a world-wide go-slow on terrorist event coverage?
Sure, let us know when shit happens but for the love of everyone's gods, cut the crap "How does it feel" style reporting! We all know it's gotta blow goats to be blown up, lose loved ones, etc, and it really doesn't do anything useful in reporting events, it just spreads fear!
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:3, Insightful)
...and how many terrorists attacks on aircraft have been foiled by the other passengers?
None - Please do not say the fourth 9/11 plane, it did not get to it's target for other reasons, and crashed anyway?
The Christmas bomber was stopped due to his own incompentence not passengers, the people trying to but out the fire he caused were the staff of the airplane ... and if the bomb had worked no-one could have done anything
The real problem is that security cannot detect all possible devices, and may never be able to, so the security at airports is just theatre, and a discouragement to "amateur" terrorists
Security on the plane, the best one is the locked door that separates the pilots from the passengers, hijacking is now impossible
Air Marshalls are pointless against a suicide bomber, at best they might die before the bomb goes off .... at worst you now have a terrorist with a gun!
The passengers could foil a hijacking, maybe, but not a suicide bomber .... but since they are isolated from the pilots this is a moot point
Enough is enough.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I would take a picture of each of the guards at that scanner when a child went through and
then started a class action lawsuit against their company for promoting child pornography.
If you can allow someone to see a childs genitals without being for a medical reason or doctor,
I think this becomes a bit too close and personal.
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Pictures of naked kids are only a problem if there's a reasonable possibility that they will end up in the wrong hands."
So if somebody masturbates to an image of a child, the child is harmed, but if nobody masturbates to the image, the child is not harmed? In the case of the airport scanners, the feeling of one's privacy being breached will be caused by being forced to walk through the scanner. Harm cannot be caused by the sexual interests of the person who views the scan, which are obviously not known to the child. Photographs of children are only harmful if a child was forced into a situation which made him or her feel uncomfortable, and in such a case, the child will be harmed to the same extent regardless of who views the image.
The moral panic about paedophiles viewing images of children is an adult concern, not a typical child's concern.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm all for allowing smokers to smoke...
However...
They must wear a large acrylic box over their heads containing all smoke particulates, and inhale, re-inhale until the air is clean, or they die, whichever comes first.
Oh... and if you choose to smoke, then you don't get health insurance, or health care, period.
If you smoke in an enclosed place, where other people are, then you are arrested for attempted murder (poisoning).
If you smoke in your house, with people under 18, then you are arrested for child endangerment.
There...
Smoke all you want, clean the gene pool for us.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, you don't suppose that might have something to do with the vastly improved security measures do you?
Backward logic is fun.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile we all suffer by losing our privacy, wasting our time, and not being much more secure.
While this isn't directly related to airport security, the point is the same. I went to a government building yesterday, where they have security guards and a metal detector to get in. I put my keys and cell phone in the tray and walk through the scanner, at which point the guard at the trays tells me that I can't bring in my keychain sized (mini) swiss army knife....the one with the      So I can't bring in my tiny knife because he saw it, but I could have brought in up to about 5 handguns that I had hidden inside the books that were in my backpack. Way to go "security"
The sad part is that nearly every time I'm forced to deal with this garbage, I begin wishing that someone would actually breach security just to show people how insecure it actually is
Re:One of the worst airports in the world gets wor (Score:2, Insightful)
people scare far too easily, because they're incapable of dealing with their emotions sufficiently.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:4, Insightful)
I assume this is because white people who convert to Islam are the most likely to be radicalised in the eyes of the security people.
Look, in the last 10 years, there's been 9/11, the London and Europe train bombings, and the "set his balls on fire" man ... all done by Muslims in the name of Islam.
Exactly *which* demographic should the security guards be looking at ? Over 65 year old Mormons ?
It's not radicalisation, it's just common fucking sense ... target the ones who are more likely to be terrorists, rather than wasting even more of everyone else's time in the name of "fairness".
