Don't Fly If You Just Had Surgery! 453
mcgrew writes "The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the TSA is now worried about surgically implanted bombs. Are they trying to get everyone to stop flying entirely? I know there's no way they'd get me in an airliner these days. I'll drive, even though it is far, far more dangerous."
This was from some B movie? any have a name? (Score:2)
This was from some B movie? any have a name?
I think it was on the scifi channel I don't think the airplane part was in it but the surgically implanted bombs was.
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So what should the TSA do here? Have a TSA surgical team prepped to slice people open and check things out, give them the grope from the inside?
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Shhhhh Don't give them ideas!!!
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No - wait... the TSA should actively WORK in every OR in the country to make sure no doctors are implanting bombs in someone who may then fly at some later time, which the doctor knows, and for which he could then set the timing apparatus...
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Jobs program!
Scalpel ready project!
Re:This was from some B movie? any have a name? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they should be disbanded and we should go back to the old security methods. They are clearly just security theater.
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It fueled the unrest that led to the collapse of East Germany ... so it actually worked out pretty well in the long run.
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MI5/Spooks had an episode where the woman had a bomb implanted in her, and she was supposed to blow up a bunch of dignitaries.
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Didn't "Hurt Locker" have it (the kid the hero is soft on)?
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What was that Schneier was saying about "movie plot threats" again?
We've had security theater since 2002, now it seems like they're trying to base their approach to security on his "Shit you never, ever do" list.
Re:This was from some B movie? any have a name? (Score:4, Interesting)
The outer limits had an episode where aliens abducted a human couple (wife and husband) while they were camping, made them into complete replicants with the same memories and all, except when they got near a trigger person (the president or whomever) their hearts would turn into a nuke and blow up. The antagonist was a security officer who's solution was to capture these replicants before they detonated and extract their beating hearts. He even mentions in the episode something to the fact that the last five humans (who were afterwards found out to be non replicants) died for a just cause.
Fast forward to the end, the husband escapes to the park they were camping in to find the alien ship to prove his innocence. They suspect his wife is the replicant and shoot her before she can explode. They find the original body of her in the alien ship, and then in a twist they also find the dude's body. When learning that he is a replicant he self destructs and explodes killing the security office.
I can't wait until we get heart extractors in airports.... you know, to find the terrorists.
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If they can continue to grope a pre-schooler who is clearly terrified and screaming "NO DON'T TOUCH ME!", they clearly already have a working heart extractor somewhere.
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The DKR already did it! (Score:2)
Harvey Dent :
he said "Twice as big as you can imagne"
Tell me that 9/11 isn't just a cheap ripoff of a comic book from 1986.
Why does the Joker hate our freedumbs?!!!
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Because, the Joker is/was an anarchist and a terrorist. His goal is/was to break down some of the things that keep society working, and generally mess up things that would cause as much discomfort to as many people as possible.
In a lot of ways, maybe some overlap in goals ... though, with more randomness and chaos thrown in for good measure. Less intent to "create" anything or to bring about a specific goal, much more intent to disrupt as broadly as possible and g
Re:The DKR already did it! (Score:5, Informative)
Tell me that 9/11 isn't just a cheap ripoff of a comic book from 1986.
No, as a matter of fact it was a rip-off of a novel by Tom Clancy [wikipedia.org] (read the last paragraph of the plot summary).
No shit. (Score:3)
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Bruce Schneier had an article on his blog about someone trying to blow up a Saudi prince using the old "bomb up the butt" technique recently.
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http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090902_aqap_paradigm_shifts_and_lessons_learned?utm_source=SWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=090916&utm_content=text [stratfor.com]
After al-Asiri entered a small room to speak with Prince Mohammed, he activated a small improvised explosive device (IED) he had been carrying inside his anal cavity. The resulting explosion ripped al-Asiri to shreds but only lightly injured the shocked prince
Re:No shit. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No shit. (Score:4, Funny)
Taco Bell!
Takes a lot to bring a modern plane down (Score:3)
Actually, it does take a fairly big boom to bring a modern plane down. Even an explosive decompression [wikipedia.org] doesn't bring the plane down.
The funny thing is that the guys who design and build planes would prefer they not fall out of the sky, so they tend to be big believers in redundancy. The sort of bombs you could smuggle on planes -- grenades, exploding shoes and underwear, binary explosives mixed up in the bathroom and other assorted nonsense -- don't pose much of a threat. You can relax. The sound you'll hea
Security checkpoints (Score:2)
Well the security goons already have the gloves - Just give 'em a box of scalpels and a bottle of iodine and let 'em do their inspections! Make sure you allow a few extra hours in your travel plans and don't eat or drink anything for at least twelve hours before arriving at the airport.
