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.
Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
Because what we need is not less invasive and less humiliating scanners, but additional people on the payroll so that all this useless technology can continue to have nearly zero impact on actual flight safety.
This is what happens.. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Passenger advocates" (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Passenger advocates, eh? How about plain removing the scanners. That'd be some Passenger advocacy right there.
Just fix the software. (Score:3, Insightful)
You can solve any problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who is going to keep an eye on the passenger advocates?
"So nat'ralists observe, a flea Hath smaller fleas that on him prey, And these have smaller fleas that bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum."
Not a surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
There were reports in europe about airport screeners doing the same thing not only to women, but to religious minorities. In turn people are corrupt, and when you take people who get 4 hours of training(give or take a little bit), and give them any type of authority. Bad things happen, like abuse of power.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:5, Insightful)
You realize the patdown (which is considered more invasive than a police pat-down) isn't really an acceptable answer for a lot of people either. You don't get to say a punch in the nose isn't an assault just because you offered to substitute a kick in the crotch.
Enough is enough (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
No, no, no!
Just stop with the scans!
The correct solution to this problem isn't to add more and more layers of complexity on top. It's to simply accept that this whole thing was a bad idea and drop it.
It's like some bizarro world where the obvious answer is starting everybody in the face but nobody wants to reach for it, so they try to find ways around it.
What part can't the court's comprehend? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
How is the TSA screening [i]not[/i] in violation of this. Being forced to go through machines that essentially strip you naked is well outside the bounds of 'reasonable' by the definition of anyone but a politician it seems.
USA, the land I used to want to go on holiday to. (Score:5, Insightful)
I love going to the USA, but your government really isn't making this a pleasant experience.
Get a pat down. (Score:5, Insightful)
What we need is to make sure the pat down remains an option. I get that every time they want to send me through the scanner. I just go through the opt out line that lets me get patted down. A guy with blue gloves on lightly touches me to see if I have a suicide vest on or whatever and then lets me go through. I assure you he enjoys the process no more then me. Which is how it should be.
I'd rather not get bombarded by radiation in their scanner or have nude photos or whatever in their storage system.
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...
And if enough people opt out of the stupid scanner then they'll stop doing it. And I don't think the pat downs are sustainable if everyone opts out which means they should start only doing it for some but not everyone. They can say they do it "randomly" if that makes the PC people happy but they're fools if they don't make a point of patting people down on watch lists.
We don't need advocates. We just need to make as annoying for the government to be annoying as it is for everyone else. If a TSA guy has to stand there and pat down every person that gets on the plane personally... then they'll be forced to adopt irritating practices.
In the meantime, it doesn't bother me. Any one man or women that has a problem with someone of the same sex doing a pat down has issues. And frankly, as a man, I really wouldn't care if a women did it. I grasp it's different for women and maybe they need someone special... I'm just over it. So long as it's isn't a chimp that rips my sack off I'll be fine.
Good job Schumer (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is what happens.. (Score:5, Insightful)
when you hire...pretty much anybody...and give them a badge.
Thank You George W. Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
A few Middle Eastern men show up at a Florida flight school with one blurting out that he didn't need to know how to land. All sorts of information about them makes it to the FBI, but the FBI does nothing. Later they fly a plane into a building.
Instead of removing the incompetent people and practices at the FBI you go against the goals of your party for small, cheap government by creating the white elephant of the Department Of Homeland security......and.....you screw over the freedoms of your fellow Americans by forcing them to be groped or nuked to get on a plan.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:5, Insightful)
You realize the patdown (which is considered more invasive than a police pat-down) isn't really an acceptable answer for a lot of people either.
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. Therefore, they put more and more and more staff on to keep up with the growing queues refusing the body scanner. Their budget blows out significantly and their methods are seen by the pollies as more and more asinine. Going into an election, the more noise and bad press that can be generated, the less politicians will want to touch it.
I live in outsde the US, but I can only implore you folks in the US to fight tooth and nail for all you can. Beat them at their own game - you have the numbers and you have the media there more than ready to take any hot load that will make the masses agitated. Use it to your (and by that defnition, everybody's) best advatage.
Take the invasive pat-down and blog about how violated you felt. If you are interviewed by someone else, be sure to portray the raw emotion, this will find a bond with all the voters out there who haven't personally experienced it. Contact your senator and write a lengthy letter outlining your outrage. Contact the airport directly and voice your objections - if they have enough complaints, they will (if they are not already) turn to be on the side of reason and common sense - make it bad business to support his TSA guideline and bring them to your side. Make yourself the martyr, and be proud, for you will be serving the betterment of your peers.
The only thing in a capitalist world that will serve your freedoms and personal liberty is bad business through bad press for those that seek to make money by taking it away from you.
Re:"Passenger advocates" (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution: Grow the government by forming a new department to look after the old one.