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:3, Insightful)
It is sadly ironic that you complain about a government limitation of your freedom by suggesting that they limit your freedom.
It is sad that someones addiction/habit hurts innocent bystanders and we stand by and let them do it.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:1, Insightful)
I assume this is because white people who convert to Islam are the most likely to be radicalised in the eyes of the security people.
Look, in the last 10 years, there's been 9/11, the London and Europe train bombings, and the "set his balls on fire" man ... all done by Muslims in the name of Islam.
Exactly *which* demographic should the security guards be looking at ? Over 65 year old Mormons ?
It's not radicalisation, it's just common fucking sense ... target the ones who are more likely to be terrorists, rather than wasting even more of everyone else's time in the name of "fairness".
It's a security hole to not make it completely random. If terrorists know that any one group is subject to less scrutiny, they'll use people from that group. Hiding whatever they want to hide in babies from caucasian couples, if they have to. It's not like there's any one group that has never been converted to their cause.
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the big deal over the naked-child-picture-scanners is that the hypocrite bastards insisting we all go through all this security bullshit are the same fuckers who insist on so many other freedom restricting things to "protect the children" and all that crap. I agree, it's logically inconsistent to complain about the stuff they do to fight kiddie porn, then turn around and use those same arguments you decried to fight these intrusive scanners. At the same time, though, it's an even bigger hypocrisy for them to make such a deal about child porn and then, basically, say "It's not child porn if the government does it".
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:1, Insightful)
So they spend millions preventing a rare event, yet allow sale of tobacco that kills millions a year
It is sadly ironic that you complain about a government limitation of your freedom by suggesting that they limit your freedom.
Actually, I think the point was to show that the government does not limit your freedom in one area that costs more in lives than terrorists ever have, while restricting your freedom to prevent an event that is statistically unlikely to occur in the first place.
The odds of dying from lung cancer are much higher than dying from a terrorist attack...At least on an airplane (or even if the bastards run it into a building).
The exceptions would be a weapon of mass destruction or biological release. The first, a full body scanner could check for, but is unlikely to be used on an aircraft - a nuclear bomb going off at 30,000 feet won't do much but create an EMP. The second can not be screened for, especially if the patient zero is already sick.
Thus, more security theater with the pervs getting lots of free porn.
On the other hand, maybe this will shut the religious freaks up for a while or at least permit people the space to tell them to shove their moral hangups about seeing the body naked.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no logic here besides some lobbyist wants our government to spend $ on their product.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a difference though. There's a clear mechanism by which police presence deters crime. It's also a reasonable approach that balances its effectiveness with the amount of inconvenience it imposes. Finally, statistics about crime rates and about police deployments are available. None of these are true of the airline security measures: the recent extensions don't obviously address any real threats, the information you'd need to independently evaluate whether they are somehow effective is most certainly not available except to people with a vested interest in ensuring they're found to be effective, and based on extrapolations from past rates, the costs of these measures far, far, far exceeds the impact they have in terms of actual results. So I don't think comparisons to magic stones of tiger warding are at all unreasonable.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:4, Insightful)
Over-react much? No one can sanely claim that there are no terrorists. The point people are trying to make (with varying degrees of success) is that the terrorist threat is much smaller than we believe, and our counter measures are much harsher than warranted by the actual level of threat. The parents Simpson's "tiger proof rock" analogy was illustrating that our security measures largely exist to make us feel safe, over actually making us safer. This is fine, until the cost of maintaining the illusion of safety becomes to high, and individual rights suffer.
Yes, this scanning thing does improve security by a marginal level, but is that increase worth the costs? Car accidents kill more people than terrorism over just about any time frame. Tigers also (well attacks by animals) probably also kill more people than terrorism. Terrorism is a minor threat, in the grand scheme of things. Yes, we should be protected, by only proportional to the level of actual threat.