=Smidge=
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Don't forget to make the claim that it's not actual surgery, so no MD license is required. Nor really any training.
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This was the logical end (Score:5, Insightful)
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Face it folks, you can't be 100% safe, no matter how many liberties you give up.
Mod parent up.
Of all the days to be without mod points.
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No, the logical end is to give everyone who flies a sedative.
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remote detonation/timer
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It's a risk, but it's worth it. Travel can continue, airlines can generate revenues, taxes are paid (not the companies... travellers), and (as noted earlier) flights have a higher head-count and lower customer service needs. The occasional death is unfortunate, but a minor consideration in the cost/benefit analysis, since no one that actually matters bears that risk; just the individual traveler, and those costs can be mitigated through the mandatory and binding liability waiver required to travel to begin
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It was precisely what the terrorists wanted in the first place.. to make us so fearful that we started to treat people even worse, on average, than most third-world dictatorial/theocratic regimes do. They hated us for our way of life (rightly or wrongly.. doesn't matter at this point), and they succeeded in making it worse by proving that our high-and-mighty principles of liberty and privacy weren't as high-and-mighty as we kept saying they were to the rest of the world.
The only thing the TSA (and our gover
Re:This was the logical end (Score:5, Insightful)
It was precisely what the terrorists wanted in the first place..
Stop with the script reading, please... With its credibility in the shitter, it's what the government wanted in the first place. They had to use the terrorism angle to get us wimps to go long without questioning anything and distract attention away form its other abuses. Anybody who disagreed was immediately tagged.. Worked like a charm.. Exploitation of natural instincts always does
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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No one hates freedoms, quit repeating tired old government propaganda.
Re:This was the logical end (Score:4, Funny)
Re:This was the logical end (Score:5, Insightful)
They hated us for our way of life
You still don't get it.
Noone hates you for "your way of life".
They hate you because of the things your government has done and is still doing.
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The end? Nah, next is bombs triggered by brainwaves. Let us control your mind, or don't fly! If you're not guilty, why should you mind?
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You think this is the end? This will keep going because people will keep flying and travelling. In all of this time, I don't think there has been a serious decrease in air travel... at least not one easily attributable to the security measures anyway. It won't end until something bad happens to legislators personally to make them reconsider what has been going on. And this is rather like the healthcare system problems -- they never feel the effects of the healthcare system so they simply have no interes
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This was the logical end of this stupidity. Face it folks, you can't be 100% safe, no matter how many liberties you give up.
I disagree. Just think of the potential advances. A full body CT scan and a colonoscopy for each passenger/patient. The potential for improving colon cancer detection alone is just mind boggling.
Really guys, this could go a long way to dealing with the problems of cancer screening. Add a mammogram, a Chest CT (for lung cancer), a bit better backscatter machine that can find melanomas, a prostate exam and you're golden. I guess the pap smear could be an issue (TSA would have to be able to differentiat
Wasn't there... (Score:2)
...a bomb in the 80s that was left aboard by a woman who snuck it on...um..."internally"?
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It was TWA 840 [wikipedia.org]. Not finding any references to the bomb being carried in a body cavity, but I remember hearing it in news reports at the time.
Re:Wasn't there... (Score:5, Funny)
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Thanks for the Airplane 2 reference.
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I saw that documentary too!
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I just wonder why the genius's at the TSA has taken more than a year to consider this a "Threat".
Driving is far, far more dangerous (Score:2)
Especially those trans-continental trips!
What about ... (Score:2)
People chemically altered slightly to become human bombs. No, wait, that was a B-movie also.
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It was also an episode of Fringe titled Fracture.
Semantics... (Score:2)
"CNN is reporting, via Chicago Tribune" is the correct way to attribute the link in the story.
Here is the Chicago Tribune version: http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/la-pn-tsa-implants-20110706,0,1632570.story [chicagotribune.com]
From the basement of Trib Tower...
is driving more dangerous? (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, your chance of death from crash is lower sure, but thats a pretty narrow definition of "danger".
What about the "Danger" of being detained and missing your flight? The "Danger" of irradiation from newfangled machines that the TSA lied to the public about wrt safety and safety testing? How about the danger of having property taken from you? Forgot that little credit card tool with the knife in your wallet? fuck you, gone.
The danger that you will run afoul of some new secret rule?
I suspect the danger of being a victim of the TSA tips the scales in favor of driving.
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I think I'll go ahead and weigh the risk of death as a tad more important than the risk of a confiscated water bottle. The only people who are really put in danger by the TSA are those poor saps who work next to the x-ray machines all day.
I finally figured it out! (Score:5, Informative)
The TSA operation manual is actually Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Whoever mods me Funny, please don't. It's not a joke.
