Wanna bet these become an airport standard in the US by 2010? Virtual Strip Search machines..

[HipChick]

(edited for copyright purposes-proud patriot Moderator Democratic Underground)


They are already deployed in a few US airports..they will be standard in EU by 2010

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/05/18/airport.security.body.scans/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/3110533/EU-to-introduce-virtual-strip-searches-at-airports-by-2010.html

http://www.editinternational.com/read.php?id=4819e7e38fcce




Body-scanning machines that show intimate body parts underneath the clothing of passengers are being used at many of America's busiest airports and they are beginning to draw outrage.

But virtual strip searches have been going on at Miami Airport for several years.



MIAMI – The pretty European woman tourist caught the US Custom’s officer’s attention.

Miami International Airport was air conditioned and the customs area was very cold, but the German tourist was perspiring heavily. And agents noticed she was trembling.

Her luggage was checked clean but the young woman was still frightened. A woman customs inspector gave her a hand pat down search and again the Hamburg woman passed without a problem.

Why was she so nervous?

To find out agents took her into a room containing the new end of the road for smugglers. Inside was the dread Rapiscan body scanner that can see anything by making anyone it views – naked.

She was asked to place her feet apart over two marked places on the floor, was scanned in a front view and then asked to turn around for a rear view.

A customs officer looking in a computer screen said, ’Bingo’.

The woman, who had just been totally and electronically stripped of her clothing and hair, immediately confessed and was arrested.

[lib2DaBone]

1. It's Time To Crank Up The Fear Machine Again...

Americans are getting too comfortable.

We need some fear-producing events to drive the population back into the arms of the U.S. Govt.

I look for some false-flag incidents and some terror incidents in January to bring the flock back to the control grid.

[clear eye]

6. A mentally disturbed man on a terrorist watch list w/ a gunpowder

firecracker is able to get aboard a U.S. airplane in Amsterdam. I almost hope it was a LIH incident and that the "brave civilian" was a gov't agent on the plane to stop him in time. Otherwise there is NO airport security.

[krabigirl]

33. yep

[clear eye]

2. He came on board w/ GUNPOWDER, for goodness' sakes

I'm stunned to find that there aren't already chemical detectors amongst the equipment we walk through that would have alerted on that.

[HipChick]

3. we are letting terrorists shape our security..they act..we re-act..n/t

[Frank Booth]

48. Good. I'd gladly let someone see the silhouette of my naked body if it decreases

the chance I get blown up in mid-air.

[WonderGrunion]

55. We don't need a security policy against people that don't want to harm us.

Most regulations occurred the same way. An incident happened (e.g. a fire at a hotel) then a fire regulation was passed for hotels.

[Echo In Light]

59. Which is precisely how vested $ecurity interests want & need to shape it

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. If TSA people want to see me nekkid, well, God help 'em.

[BeyondGeography]

5. This guy started out in Nigeria

Until they have those devices in Lagos and the rest of the Third World it won't matter.

[clear eye]

7. He changed planes in Amsterdam.

This whole thing is strange, if not fishy.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. In order to get to Detroit, you have to change planes in Amsterdam.

He took KLM to AMS, then NWA/DAL to DTW. There's no direct flight from Lagos to DTW.

[thelordofhell]

15. He was going TO Detroit

No wonder he was carrrying explosives.

[Libertas1776]

9. Exactly,

I'm pretty sure he had to go through security again after coming from a 3rd world country like Nigeria.

[HipChick]

10. They verified he went through security - perhaps he had the stuff stored in his rectum

They would not have detected that..maybe he retrieved it in the 20mins he stayed in the toilet..

[Libertas1776]

12. Probably,

I hope it was somewhere extremely unusual and not regularly checked, cause if it was somewhere easily accessible and was simply overlooked, then they have a big freaking lax in security.

[HipChick]

13. yep..

[treestar]

29. True

Though wouldn't the US prohibit flights that originate from places without security?