Somehow "Fire the bastards and shut down the TSA" doesn't seem to occur to people in congress. (D- or R- types)
Re:OPT OUT (Score:5, Insightful)
I always ask the groper, "how do you feel about your mother being treated this way"
Re:USA, the land I used to want to go on holiday t (Score:5, Insightful)
They've already done it, by locking the cabin door. The cheapest and most effective fix to the problem possible.
At my home city airport, we still have the normal meta detectors and non-mandatory pat-downs. Why? Couldn't a terrorist just drive to my city and fly from there? This whole premise makes the entire current system worthless.
Re:Thank You George W. Bush (Score:2, Insightful)
While George Bush certainly deserves a smackdown for his assault on civil liberties, the scanners were introduced on Obama's watch. Obama also signed into law the indefinite detention of American citizens and has no problem ordering the execution of American citizens who have not been formally accused of any crime. It depresses me to see fellow progressives cheer "four more years" for a man who has extended the very policies they decried during Bush's watch.
And it continues to baffle me why anyone would choose to vote for either Republican or Democrat when both parties have shown utter contempt for the people whom they serve. The only thing that seems to motivate politicians to do the "right thing" is the fear of losing their job and with advent of unlimited spending during election cycles, that fear doesn't have the weight it used to.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I totally agree, but this isn't always an option - and it doesn't send a direct message. Lower numbers of passengers can be spun as a downturn due to the economy, it can be spun as more people who are scared to fly due to the terrorist attacks. A long queue of people unwilling to accept an invasive body scanner is much harder to sell as a positive if you are trying to sell body scanners.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it possible to request someone of the opposite gender? I'm a guy and I'm a lot more comfortable with the idea of a woman doing the pat down - even if she's old and/or ugly for the much the same reason I prefer female doctors.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you might not know what you are talking about.
Body scanners may provide a person with a skin direct concentrated dose of radiation that is 20 times greater than previously thought.
This is particularly dangerous to kids.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1290527/Airport-body-scanners-deliver-radiation-dose-20-times-higher-thought.html [dailymail.co.uk]
Suggestions: (Score:3, Insightful)
For those who view low resolution body profile scanning as an invasion of personal space (I know I do and it's nothing to do with paranoia, it's just me wanting to maintain my personal space. If someone wants to take a blurry image of me home to masturbate over, that's their issue not mine): stop flying. There are other ways to get around.
For those who have a problem with staff members of the opposite gender viewing their scan images: demand that someone of the same gender processes you through (or simply refuse to be scanned, as is your right; however you may not be able to fly if nobody is available to pat you down because they're too busy drooling over the size 0 who just went through...)
Lastly, I would suggest that gate guards be prohibited from carrying their mobile phones on the floor. Period. There are company phone switchboards they can be reached through should the need arise; leave your mobiles at home and you'll find that you closed an avenue for getting sued, right there!
There's a conference in Atlanta this year (Score:4, Insightful)
...but I'll give it a pass, like I did since 2009, the last time I visited the USA. Please do not get me wrong: I enjoyed my time in Washington DC a lot! It was great, but getting there and getting back home involved truly unpleasant encounters with TSA officers. And I am not too easily frightened of security checks, because I had no issues with the security procedures at Ben Gurion Airport. But there I had the impression I was talking with (not just interrogated by) intelligent humans, and not morons with too much power.
BTW, the same conference was held in Seoul last year, and it was a blast.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you know what? Fuck them.
The government, politicians, and special interest groups love using faulty logic and bad science to justify their agendas. It might be dishonest and outright filthy to do the same, but I frankly have no problem leveling the playing field and using an argument that has clearly proven to be very effective on the American public.
So let's keep the "aircraft scanners send out harmful radiation" thing going. It'll definitely resonate with the over-50 crowd who lived during the Cold War. Let's get rid of these goddamned things in the fastest and most vicious method possible.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:4, Insightful)
Their budget blows out significantly and their methods are seen by the pollies as more and more asinine. Going into an election, the more noise and bad press that can be generated, the less politicians will want to touch it.
A great idea but it won't work in the United States because all outlets of media are tightly controlled by a few enormous conglomerates.
What will happen in the US:
Typical Chuck U. Response (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Typical Chuck U. response: the cure for problems in a power-drunk federal bureaucracy is... MORE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY!
Sometimes I'm really ashamed to be a New Yorker.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:4, Insightful)
Good for you. Some people are a bit more sensitive to that sort of thing. People who have been assaulted in the past can actually suffer a flashback.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:4, Insightful)
Despite all the anti-immigrant rhetoric flying around right now, I think the US still is pretty open to foreigners. There are 40 million foreign-born residents in the US right now, and most are assimilating well. I say come on over, you might like it!