Re:I finally figured it out! (Score:4, Funny)
I'm pretty sure it is a joke. Perhaps one of those "funny because it hits close to home" jokes, but still a joke. The TSA can't be using 1984 as a manual. Even in 1984, they didn't require people to assume a submissive position while being photographed naked.
Great... (Score:2)
I've got a metal box in my chest for a nerve stimulator, TSA is going to have fun with me when I fly next week.
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They'll use a *Hand* Grenade (Score:2)
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>>Anyone's who's seen "DeathRace 2000", would know how this works.
I prefer the cranium bombs from Diamond Age and Shadowrun.
Waay more classy than "butt bombs". You'll never go triple platinum with a name like that.
Jumped the shark ... (Score:2)
If this is the level of security paranoia they're pushing for, all passengers will be required to travel while naked, bound, and with a bag over their head.
I realize for some people, that's the sign of a really hopping Saturday night ... but for the rest of us, it means that security has reached a level where commercial air travel involving the US is impossible.
Quite frankly, I can't see the rest of the world being willing to accept any more "enhanced tools" ... as it is, I have no intention of getting into
What about a butt-bomb? (Score:5, Insightful)
They've been ignoring the threat of butt-bombs for years now, even though a terrorist actually used that technique in 2009: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6862247.ece [timesonline.co.uk]
They also continue to ignore the fact that a liquid ban is ineffective when several travelers could combine their 3oz containers past the security checkpoint.
We reinforced the cabin doors, and that's all we ever needed to do to prevent another 9/11. The fact that we've allowed our government to waste billions while molesting innocent citizens is just sickening.
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Terrorists have been using it long before then. The palestinians were doing it back in early 2000's, and muslims in pakistan and the philippines have been doing it since mid 2000's. That doesn't even touch on the terrorists strapping remote explosives, or using using the mentally handicapped as walking bombs either. They've been doing the first more recently, 2 cases of schoolgirls. One in India, and another in Afghanistan. And the latter for nearly a decade as well.
Re:What about a butt-bomb? (Score:4, Informative)
We reinforced the cabin doors, and that's all we ever needed to do to prevent another 9/11
But such a simple solution won't make companies any money. And you know it's all about making companies money these days. Especially when the top administrators can get a kickback in the form of a high-paying lobbying job once they quit the TSA.
Ma'am (Score:2, Funny)
"We're going to have to inspect those breasts. To make sure they're real, of course. I'm going to have several of my colleagues provide their opinions as well."
"Hey guys! Cop a feel on aisle 4!"
Useless body scanners anyone? (Score:2)
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Not only will these expensive body scanners not be effective against internally-hidden explosives, even if the TSA cat-scanned passengers, the screeners would need a medical degree to recognize the difference between explosives and artificial joints, plates, etc.
The explosives hidden in the printer cartridges were x-rayed and eluded detection. Consider this from Wikip [wikipedia.org]
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Wait for some other device that can detect bombs in a cavity in the body next that just happens to have a present or ex politician as CEO or some other top level position with the company.
Wait until the TSArseholes see this: (Score:2)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104743/ [imdb.com]
Live Wire, with Pierce Brosnan
X-rays.. no, make that fullbody CT scans (Score:2)
I'm afraid you're going to have to come over here. (Score:2)
We're going to need to give you a cavity search.
*straps passenger to table, puts on gloves, grabs scalpel*
A deep cavity search.
No snakes on planes either... (Score:2)
Que Sam Jackson shouting "I am sick of these muthaf'ing bombs on this mothaf'ing plane!"
Alternate joke: After just having watched some anime, the TSA is worried about Psyonic attacks on planes, so they will be detaining and searching cute, underage girls with long wavy hair and large eyes.
There is nothing they can do.... (Score:3)
There are some surgeries that leave objects they cannot reliably distinguish from bombs without removal. Now that the TSA seems to slowly begin to understand what it takes for the to actually provide security, they may discover that they cannot.
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Or they might continue to insist on more ridiculous security theater until nobody flies anymore.
Flying after surgery has always been a bad idea (Score:2)
I used to work in the airline business in Minneapolis. Rochester, MN, home to the Mayo Clinic, is just a small commuter flight away. A lot of people would fly there for hospitalization from around the country and around the world. We regularly had trouble with people on their way home from Mayo who would get to Minneapolis then require an ambulance upon arrival because of problems with blood clots, lung function and other issues resulting from flying in a small seat on an airplane in a lower-pressure atmosp
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INAMD, but I think the primary risk is with being immobile during the flight and not so much the lower pressure. A friend of mine died from a clot that formed as a result of a leg injury followed by a long flight.
This site says [hss.edu] you're at risk for 4-6 weeks after surgery.