I remember seeing signs about it in the airport once. The U.S. government was not satisfied with security conditions at certain foreign airports. It was a warning in case you were going to those places.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

77. airport security in Nigeria is 99% checking your visa

so the airline isn't fined for carrying an inadmissible passenger,

[defendandprotect]

11. Rise of the right . . . rise of the perverts . . .

[riderinthestorm]

14. That image doesn't perturb me honestly.

As a late 40s woman, I'd be okay with that level of scrutiny of my body. The pictures not some intensely clear image. Frankly a wet bathing suit shows more. I have a bigger problem with being felt up with a "patting down".

Is the outrage over the exposure? I mean, airport security is a fact of life that's not going away anytime soon, if ever.

[HipChick]

16. combination of the potential level of radiation that those machines give out..

[riderinthestorm]

18. And there's no risks associated with metal detectors?

I'm not trying to be flip, I really just don't understand the outrage. Is it really over some small level of radiation emitted by these machines?

Cause that demonstration picture in the OP in't too terribly distressing imho. There are some women dressed at the airport who are exposing a hell of a lot more than that every single day - without a scanner!

[HipChick]

20. lol!.. have to agree with that..was sure Hooters Airlines closed down

[seabeyond]

24. so your argument cause there are women that dress exposing more than this, which is absurd

in and of itself, we should all lose our right to be clothed?

for real?

[HipChick]

26. I think she was jesting

but right to be clothed? and not screened? :rofl:

[seabeyond]

32. this is a step beyond merely the screened

they do have the detector that they have been using for quite a while. that too is a screened. this is a strip search. plain and simple.

[riderinthestorm]

37. I disagree. Have you been to the beach lately?

Thongs and topless are the norm. I am European so perhaps you are coming from an American Puritan POV? And I think the article is referring to this as something in EU airports? So what more are you demanding from the EU authorities in terms of this being a 'strip search"? Physical palpation via a "pat down"? As a 38D woman, I've been groped enough thank-you-very-much. I'd WELCOME this machine!!!!!!

[seabeyond]

39. firstly they are in the u.s. and secondly, i guess it is not jest. that seriously, you argue

because people wear swim attire at a beach we should all be willing to have strip searches

whatever....

[riderinthestorm]

51. This is nothing like a "physical strip search".

And trying to compare it to that is asinine as anyone who has actually GONE through a physical strip search would attest....

Just walking through the machine and having THAT image instead of the physical process?? no comparison. Sorry but a strip search is way more invasive... And yes, being on the beach is public exposure in a big way. If you're willing to go to the beach in a thong and nothing else, than this machine is a no brainer.

I've got big boobs and I can attest that anytime anyone can get a hand on them, it's grotesque - they will! Men and women alike. Walking through a machine for security - no prob.

[Statistical]

27. Radiation equal to 5 minutes in air at 35,000 feet.

You get a more radiation from the actual plane flight then you do by going through this 10 times plus a dozen trips through metal detector and taking a trip through the bag xray machine on the conveyor belt COMBINED.

If you that afraid of radiation then don't fly.

You pickup about 1 mrem per hour flying at 30,000 feet.

[HipChick]

35. I thought that was the case...I seem to remember a case by air stewardess some time ago

[malaise]

17. Someone is about to become filthy rich

Convenient isn't it.

[Christa]

19. I often fly between the US and the UK

Security is much stricter in the US than in the UK.

[HipChick]

21. I kinda disagree with that...LHR was always tight because of IRA..UK has been dealing with terrorist

for a long time..much longer than the US..

Heathrow...they tried to bomb the runways,terminals etc...so it was always beefed up because of that

[barbtries]

22. they're in raleigh

my son and i were chosen to go through them. he went ahead of me and never considered refusing. i was so pissed. i will not do it again. if i didn't have to fly in order to see the people i love the most in this world i wouldn't fly again, even though i love traveling.

ahh, but i love traveling. this just sucks.

[mmonk]

68. Thanks for warning me.

What terminal?

[barbtries]

71. i don't remember

but we were flying continental or delta i think. it was last year at christmas and we were chosen because our original flight had been snowed in in cleveland so we had changed flights and lost a day.

