Body Scanners: Will you go for the genital feel up or the nude photos and a cancer?

[eocvictim]

More news:

Man 'beat colleague over small penis taunts' | News.com.au

Yeah these guys are clearly mentally stable and mature enough to be screening anyone. Perhaps a requirement of a minimum of primary school education could be implemented.

Jo Margetson to sue over 'naked scanner ogling' | News.com.au

First cab off the rank, something tells me the rank could be similar in length to the one at ML.

Child porn fears over 'naked' airport scanner | News.com.au

Given its not acceptable to film your own kids performances at some schools while they're FULLY CLOTHED how was this EVER going to be acceptable?

I'm not sure which one I want to be forcefully subjected too. Which one will give me a higher compensation when I sue?

[wateroff]

"Sir I think its your shoes............
"No it is not, it's your stupid machine "

"Take your shoes off"
"No"

"Whats in your bag"
"The same $%%^ I had yesterday" ( you moron)

"Have you had a trace test done before"
"Yes, yesterday, and every day before that when you personally stopped me at this time - EVERYDAY" ( you idiot)

"I will have to take this - (tiny tweesers, deoderant, water, off you)
"No dramas, I am about to strap myself onto a 50 - 400 ton flying missile - jam packed with between 5 and 120 tons of volatile jet fuel, conveniently coloured for easy recognition - but go right ahead - HELL strip me naked for all I care"

"I have an ASIC if that makes difference "???
"No sir it does not, you will be subjected to the rubber glove like all the other passengers, in a RANDOM fashion, even if we have to chase you down across the airport - "Sorry sir, just a RANDOM check " uhhhhh ok, why are you panting fatty ???

X rays - everyday - Sorry Anthony - How does GF sound?

Synchs on - Water is OFFFFFF

[eocvictim]

I'm no legal eagle but I was always under the assumption that only sworn members of the public were able to do full frisk searches if there was reasonable just cause. These security staff are, as far as I'm aware, not sworn in and probably wouldn't understand what it meant anyway.

[KRviator]

It'll be a cold day in hell before I go through these things on a regular basis. As SLF, I fly domestically once every 10 days in average. And its' got me buggered why Sydney tells me my deodorant cans must go through seperately, but Karratha doesn't.

Then again, this was the same mob that sent two flight's worth of passengers through the metal detector before realising that it was still turned off at the wall.

Bring on the RV and the ability to fly myself.

[Wally Mk2]

This almost makes for entertaining reading if nothing else!:-)
As has been mentioned here many times security is purely for the Gov to be seen to be acting in the public's safety.
I wonder if the PM & her hangar oner's get frisked before she gets on board tax payers provided plane?
What amazes me is that inside every cockpit of Trans Cat A/C is a crash axe!
A pilot can't take anything thru the checkpoints in the way of a weapon but right there only a few feet away is the perfect weapon(apart from that thing called a joy stick!)
Security is only as good as it's weakest link, the rest is for show!

This is a no win situation sadly as it's self fueling. The terrorists of the world have done their job & done it well, fear is the single biggest weapon to disrupt a normal society!!! They have sown the fear seed deeply all these people have to do now is sit back & watch society self destruct with all this security BS!


Wmk2

[Mr. Hat]

You make a good point about the PM Wally. Indeed what will happen with celebrities whose nude image might be worth alot of money in the media or on the internet.

I'm sure the likes Jennifer Hawkins or Miranda Kerr would be concerned about it.

[Worrals in the wilds]

There are two differences between this crap and existing provisions for strip searching;
1. Existing strip search legislation only allows for government law enforcement officers to conduct searches, not fly by night contactors who work for the cheapest provider,

2. It only applies when said officer has reasonable grounds to suspect you have done something WRONG. Even if they are mistaken and don't find anything (as they often are) at some stage they had to have a reason for the search and they have to be prepared to defend those reasons to a justice or court if required (Prison access may be an exception, I'm not familiar with their procedures).

At the moment relatively few people are strip searched in Australa and they were all suspected of doing something wrong, unlike this set up where ordinary pax and staff are subjected to a gross infringement of their personal liberties for no reason whatsoever.

By the Aviation Transport Security Act the AFP and state coppers already have the power to strip search people with reasonable grounds if they believe they constitute a threat to aviation safety. Surely they can apply that process to the relatively few Persons of Interest who go through screening points without subjecting the rest of us to sexual assault? As far as I'm aware they rarely, if ever have to use that legislation at the moment, so why are we jumping from A to Z with this stuff? Just because the Yanks are?