Remember, this scanning technology wouldn't have even stopped the 9/11 hijackers (who merely used pointy things to cause a large level of destruction and terror). Terrorists are not idiots, they are aware of the technology and techniques we use to stop them, and are capable of finding ways to circumvent our best efforts. They always will have this ability, being human and just as smart as we are. In the long run we hurt ourselves more than we hinder terrorists.
This is what worries people.
I personally would rather live in a land with a marginal threat of terrorist attack, and a maximal amount of freedom, than one with maximal safety and a minimum of freedom.
If these scanners were universally deployed, and all travelers forced to use them, I would be curious at the actual increase in safety we would enjoy. At the cost of every traveler being, in essence, sti strip p searched under the presumption of guilt. I have a feeling it would be marginal at best, at a very high cost to civil liberties.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not a Muslim. I have never been a Muslim. I don't even believe in god. Why should I have my dignity literally stripped away because of your irrational fear of Islamic terrorists?
I'm afraid your pants-wetting antics are not justification for taking away my freedom and dignity.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:2, Insightful)
America: No longer free, no longer brave.
A sad time to be American IMHO.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:3, Insightful)
I assume this is because white people who convert to Islam are the most likely to be radicalised in the eyes of the security people.
Look, in the last 10 years, there's been 9/11, the London and Europe train bombings, and the "set his balls on fire" man ... all done by Muslims in the name of Islam.
Exactly *which* demographic should the security guards be looking at ? Over 65 year old Mormons ?
It's not radicalisation, it's just common fucking sense ... target the ones who are more likely to be terrorists, rather than wasting even more of everyone else's time in the name of "fairness".
I see a different angle: of all the Muslims, or people with Islamic last names, who have flown on aeroplanes in the last 10 years, how many of them have committed a terrorist act in the process? If you profile against that demographic, I bet the ratio of innocent people who fall into that category of ethnic heritage versus people within that subset who turn out to be actual terrorists will show that all you're doing is wasting a specific demographic's time. If you can only think of two flying-related examples over a period of 10 years, strictly going by the numbers you're likely to get a conclusion that terrorists statistically don't exist.
However, if you still think it's common sense to waste time based on ethnicity instead of wasting time comprehensively, why waste time at all? It's ridiculous to assert that security screening is needed, but it's acceptable to set protocols based off assumptions from a limited set of past data that inherently doesn't account for threat changes in the future. If strong security is truly needed, why weaken it by applying it selectively (for your increased convenience)?
Selective memory (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you remember...
A large part of why people feel threatened by Muslims is just that they happen to be an easily identifiable foreign group. A security system based on racial profiling is a security system with a back door.
Oddly, the UK government did not lose its senses during the IRA attacks the way it has now.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, one of the changes since 9/11 thats been mentioned by a number of experts is, this has been done already BY THE 9/11 HIJACKERS.
On 9/11 19 guys with boxcutters hijacked 4 planes. 1 person on each "team" had to be a pilot to fly the plane. That leaves 3-4 people per team to control an entire cabin full of full grown adults. How did they do it?
Certainly nobody wants to get sliced and maybe killed by a guy with a boxcutter. However, it takes more than that to hijack a plane. It takes one other ingredient...it takes the vast majority of passengers believing in a relatively bloodless outcome. Generally either planes got blown up, or hijacked, downed, and eventually a rescue or hostage exchange.
There was no reason for anyone to resist at all, since everyone believed this would all be sorted out and everyone was going home. By the time the first 3 planes were downed, the ploy had already ceased to work on the 4th plane. The passengers proved the new security model. This particular threat was eliminated and demonstrated to be eliminated when that plane crashed.
Now as to the point about explosives. I doubt this can be done. Adding weight to reinforce the plane will also help contain anything like an explosion. A good old fashioned firebomb should still do a pretty good job. I have seen pictures of IRA firebombs (so thats going back a few years) that ran off 2 AAA batteries, and the whole device was little more than 1 AAA battery square in flat area. It would be trivial to hide any number of ways... and thats hardly state of the art. (when was the last IRA firebombing?)