[Pavulon]

72. Terminal2 , not mandatory

i fly lots of international out of RDU and Charlotte and have never been "scanned". Pretty sure you can opt out.

[barbtries]

78. we could have

been wanded instead. i only went through it because my son went ahead of me without question. i've since advised him that the next time we'll take the wand. when we got to LA at a friend's house a neighbor who works for the TSA confirmed that with these machines "everything" is seen. i despise them.

[seabeyond]

23. drove from texas to cape cod last summer. going from texas to SF this spring.

i stopped doing airports when they demanded i no longer had any rights anymore than i was in a prison system.

i wont pay for other peoples fear in this manner.

[HipChick]

25. hope you never have to travel overseas..

It might get awkward

[seabeyond]

34. i dont HAVE to. lucky me.

if i had to for a job, then my position may be a bet tougher. as it stands. i can simply chose not to pay money for this invasion of rights.

[HipChick]

36. maybe...but then you are already subscribing to fear

[seabeyond]

41. how? do tell me what my fear is. nt

[ipaint]

28. Who needs privacy rights?

Pesky things just cost time and money to defend and prevent us from feeling safe and secure. Tha american way of life can't be preserved as long as the right to privacy always gets in the way of our protectors. I mean how can Obama protect us if we keep insisting on not being electronically stripped searched and fight to not allow all our communications to be monitored for threats.

I mean he did swear to protect us from all the bad guys out there, right.

:sarcasm: :crazy:

[Lionel Mandrake]

30. About that x-ray dosage

On edit: because of copyright issues, the statement I quoted no longer appears in the original post. The statement (see below) can be found in the last of the three links in the OP. Also note that my comments pertain only to machines that use x-rays. The newer millimeter-wave technology does not cause cancer. (Millimeter waves lie between radio waves and infrared light in the electromagnetic spectrum and are not energetic enough to ionize atoms and molecules.)

The OP included the following statement:

"The amount of x-ray dosage, say operators of the machine is equal to the amount a person receives on a 5 minute airplane flight at 35,000 feet coming from the sun and on board electronic equipment."

That doesn't sound like much to worry about. But consider the source (operators of the machine).

The operators of the machine are not doctors or scientists. They probably know just enough to push the right button. Do they know what they are talking about? Probably not.

What is their purpose in making this statement? Is it to reassure travelers that the radiation is negligible? Would there be any reason to trust them to be honest and truthful, even if they did know what they are talking about? Probably not.

X-rays (unlike radio waves and visible light) are sufficiently energetic to ionize atoms and molecules. Ionization carries a risk of causing cancer. I doubt that the risk is as slight as the equipment operators say it is.

Sometimes there is a valid reason to expose people to ionizing radiation, e. g., if a doctor decides that the benefits of a diagnostic x-ray outweigh the risks. But catching smugglers at an airport is not a valid reason to subject a passenger to x-rays, no matter how small the dose.

[daleo]

31. Yes, and that statistic assumes the scanner is functioning perfectly

When technology like this gets used routinely by poorly paid personnel (eg in an airport), malfunctioning machinery or improper operation is quite likely.

[dysfunctional press]

38. why are people so freaked out by the use, or even the idea of these machines...?

i just don't get it.

some americans seem to have some rather HUGH personal body image issues, or something...:shrug:

[joeunderdog]

52. Er, kiddie pervs, radiation, erosion of Constitution, police state, where do I stop?

[dysfunctional press]

53. "kiddie pervs"???

so you seriously think that some tsa is going to be sitting at the monitor jacking off to kids that get scanned...? seriously...???

radiation...?

-as has been noted previously in the thread- you get MUCH MUCH more radiation from being at altitude during the actual flight- if radiation is a concern- you shouldn't be flying in the first place.

erosion of the constitution? police state?

-first of all- the device is only used for airline customers & employees- not the public at large. nobody is 'forced' to travel by plane. considering the safety of those people as well as the non-customers who could(and have) been affected by a downed aircraft- in this day and age, it seems like a reasonable security measure. or do you think that people should have the liberty to bring anything and everything they want onto someone else's airplane? maybe you subscribe to the archie bunker school of thought- whereby each airline customer is issued a gun to carry on the flight..?
if not- what do you recommend as far as achieving the best level of security for the flying customers and non-flying public alike?

