Female Passengers Say They Were Targeted For TSA Body Scanners 572
wiedzmin writes "TSA agents in Dallas singled out female passengers to undergo screening in a body scanner, according to complaints filed by several women who said they felt the screeners intentionally targeted them to view their bodies. Allegedly, women with 'cute bodies' were directed through the body scanners up to three times over by female agents, who appeared to be acting on a request from male agents viewing the scans in a separate room. Apparently this was done because the scans were 'blurry,' possibly due to autofocus problems with agents' smartphone cameras."
After hearing the claims, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) announced plans to introduce legislation that would require the presence of "passenger advocates" at airports to deal with complaints like these.
Re:OPT OUT- If you're in a country that allows it (Score:5, Informative)
Nice try, unless you are flying out of Australia to the United States. More to follow, I'm sure.
Re:What part can't the court's comprehend? (Score:4, Informative)
Here's what's going through their heads. [arstechnica.com]
It looks like a bunch of bureaucrats, their lawyers, and the judges were a big pedantic clusterfuck.
That's how freedom dies, it wimpers and dies under bureaucratic pedantry and government mendacity.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:3, Informative)
Re:OPT OUT (Score:5, Informative)
Who knows, maybe the paint used on the Hindenburg was cheap.
Re:Thank You George W. Bush (Score:2, Informative)
They were testing the scanners as early as 2007. I know, because I went through one of the airports (ALB) where they were doing a "limited rollout". Widespread introduction didn't happen until the Obama administration, sure, but...
Re:Thank You George W. Bush (Score:2, Informative)
Obama was President in 2007? That's when the TSA began to deploy the body scanners. They were approved prior to that.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:5, Informative)
This is a non-violence approach as best as Ghandi himself would have come up with. If the everyone opted for a pat down, then there would be massive queues as the TSA sods could not keep up with the folks in line, that gives them bad press - which is the last thing they want coming up to an election.
A possibly more effective solution: Refuse to fly. Take a bus, take a train, drive, or forgo travel, but don't pay into the system by buying a plane ticket.
Good luck with that. https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=TSA+Vipr&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 [google.com] They're coming to your bus and train stations as well as check points on the road with the highway patrol.
Duh...... (Score:5, Informative)
My thoughts on reading this were "Duh"!! I mean, who wants to look at a fat guy's junk, that is 98% hidden anyway by his beer guy...when you can look at some hot chick under her clothes?
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out....next obvious case study please!!
Re:And yet (Score:5, Informative)
No, he mean't Ben and Teller. Ben filled in for Penn while he was away filming for The Celebrity Apprentice.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently, in the twisted logic of TSA-land, if the gate-rape extends to a full handjob, and you ejaculate on the TSA goon, you have apparently committed the sexual assault.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:5, Informative)
If you try to opt out of both, the very best possible outcome is that you'll be turned away and lose the money you spent on the flight (non-refundable tickets are the norm).
In practice, people have been arrested and can be fined $10,000.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:5, Informative)
hahahahaha.
Linking to the Daily Mail is only not credible if what The Daily Mail is reporting is not credible.
I this case the report is credible and accurate. You can dispute what opinion of the Columbia professor cited in the article, but the Daily Mail is representing his stance accurately. Or did you think the article didn't accurately reflect his stance?
The Wiki has the same info:
"Opponents of backscatter x-ray scanners, including the head of the center for radiological research at Columbia University, say that the radiation emitted by some full-body scanners is as much as 20 times stronger than officially reported and is not safe to use on large numbers of persons because of an increased risk of cancer to children and at-risk populations.[67][68][69] Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, (UCSF) have argued that the amount of radiation is higher than claimed by the TSA and body scanner manufacturers because the doses were calculated as if distributed throughout the whole body, but the radiation from backscatter x-ray scanners is focused on just the skin and surrounding tissues:[70][71][72]
The majority of [the scanners'] energy is delivered to the skin and the underlying tissue. Thus, while the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high. The X-ray dose from these devices has often been compared in the media to the cosmic ray exposure inherent to airplane travel or that of a chest X-ray. However, this comparison is very misleading: both the air travel cosmic ray exposure and chest X- rays have much higher X-ray energies and the health consequences are appropriately understood in terms of the whole body volume dose. In contrast, these new airport scanners are largely depositing their energy into the skin and immediately adjacent tissue, and since this is such a small fraction of body weight/vol, possibly by one to two orders of magnitude, the real dose to the skin is now high."...... etc.