[Horatio Leafblower]

Worrals, the fact that you refuse to go through this perfectly safe X-Ray machine is prima facie evidence that you have something to hide. That's a reasonable ause for suspicion I suspect.

I know at least one airline will be meeting on this in the next week and there is at least one airline's Safety & Compliance manager dead against it

[Biggles_in_Oz]

and how the heck are they going to process people with mobility problems through the clark-kent machines ?
I told you to stand up straight and put your hands in the air., I don't care if you have arthritis and your prosthesis is still being scrutinised by fred over there.
Dammit.., don't you know that this is for your safety?


If the pollies really want it then they must agree to submit to the same processes that they inflict on the rest of us.
No 'special' treatment or side-doors for them.


Now the TSA wants us to remove our belts.
Airport security reaches new levels of absurdity - Ask the Pilot - Salon.com

effing bs security theatre.

[Senior Pilot]

[rmcdonal]

YouTube - Nude Protest: Airport Body Scanners in Germany
This is the way to go.
Personally I am going to use it as a an excuse to be felt up at work without any of those pesky complaints.

[Al Fentanyl]

So refuse. What are they going to do? If you ALL refuse, every time, to be xrayed or groped, there will be a bunch of aeroplanes sitting idle on the tarmac with a heap of paying customers putting more pressure on Goverment than any pilot group could.

Damn sure I won't tolerate either procedure on me or mine.

Air travel is most oftem elective, so if hordes of no-longer-paying ex-passengers elect NOT to be subjected to either procedure and therefore do not fly, there will be a bunch of aeroplanes sitting idle on the tarmac with a heap of tax-paying airline companies putting more pressure on Goverment than any pilot group could.

An absolute promise of the above action would absolutely ensure that the government would choose NOT to introduce this nonsense here.

[Helmut Smokar]

Just refuse to go through the scanner and take the 'feel up'. If the feel up is overly obtrusive let the nice security officer know he has stepped over the line. If he continues ask for the supervisor and file a complaint against the Security officer, the good thing is that you also have video evidence thanks to the screening point CCTV.

Seriously if we all just refuse to continue the sham that is screening of flight crew, what are they going to do. Union Directives would be nice as it is now OHS based not industrial.

[belowMDA]

Helmut just touched on a point I was going to make. Has the time come for pilots to look at setting up a professional organisation that has the scope to fight or influence matters like this? It would need to represent pilots in a non industrial manner in order to delineate between employer based grievances and legislative issues. Doctors have them, lawyers have them and I am sure many other professions have them. I know at times we seem to struggle to speak with a unified voice when it comes to industrial matters but I wonder if it may be easier when you remove the employer bias. I sometimes think we might get taken a bit more seriously if it were not a union leading the fight on government policy matters and the like.
For all I know it may have been tried and then put in the too hard basket but if so maybe it's worth another look.

As to the scan, I will not be subjecting myself to it. The pat down is the lesser of the two evils in this case. If there is enough of a groundswell against the scanners then changes will need to be made. Hopefully that change is not removing the pat down option!

[SIUYA]

below MDA...

One organisation that represents airline PASSENGERS in the US is starting to make some noise about this proposal in terms of personal safety AND privacy concerns.

From International Airline Passengers Association (see):

http://www.iapa.com/index.cfm/travel...ier-the-better

Body scanners are popping up at airports throughout the United States and around the world, yet the debate lingers as to whether the devices have been tested enough to guarantee their safety and effectiveness. As security agencies feel their way through the implementation process and passengers who refuse the scans literally feel their way through uncomfortable pat-downs, the future still seems a bit blurry for the otherwise all-too-revealing scanners, and that might be just fine for privacy advocates.

The full-body scanner controversy revolves around two key issues – their safety and their revealing pictures. The devices use either x-ray-based backscatter technology or electromagnetic wave technology. Each type of device produces a revealing image that can see through clothes, and then some. The backscatter devices bounce low-level x-rays to produce the images. Though agencies like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) insist that the machines have been tested and are safe, there is still debate over the cumulative effects of such radiation. Also at issue are the effects on pregnant women and those with compromised immune systems. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cites tests that show that it would take over a thousand screenings per year to reach recommended limits for such exposure. Critics show little confidence in the FDA's findings since a New York Times article revealed that members of the machine manufacturers and the government agencies tasked with overseeing security developed the standards for x-ray scanners.1

IAPA is concerned with the cumulative effects of the scanning devices on frequent flyers and crew members who are most likely to approach that "thousand scans per year" threshold. Though the Association generally supports the use of multiple screening methods, including scanning devices, there has to be conclusive proof of the efficacy and safety of all technology in use. We may not be there yet.