[joeunderdog]

69. Yeah, you're right. The kiddie pervs will wait til they get home to jack off.

Yeah, I'm serious. Are you naive? This job is built for pervs of all dysfunction. Security guys are notorious for abuse of power. Just ask these guys who snickered as a woman was forced to remove her nipple rings. http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/03/28/nipple.ring/ If you get off on voyeurism, what's a better job than this? You think none of them would be into kids? C'mon.


"With tears streaming down her face, she again asked to show the piercings to a TSA officer instead of having to remove them. She was told, however, she would not be allowed to fly unless she removed them. Had she been told that she had a right to a pat-down, she would have chosen that option."

She eventually was taken to a private area behind a curtain to remove the piercings, Allred said. One came out easily, but the other would not, and she called to an officer that she was having trouble and would need pliers. She was handed a large pair, Allred said.

"As Ms. Hamlin struggled to remove the piercing, behind the curtain she could hear a growing number of predominately male TSA officers snickering in the background,"



And as far as the Constitution goes, we have cameras at intersections, xray machines at airports, wiretapping by the government...all to keep me safe from the Boogeyman.

When am I getting my ID implant, anyway?

[seabeyond]

70. but humiliation, creepiness, perversion is all thumbs up for illusion of safety. nt

[dysfunctional press]

79. okay then- suppose a 'kiddie perv' put in an 8-hour day, and then went home and jacked-off...

so what?
who's being hurt?

what about the executive who goes home at night and jacks off or fucks his wife while fantasizing about one of the secretaries he sees every day at work...?
or the guy that goes home at jacks off to the image of the anonymous woman with the tight little ass who he saw on the subway earlier in the day...?
or the tsa who goes home and jacks off to the memory of that woman with the big titties who walked thru the regular metal detector?

i could go on and on and on with similar situations- because those kinds of things happen every day.

how is anyone hurt by any of them? seriously? :shrug:

[Le Taz Hot]

58. Because *I* get to say who and who doesn't get

to see me nekkid and the older I get the smaller that list gets. At 54 and overweight, I most definitely have body issues. It's major YOUGLY!

Now, when I was in my 20's through 40's -- you could find me most summers at the nearest nude beach. I know when my flaunting it time is up and it was up about 8 years ago. I'd like to think the world thanks me for that good judgment.

On edit: I would have had a problem with invasion of privacy, regardless of age and body image.

[dysfunctional press]

60. like i said...

most americans seem to have some very strange issues when it comes to body image.

most adults, and even most kids, already know what people's parts are under their clothes. it's no big secret. :shrug:

also- they aren't really seeing you 'nekkid', and they don't know who you are when they look at the image on the monitor.

[Le Taz Hot]

61. You're willing to give up your privacy rights.

I'm not. It's pretty simple.

[dysfunctional press]

62. i don't view it as an invasion of privacy, especially considering the situation it occurs in.

they aren't rounding up the general public and forcing them through scanners in order to leer at thermal images of their persons.

the only people being 'subjected' to it are airline customers and some airline employees, and it's being used as a means to make the process of air travel more secure for those that choose to purchase tickets, as well as those people on the ground who aren't airline customers, but could be(and have been) affected when a plane is turned into a guided missile. people who aren't comfortable with the process definitely have other options to choose from, as far as travel to their destination(s) is concerned.

[Gormy Cuss]

40. The image in the OP isn't anywhere nearly as clear and revealing as the real ones.

That one has been brushed to remove detail or set at a much lower resolution.
The first link at the OP shows the higher definition picture currently seen by TSA employees. As the ACLU describes it, it's the equivalent of asking people to strip naked save for a bag over their heads, just for the privilege of boarding an airplane.