It's a good thing (Score:2)
Not particularly (Score:3)
However, it's not really even necessary to do that much. A woman who has recently given full-term birth has quite a bit of uterine capacity and a well-stretched cervix, plus all of the other indications of advanced pregnancy. Room in there for a LOT of HE.
So now the TSA can get really suspicious of every woman with a bulging tummy.
Next on the list: apple pies.
movie. plot. threat. (Score:2)
*sigh*
Not enough (Score:2)
Put every single passenger into their own kevlar-sack, then stack them in those bomb proof freight containers.
It's the only way to be sure.
scare tactics (Score:2)
This seems to be a pretty blatant attempt by a very unpopular organization to scare people into accepting restrictions on personal freedoms.
Drug everyone (Score:2)
The TSA is going to eventually get to the point where they determine that passengers are too dangerous to let on planes, but people have to fly, so the only solution (without having everyone fly naked) is to drug all passengers.
Airlines will love this idea, no more water, peanuts, or stewardesses needed. They will save a fortune, and the drugs to put everyone to sleep will be funded by your tax dollars. Profit!
And of course, the drug will be manufactured in the home state of whatever Senator proposes this i
tsa needs to be disolved and defunded (Score:2)
FTFA (Score:3)
Measures may include interaction with passengers, in addition to the use of other screening methods such as pat-downs and the use of enhanced tools and technologies, he said.
We're talking about implanted bombs. Pat-downs won't help.
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They will pat real hard.
The logical path (Score:3)
So, anyone with half a brain has realized by now that there are ways to get around these backscatter devices, whether it's with surgically implanted devices, sticking devices up an orifice, or simply being in the other line at the checkpoint. If we go down the rabbit hole a bit, the TSA will doubtless try to push things further over time in order to "protect" our security against additional threats (let's pretend that there isn't popular outrage for a moment), meaning that they'll start rolling out ideas like having passengers disrobe, doing body cavity searches, or bringing in full-power x-ray devices so that internals can be seen. Let's think about this a bit.
Logically:
1) The TSA has demonstrated that, left to itself and its own ways, it will attempt to enact policies that are as draconian as possible.
2) Surgically implanted devices cannot reliably be detected except with full-power x-rays of a passenger's internals.
3) Full-power x-rays will never be permitted for use on everyone, due to radiation exposure concerns.
4) As a result, the TSA can never hope to detect all devices, and is thus incapable of defending against all attacks.
Any intelligent person should then be able to see that none of the flights are safe because the TSA cannot stop a dedicated terrorist from accomplishing his or her task once they are in the airport already. Therefore, the question shouldn't be, "how do we stop them from getting in once they're at the gate?" Instead, it should be, "what's the most effective way to identify them before they get anywhere close to the gate?" We all have heard the ironic fact that the TSA has never actually stopped a single terrorist, but rumors seem to indicate that the various three-letter government groups have managed to stop several plots in the last few years. Why not double-down on something that works and is flexible enough to adapt to new threats, and ditch the useless security theater that can only react to threats we've already seen?
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And you think those lines are long today...
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Why? A more sane solution is to just kill everyone trying to fly. That will show the terrorists we mean business.
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Ya got to wonder how competent these people are. They should've realized this even before they deployed the back-scatter machines. On the other hand, if they were aware of it, and they're doing likelihoods - figuring that the back-scatter machines just increased the level of difficulty for terrorists, meaning they're being smarter about it, then they've no reason to have grandmas remove their diapers (as they did last week), because again, they operating on likelihoods.
Either way, all is not right in the u
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It's just your regular mission creep. They'll keep expanding as long as people let them as bureaucracies are wont to do.
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The back-scatter machines were about money. Robbing the tax payers to the tune of millions of dollars, for a snake oil fix that wouldn't have even caught the terrorist it was deployed in response to.
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*With connections to Chernoff.
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Racial and religious profiling don't work. The underpants idiot was black, the next one will be a recent convert if need be. Real security can't exist, the next threat may be from a white Christian, like OK city. We need to stop wasting money on the TSA, not find new ways to waste it.
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Czars should be sent to Russia. I'm sure they remember how to deal with them.
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needs to be shut down!
Why would they shut it down when they've gotten 80% of Americans to approve [cbsnews.com] of the invasion of our privacy?
Apparently, Americans deserve neither liberty nor safety
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And that is the problem the TSA hires idiots that are nothing more than rent-a-cops that do what they are told without thought.
Instead they need to hire people that sit and think, if I wanted to do X what would I do....... and then follow up on that. things can be done to solve a lot of the issues without violating the constitution like they are now.
Which makes me believe that security is NOT the point of all this. They don't want to do things in a way that preserves freedom. They want to get people