Re:Enough is enough (Score:3, Insightful)
But the idea has worked perfectly. Everything has gone according to plan.
They're not blind, they don't specifically 'want' security to be worse, or people's grandmothers to be groped... they just don't care. If they play the game right while they control the government money flow now, they're going to be making a ton of money selling their political access and clout to companies like RapiScan when they're back in the private sector.
It was a great idea and worked perfectly for them, because it insured that they'd be making a lot of money for a really long time.
I used to think this viewpoint was overly cynical... but who was outspokenly speaking publicly in favor of RapiScan devices while being paid for what the RapiScan claims was 'unrelated consulting work', which happened to be the time that the government decided to not only use body scanners, but use RapiScan as the vendor? Well, former Chief of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, of course!
Whether or not the scanners are effective, or the policies are oppressive is completely irrelevant to the people who make the decision, which means the system is broken in this way. This will require deeper reform to remediate.
Re:Duh...... (Score:5, Insightful)
Still the images that come out aren't much to look at. I think even high school boys would be bored by nudie scanner output. If this is how TSA officers get off that's pretty sad.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:5, Insightful)
Within my lifetime, I anticipate that walking will become defined as "transport" and subject you to random security theater for the mere act of being on the sidewalk.
I hope I'm wrong.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably because you don't have a vagina for anyone to shove the side of their hand into. Our dicks aren't so sensitive (esp. when soft) and frankly we're not so picky about who touches them. I guess the best man-analogy would be if the TSA agent nearly touched your anal sphincter. Did it clamp shut just now? Good, then it worked.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:4, Insightful)
Heh I'm not coming over, not because of the people, because most are just nice and friendly and quite interested when I tell them I am from the Netherlands, but I don't like being treated like a criminal when I enter a country. Having my pic taken, fingerprints etc, and that data being shared with multiple agencies, etc.
You're not being treated like a criminal. You're being treated like the rest of us citizens, comrade.
Re:OPT OUT (Score:5, Insightful)
You get more radiation from being in a high altitude, unshielded aircraft (a LOT more, IIRC).
I don't see radiation as being a point of controversy.
You're a moron, and the TSA and the government love you for being one.
The scanners are operated by untrained monkeys.
The scanners are not calibrated.
The scanners are not tested.
The scanners are not maintained.
And of course, the radiation you receive on the flight mostly passes through you. The radiation you receive from the scanner is all absorbed in a few milimeters of your skin. You get orders of magnitude more radiation expsure from a scanner than you do from a flight, even if you believe the scanners are outputting the "safe" amounts of radiation that they claim.
Re:Duh...... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's almost pointless to argue against this kind of disinformation. The x-ray scans are about as good as a digital black-and-white photograph. I would definitely enjoy looking at those images of hot girls all day long and so would my right hand. The millimeter wave scans are not quite so good, but I'd still consider them in the titillating category. As far as the x-ray images the TSA themselves have finally admitted that they are pretty explicit, after having denied it for so long.
Think about it for a second. If the images were not explicit they could publicly release a whole bunch of them to prove it. Of course they haven't done that and the few images that have been released based on the original machine testing have been altered to reduce their resolution or even blur the genital area. The x-ray images are in fact really, really good. Good enough to detect small plastic blades or whatever underneath clothing. If the images were as low quality as some people claim the machines wouldn't be of much use.
Re:Duh...... (Score:5, Insightful)
What is also sad is Schumer's fix is to hire more people. How about call TSA's chief in and tell them it either stops or their funding stops. Schumer always was a tool.
Re:And yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Remove the people in the "back room", and have the back of the person doing the scanning visible to the people waiting in line to be scanned...AND have the display from the scan visible to those waiting.
Remove the damn scanners instead! They are not solving any problems (has even one person been apprehended as a result of this?). Germany had concluded that the number of false negatives is too high for these machines to be of any use. The health studies are still lacking (probably safe, maybe not. some were _definitely_ unsafe and are currently being phased out). And the contractors already got their 250K/pop for most airports. So can we just scrap them now and go back to metal detectors??
I think everyone agrees that one type of the machines that are now being phased out was not safe. Why isn't that fact alone enough to end the program and jail everyone responsible for not doing extensive health studies before forcing hundred of thousands of people through unsafe machines? How is "replace it with new, certainly more safe, but still not evaluated machine" an appropriate response?
Re:Beyond popular belief... (Score:5, Insightful)
Half of the moderators thought your comment was funny. It is both informative and interesting, but it truly is security theatre only, and it isn't funny that so many of our tax dollars are wasted on it. TSA is supposed to be Transportation Safety Authority, why not spend that momey on the highways and actually SAVE a few lives? Half a dozen people died locally in the last month who could have been saved by GUARD RAILS! 45,000 die on the highways EACH YEAR! The TSA should be disbanded.