Sorry don't have a facebook account.
I'm sure the list is long.
I think linking to facebook is perhaps fraught with its own credibility issues. Peoples personal laundry lists are often fraught with bias.
In the end, it would seem prudent to not voluntarily radiate oneself on a regular basis or semi-regular basis with additional radiation more than one would get in the course of ones daily activities. Radiation exposure from my understanding is a bit of a cumulative problem.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:5, Informative)
I'm actually feeling uncomfortable thinking about what she said.
You can start here:
http://consumerist.com/2010/08/tsas-enhanced-pat-down-procedure-lets-their-fingers-do-the-searching.html [consumerist.com]
Then check this:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/10/for-the-first-time-the-tsa-meets-resistance/65390/ [theatlantic.com]
http://pncminnesota.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/rape-survivor-devasted-by-tsa-enhanced-pat-down/ [wordpress.com]
http://www.consumertraveler.com/today/tsa-admits-to-punishing-travelers/ [consumertraveler.com]
Re:Get a pat down. (Score:4, Informative)
What are the women afraid of here? They get patted down by a women. Think she's going to enjoy touching you any more then the guy that pats me down? Think again. The pat down is the solution to this...
Why do you think that the agent enjoying it is the problem? The problem is that the subject doesn't want to be touched. I don't care what the agent thinks, I'm not flying as long as that's a requirement.
Any one man or women that has a problem with someone of the same sex doing a pat down has issues
Anyone who thinks that giving up essential liberty for the illusion of temporary safety isn't a problem has issues. Your line of thinking is how ever greater breaches of our freedom become business as usual. This is creeping fascism happening on *your* watch, and you're going to let it happen.
It's hardly a "pat down". (Score:5, Informative)
As a guy, I've never had a problem with a pat down, but I've only had your garden variety.
I've only taken one flight from the US since the TSA appeared on the scene.
I went through the metal detector (the body scanner had a sign: "out of order"), collected my stuff, and had almost left the security area when someone called me back. He said he was worried I was hiding things in my baggy trousers (they were essentially flares), so his colleague gave me a pat-down search as well.
I get a "pat down" search about once a month. They're a relatively common requirement for entry to some concerts and nightclubs in London. They're checking for weapons, so the bouncer typically pats my pockets, checks around my waist, then checks my boots. If I'm wearing flares they sometimes think to check the legs -- just brushing down with their hands. The impression I've always had is that they're checking my clothes rather than my body.
The TSA person's search was in no way a "pat down". It was a thorough body search -- I'd never had anything like it before. He rubbed his hands down my legs with significant pressure, kept me standing in an uncomfortable position (arms raised throughout -- even though it was supposedly only my baggy trousers that were a concern). He made a very thorough check around my groin, including sweeping his fingers in the spaces around (including underneath) my genitals. Every time anyone's touched my like that before, it was for sex. Does that make it sexual assault? It was awful.
If I was given a search like that in the EU I'd walk away and make a fuss -- but in the EU I'm confident of my rights, and my citizenship. But what could I have done on my way home after a business trip to the USA?
Something I can do is not return in a hurry.
Re:And yet (Score:4, Informative)
No, you're thinking of Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Re:OPT OUT- If you're in a country that allows it (Score:4, Informative)
Or Great Britain. Which is why for my trip to Europe next year, I will not be flying through LHR.