Controversial X-ray scan to be used at (Phoenix) Sky Harbor (Airport)

[blondeatlast]

Sorry if a duplicate--I swear I searched for it.

This is beyond disturbing, IMHO.



"It's my understanding..." in other words, I'm LYING...

"It's my understanding that this is the latest and best version (of the technology), and it meets our (country's) standards for privacy," Armes said.

The agency says that the X-rays will be set up so that the image can be viewed only by a Transportation Security Officer in a remote location. Other passengers, and even the agent at the checkpoint, will not have access to the picture.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1201X-ray1201.html

[Deja Q]

1. XXX-Ray. "Is it just me or is that a second gun you've got dangling down?"

:wow:

I wonder who'll be screening... :evilgrin:

[Parche]

5. dangling gun

What if its dangling up???? Excited???

[wakeme2008]

Dup but hard to find

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2839317

[blondeatlast]

3. I thought that it surely came up! My searches were x-ray, sky harbor (together)

and I thought for certain it would come up; but I was thinking of the AZ Central article.

[GrantDem]

2. What the hell is that on his shoulder????

[BrotherBuzz]

4. He's a sky pirate and that's his parrot?

:shrug:

[1620rock]

7. Well you can see that he's an air pirate....must be a parrot.

[lapfog_1]

6. Hmm - looks like it's time for Larry Niven's "What Good is a Glass Dagger?"

[HeeBGBz]

8. Ooh, a package scanner

Maybe I'll go to x-ray operator school.

[MrCoffee]

10. that's a 30 minute video and a day of OJT...now get to work.

[elehhhhna]

9. I see Foley's found a job in Arizona, then?

[valerief]

11. Okay, this is what I do not understand about this stuff. I can't

understand how men would allow their all-private willies to be x-rayed for god and the kingdom to see (and then to be reproduced and circulated on the web if the photo-controllers so desire). I mean, we rarely see willies in commercial movies (porn excluded) because they're so, ahem, disruptive to society. Are we going to see Dubya's xray? Condi's? Pickles'? And should we really be subjected to the unnecessary radiation? What are the health effects for frequent flyers?

[leveymg]

12. Did you ever see the film, Total Recall?

There's a scene in the Mars subway where everyone goes through an X-Ray machine at a security gate. Swear, looks just like this in the Schwartzenneger film made in 1990, based on a Philip K Dick film. "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" .

Eerie.

[blondeatlast]

13. Is no one disturbed about the civil liberty aspect of this?

Mr. BAL had to jump through some considerable hoops before he ever saw me naked. But some bootlick at the FBI, TSA, or DHS can decide any one in TSA can take a look at me?

I don't think so...

[Trillo]

25. From the article: "The technology already is being used in prisons..."

Great. Passengers are guilty until innocence proved, just like a prisoner.

They reportedly don't need to reimburse your travel ticket cost if you do not get on the plane because they ordered you not to get on it--their decisions and choices are 'your financial responsibility.'

Security does not take responsibility for that irrationality, they force you to, but don't worry, they reportedly grant a choice between a pat down and this machine, and once you have chosen either, it appears you have consented to the search. Hmm.

If they had to reimburse your ticket cost, as well as your time and transportation to the airport and perchance payments already made at the arrival locations (if any), and too many people objected to being searched, i.e., not choosing either, it would cost them too much money and they cannot have that, so a passenger refusing both choices, when security is so kind to offer the non-choice choice they do, doesn't affect them at all, which means they don't care.

With medical technology being what it is, there is information they could be scraping if you choose this backscatter search. So they claim that it will be immediately deleted, but where's the absolute proof of that? Even if immediate deletion is true, what other information might be derived from the image before it's deleted? Might the computer calculate ID points and save those? Bone distance ratios?

From article: "But we are assured that passengers will be protected."

Perhaps the machine also checks your temperature, just in case you're sick, how would we know. Right: We've been "assured".

I thought that idea that was discussed on the news for a few weeks after 9/11 about the passengers making their own safety in case of hi-jack was reasonable and natural.

[valerief]

14. Well, we just cannot support the airline industry any more. nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

15. Do you seriously think the airline industry WANTS this?

I'm betting the Air Transport Association and all the unions will fight this like crazy.

[valerief]

16. Well, we won't know until we dump them. For domestic travel, go Greyhound. nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

17. Speaking as an airline employee --

the airlines and their unions will fight this tooth and nail. Flight crews have to go through security, too; and it's a pain in the ass for them already. Pilots and flight attendants will not put up with being electronically strip-searched every time they have to report for work, and the airlines, which are already struggling financially, will resist overreaching security measures that deter people from flying. I'll be interested in seeing how US Airways reacts to this abomination at their hub.

[valerief]

18. Fabulash. I don't want the airlines to go under. But I don't want to

see this invasion tolerated either.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

20. Like I said... if it looks like the TSA is serious about putting these things

in airports around the country, you will see a lot of opposition.

[pink-o]

23. I work for a major airline out of SFO

...and the TSA there are ALWAYS telling our passengers that it's the AIRLINES who order the extra security screening, the AIRLINES who control the no-fly list, the AIRLINES who decide which passenger gets the SSS on their boarding passes. Most people believe this is true.

So I say to you all what I tell every passenger (pax in airline-eese) who confronts me about it: The AIRLINES are for-profit industries, whose businesses are dependent on customer satisfaction, and we have a vested interest in pax's comfort and ease so that they'll tell their friends and help us drum up more business--y'know, so we can keep our jobs. The government bureaucrats, OTOH, have NO interest in comfort or easing the stress of travel--the FAA and now TSA and Homeland Security have always been in opposition to our jobs. We fight their every stupid little restriction, but since The System rules us all, we're caught between a rock and a hard place.

Then I bring up the DMV and what a nightmare experience those bureaucrats are. Every pax walks away with a total understanding of the situation after that!

[drm604]

19. What about radiation exposure?

Can people be required to accept radiation exposure before being allowed to board? Will pregnant women (or any women of child-bearing age) be exempt from this, or can they be forced to make a choice between irradiating a fetus or not boarding the plane?

[valerief]

21. That was my first concern, too. I was thinking, okay, for personal

travel, if you don't like the radiation, don't fly. But what if you need to fly for business? Is OSHA still around (or has the GOP abolished it?) Can they protect workers from unnecessary radiation as a result of business travel?

[schrodingers_cat]

22. Will it pick up on the little nubbins sprouting from my forehead

cleverly disguised by a beguiling hairstyle, and the little forked tail that I keep strapped to my body under my provocatively stylish skirt?

:P :evilgrin:

[GoldenOldie]

24. Demand all Corporate Jet passengers be screened

Wanna bet the Homeland Security CEO's and the DC politicos who flit back and forth via Corporation Exec planes would put the kibosh on a this.

How many corporate jets are in the airspace at any one time and they are not little 2-seaters? They could just as easily become serious WMD's as any commerical plane if used in groupings.