The TSA claims that in the test sites over 90% of passengers went through the machine without hesitation and was using that stat in the P.R. scheme to make these universal. The one time that I have encountered such a machine there were no warning signs that it was in use nor any notifications posted alerting travelers to their right to opt for pat down instead, both items that the TSA assured in its report would be in place. After telling friends about it later more than half of those who had been through the machine at the same airport thought it was a bomb sniffer, not the full body scanner. I think the TSA rigged the test to get the high "cooperation" rate it wanted.

[HipChick]

42. I've been through them quite a number of times...

each time I was given the option for a pat down, I was puffed and sniffed too

[Gormy Cuss]

43. SFO, absolutely no signage visible, no "option" given until you balked at going through it.

This was in September of this year.

I'm with the ACLU on this one. These machines should be relegated to secondary screening.

[HipChick]

45. have flown via SFO lately, but all others I was asked if I wanted a pat down or machine

maybe they just wanted to see you naked? :rofl:

[joeunderdog]

44. Didn't they get caught using these machines on an inordinate amount of "hot" female passengers?

Seriously. These were being (ab)used in domestic airports a couple of years ago and a story came out about their misuse.


looks like we will all be trading in our Constitutions for our plane tickets.

[HipChick]

46. link? these types haven't been out that long

[seabeyond]

49. phoenix, 2006

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/12/2/12848/7029

A handful of other U.S. airports will have the X-rays machines in place by early 2007 as part of a nationwide pilot program, TSA officials said

[smalll]

47. I'd be a little embarassed to have to go through one of these things. Plus, the privacy issue.

On the other hand, if we all KNEW we'd have to go through one of these body-revealing scans every time we flew, it might cut down on the number of obese who actually decide to do so -- then the airlines wouldn't have to charge them for two seats, instead of one! :hide:

[Hekate]

74. You just had to take a smalll swipe at the overweight, didn't you? That was smalll of you. nt

[lunatica]

50. Us older ladies with double d cups can hide all manner of things under our breasts

So to the customs officers

People will find a way around these expensive gadgets too.

[Le Taz Hot]

56. +1!

I'm glad I read this because I was JUST going to post exactly the same thing. I don't know about you but I'm the designated mule in my group. Being older works to our advantage because, a) no one is interested in getting a lecherous peak at a 54-year-old body and b) they never suspect us. :evilgrin:

[lunatica]

65. I'm totally with you!

It actually gets better as you age. At 61 they could ask me to raise my arms sideways and the loot would still be held down.

[Le Taz Hot]

66. ROFLMAO!!!!

:rofl: OMG! I can SO relate! :rofl:

[Kablooie]

63. Maam, You can't take that dining table set on the airplane. Please remove it from under your breast.

[lunatica]

64. They would never detect it!

[pipi_k]

75. My bosoms aren't that big, but...

I can hide three midgets and a Mini Cooper in my asscheeks

[JoeyT]

54. I'm with the ACLU on this one.

That image isn't even close to what these machines show.

So, when the first image of an nonconsenting naked woman (or man for that matter) appears on the internet, will the same people still defend these machines? Yes, they show a lot of detail. At least they do when it isn't the people that want to use them releasing blurred pictures with crap resolutions to convince you they aren't invasive.

I'm still amazed the "Dear god keep us safe at any cost!!!" crowd haven't managed to get Posse Comitatus repealed.

[annabanana]

57. Well I don't know about anybody else, but

I say lets throw billions of dollars into a decent transcontinental rail service..

This has reached the point that "getting there" will spoil the "fun" by more than half...

[Odin2005]

67. That job is an invitation for sick perverts.

I can just see all the sick pedos salivating at looking at virtual strip-searches of little girls. :puke:

[dysfunctional press]

80. that's what YOU see, and you're calling other people 'perverts'...?

"I can just see all the sick pedos salivating at looking at virtual strip-searches of little girls"

it sounds like something you put a lot of thought into...
why so fixated on it...? :shrug:

[XOKCowboy]

73. Hmmm I guess this means the end to "crotching"

if you know what I mean. :smoke:

[Hekate]

76. Radiation much? One of the links has scans that show the lower leg bones...

... through the flesh. Other scans show much more detail than the example in the OP--I get the feeling that the nipples and a few other details have been airbrushed out for public consumption.

Hekate