IAPA contacted the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations (CAPA) about pilots' concerns over the frequent use of body scanners. According to Bill Cason, Director of Security for CAPA, "crewmembers are not required to be [body] scanned (nor is any passenger) and other options, such as pat-downs, are available. We have expressed our concern with both privacy issues and more importantly, the safety of the scanners, which we believe have not been adequately demonstrated. While we understand that the general dose of radiation per exposure is very low, airline crewmembers [transit] screening areas far more often than the average passenger, and we are not satisfied with the data at this time." Corey Caldwell, of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) offers a similar sentiment. "AFA-CWA does have concerns and feels that the scanners still need to be fully tested to ensure effectiveness. According to our interpretation, TSA allows passengers the option of being patted down and we expect that flight crew will get the same option," said Caldwell. With a new "enhanced" pat-down procedure that involves a more intimate approach, that may be a safer choice in the minds of some, but it probably won't be any more comfortable.

Regarding privacy, security agencies insist that part of the protocol for the use of the scanners is to locate the person viewing the images in a separate room, away from the scanner. Additionally, the face and other identifying features of the individual being scanned is blurred to protect his or her privacy. There is still concern, however, that the revealing images can be stored and shared, despite claims by the TSA that the "save image" feature of the machines has been disabled. The mere fact that it's possible to store an image has privacy advocates alarmed. Yet, a compromise may come in the form of an avatar – a replacement image for the human being scanned. Software is being tested by some machine makers that would replace the picture of a person with a cartoon-like representation that will still reveal any suspicious item located underneath clothing. This might give comfort to some travelers, but for others, the whole process seems more like a cartoon than reality. What are your thoughts?

New York Times -- Are Scanners Worth the Risk, by Susan Stellin

Seems to reflect my sentiments from post #33:

Seriously, a proposal to introduce this madness into the Australian aviation system is idiocy in the extreme, and it's time the government IS told loud and clear by the electorate, enough's enough, and:

STICK IT UP YOUR AR$E.

The Minister for Mascot needs to take his hand off it, wake up to himself RFN, and to actually start THINKING about the fact that if you fcuk SLF around enough, they'll seek alternatives to the present stupidity of domestic Aviation Security Inspection Circus (ASIC) if it worsens as seems proposed.

[belowMDA]

I found a comment on a tech website that does help provide some perspective:

[H]ow far are we willing to go to prevent weapons or bombs from getting on airplanes? In the past decade, terrorists on airplanes have killed just about 3,000 people — all on one day. Even if the Christmas Day bomber had succeeded, the number would be under 3,500. Those are horrible deaths. But in that same period, more than 150,000 people have been murdered in the United States. We haven't put the entire U.S. on lockdown — or even murder capitals like Detroit, New Orleans and Baltimore

Indeed! Can you imagine the ****storm that would descend upon us all if the United States government locked down the country because of a few murders? Pandemonium!

TSA Full-Body Scanners: Protecting Passengers or Padding Pockets?

[CokeZero]

The US insist that all this happens for international flights but most of those attempts have been on domestic flights.

Hey US - take some of your own medicine and screen/touch/feel your own passengers on your domestic routes!!!!!

[AussieAviator]

I like the comment above that states that scanned images are not kept! What rubbish!! Images ARE stored, so as to be used for possible future evidence, just in case a dubious person was not picked up, but later on threatened a flight. Any technology can be corrupted, such as photo copiers, which can store millions of sensitive documents. See the following link. I know that mechanics, caterers, refuelers, are not scanned, but what about the pilots of rescue helicopters, and light aircraft based on major airports, or for that matter the Police Air Wing!

WARNING! The Scary Truth About Photocopiers and Your Personal Data | TechChunks.com - Latest Technology News Updates

[YPJT]

I know that mechanics, caterers, refuelers, are not scanned, but what about the pilots of rescue helicopters, and light aircraft based on major airports, or for that matter the Police Air Wing!

Only where their aircraft departs off the same apron as a screened RPT aircraft during the operational period. This might become more problematic when the 20,000 MTOW limit is introduced in 2012.

[AussieAviator]

O/k, let's take freight aircraft scattered around the country, parked at every capital city airport. Crew access to those aircraft is often through the hangar, walking acrooss the tarmac direct to the aircraft, and these aircraft may be as large as a B737 or a BAE146. I have personally witnessed the crew for the Prime Ministers aircraft being escorted to the aircraft, through perimeter gates, by the airport safety car. My point is that just because I fly a large airline aircraft, during "normal" hours, I am subjected to numerous security screenings, when many others are not!