Which will you chose when you travel this holiday season -- a virtual strip search where your privates will be flashed on a screen in some back room (maybe getting a dose of radiation from backscatter-type x-ray machines), or an "enhanced pat down," where a low-paid, unscreened TSA agent grabs your junk?While you're getting felt up, other TSA employees might be stealing your unattended cell phone or expensive watch, off in a tray out of your sight.
We understand the need for security while traveling and will submit to all reasonable requests, bomb-sniffing dogs, suitcase searches, delays. We don't want to be on a plane with someone who has a bomb.
But now, we don't want to be on a plane at all. Our dignity is being shredded, our privacy lost -- and our damn phone was stolen by TSA agents.
The same ones who will be feeling you up next time you fly.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010, is National Opt Out Day.
As explained by optoutday.com: It's the day ordinary citizens stand up for their rights, stand up for liberty, and protest the federal government's desire to virtually strip us naked or submit to an "enhanced pat down" that touches people's breasts and genitals in an aggressive manner. You should never have to explain to your children, "Remember that no stranger can touch or see your private area, unless it's a government employee, then it's OK."
For more information, here's an excellent article by the non-profit Rutherford Institute.
Photo from dontscan.us/John Wild/johnwild.info
Go to McBrooklyn's HOME PAGE.
How it's done in Israel:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother
I prefer to opt-out of the scan. I have never had a pat-down that I felt was inappropriate and even if that were to occur, I would rather have the guy (I'm male.) look me in the eye as he does so, and then be done with it, then have a digitized image viewed by people I cannot see and, protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, potentially stored. I also question how well calibrated the dose of x-rays is with these machines, especially in light of recent reports that hospital scanners often are set wrong despite scheduled tests.
ReplyDeleteI said I prefer to opt-out, but in fact I increasingly choose to drive distances that ten years ago I would have flown. Earlier this year I had a meeting half way across America and although I did fly in the end, I gave considerable thought (comparative cost, where I would stay mid-way) to a car-based trip.
We actually have moved to Amtrak where ever possible and find that it is actually less of a hassle all around.
ReplyDeleteMight as well walk in naked.. they're gonna see your junk anyway..
ReplyDeleteMaybe just scream whenever they touch your privates. Politely. But real loud.
ReplyDeleteThe government says that scans cannot be saved. In Florida, U.S. Marshals saved 35,000 scans:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fastcompany.com/1703043/one-hundred-naked-citizens-one-hundred-leaked-body-scans
Scientists raise concerns about cancer: http://www.latimes.com/health/fl-nbcol-body-scanner-cancer-brochu-120101117,0,3026203.column
ReplyDeleteYou just know that right before Thanksgiving there will be a big "terrorist" threat announced, and everyone will say thank god for the scanners! Then the threat level will fall after Thanksgiving ho ho ho.
ReplyDeleteIt happened already: officials in Gernany say the suspicious bag packed with wires and timers was a "test device" from the U.S.:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/world/europe/20germany.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Unbelievable: TSA screeners repeatedly search solders returning from Afghanistan -- let them keep rifles and pistols but not nail clippers:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/11/18/another-tsa-outrage/
How to complain to the TSA if they touch your junk:
ReplyDeletehttp://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/11/22/5510440-tell-the-tsa-dont-touch-my-junk-heres-how
Heard from a friend that TSA screeners at JFK told her scanning is mandatory. NO OPT OUTS.
ReplyDelete