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You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Clinton Campaign / Hide Your Junk ‘n Stuff from the TSA With New and Improved Fig Leaf Unnerwears

Hide Your Junk ‘n Stuff from the TSA With New and Improved Fig Leaf Unnerwears

by Imani Gandy (ABL)|  November 21, 20107:34 pm| 199 Comments

This post is in: I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Clinton Campaign, Vagina Outrage, General Stupidity

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This gives me teh laughter and teh sads, simultaneously.

So you know how you’re going home for Thanksgiving and you’re so excited to eat Turkey until you hurl, and then go back and eat some more? But there’s a lingering sense of anxiety, yeah? You’re wondering whether the TSA agent assigned to feel you up is going to be hot or not.

Ladies, I know that you plan to wear your most disgusting Thanksgiving travel-wear, in the hopes that the guy who looks like the Elephant Man will keep his dirty paws offer your hot bod.

For those of you who are more modest (or for those of you who do not want to risk getting cancer in 30 years because some jackass at the TSA has deemed the scanners completely safe when they may not be), some dude has developed special underwear that will protect your lady bits and your man pieces from the prying eyes of the TSA porno-scanners.



A lot of people are wondering what’s the big deal. The newscaster says, at the end of the report, that the pat-downs take less than 10 seconds (according to the TSA, anyway). No big whoop, right?

What people don’t seem to realize is that a lot of women have been targeted for these pat-downs by creepy TSA agents who literally just want to feel them up. Also, I’m sure there are some men out there who have been the victims of sexual assault, and because of the way that society views men who are victims of sexual assault, they aren’t necessarily going to come out and say “Hey, I don’t really like it when you touch me there.”

And we all know why male victims feel this way; just listen to the politicians and pundits. Everyone’s telling everyone else to man up (even the Miami Heat has some new “how come you’re not coming to see our games, Miamians, you better get over the LeBron shit and “Fan up!” advertising campaign); James Carville is making asinine jokes about Hillary Clinton giving one of her balls to Obama so that Obama can finally have two–I’m waiting for someone to outright call someone else a pussy.

Suffice it to say, to some people it is a big deal, and just because it’s not a big deal to you doesn’t mean that you should pish posh those who don’t want unwanted touching.

As for me, I already scrapped my plans to fly to Tucson to visit my parents for Christmakwanzakkuh, and have decided to road trip it instead. That way I’ll be able to get all of my machetes and flamethrowers across state lines without intervention.

[via Gawker]

[cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]

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Reader Interactions

199Comments

  1. 1.

    Citizen Alan

    November 21, 2010 at 7:43 pm

    I used to love flying so much. Didn’t need to as part of my job, but back when I had cash, I always tried to vacation someplace I could fly to because I enjoyed the experience of being a “jet-setter” even when I was traveling coach. It is possible that I was the first person in my entire family to ever travel anywhere by plane.

    Then 9/11 came, and the whole nation peed all over itself and it’s still peeing all over itself nine years later. And the only way I can fly is if I’m willing to surrender my dignity to the cowardly fears of my countrymen. I don’t expect to ever do so, unless its when I finally leave the country for good.

  2. 2.

    mistermix

    November 21, 2010 at 7:45 pm

    I’m just going to wrap my privates in foil. Who needs fancy fig leaf shorts?

  3. 3.

    BGinCHI

    November 21, 2010 at 7:47 pm

    I predict the penis enl*rgement stalls at the airport are going to be doing some huge business this holiday season.

  4. 4.

    gogol's wife

    November 21, 2010 at 7:48 pm

    I wish you had your own talk show. Then I’d use my television for something other than TCM.

  5. 5.

    BGinCHI

    November 21, 2010 at 7:49 pm

    I predict the weewee enlargement stalls at the airport are going to be doing some huge business this holiday season.

  6. 6.

    KCinDC

    November 21, 2010 at 7:50 pm

    Doesn’t wearing these just guarantee that you’ll get an invasive groping?

  7. 7.

    Comrade Kevin

    November 21, 2010 at 7:50 pm

    I think this scene from This is Spinal Tap is a real classic, and completely appropriate for this subject.

  8. 8.

    Jack

    November 21, 2010 at 7:59 pm

    Perhaps apropos…

  9. 9.

    shortstop

    November 21, 2010 at 8:00 pm

    @BGinCHI: Not as much as the hip-reducing stalls. Get out of my way, bitches; I was first in line. Gosh, did I say that out loud?

  10. 10.

    Maude

    November 21, 2010 at 8:04 pm

    This whole security ramp up gives me the whim whams.
    The thing is, airline passengers are being treated like suspects.
    I have a real problem with Carville saying that about the president.

  11. 11.

    WyldPirate

    November 21, 2010 at 8:04 pm

    nevermind

  12. 12.

    BGinCHI

    November 21, 2010 at 8:05 pm

    @shortstop: Oh, I assumed these were run by the same people.

    Wolfgang Puck’s Big Cocks, Slim Hips, and Rosemary Foccaccia Chicken Sandwiches.

  13. 13.

    sherifffruitfly

    November 21, 2010 at 8:06 pm

    Pedobear: the epitome of contemporary tragicomedy.

  14. 14.

    BGinCHI

    November 21, 2010 at 8:06 pm

    @WyldPirate: I have the Robert Mapplethorpe signature edition.

  15. 15.

    Yutsano

    November 21, 2010 at 8:11 pm

    @sherifffruitfly: We are slowly but surely slipping down the /b/ rabbit hole. It’s okay though, Rule #34 is looking more and more like an immutable law.

  16. 16.

    stuckinred

    November 21, 2010 at 8:17 pm

    The last day of Red Snapper season in the Gulf was the bomb!

  17. 17.

    Dennis SGMM

    November 21, 2010 at 8:18 pm

    What’s the over/under on how long it will take images of hot body scans to start showing up on the Intertrons?

  18. 18.

    jeff

    November 21, 2010 at 8:20 pm

    I have a pretty small penis, and, though I don’t worry about such things any more, there was probably a time when this screening would have freaked me out badly. Seriously, this is fucking ridiculous. I’m flying Tuesday morning, and I’m disabled and have a small dick (as indicated earlier). They’re probably going to make me do the pat down anyway, since I walk with a cane with a bomb in it, but it bugs the hell out of me that just everybody, no matter what, has to go through the body imaging machine.

  19. 19.

    cathyx

    November 21, 2010 at 8:24 pm

    They should employ gynecologists to do the pat down and screenings for women. You could get a breast exam and vaginal exam while undergoing a screening and kill two birds with one stone.

  20. 20.

    FlipYrWhig

    November 21, 2010 at 8:30 pm

    @cathyx: It’s the return of the public option!

  21. 21.

    burnspbesq

    November 21, 2010 at 8:30 pm

    @Dennis SGMM:

    What’s the over/under on how long it will take images of hot body scans to start showing up on the Intertrons?

    Already.

  22. 22.

    Dennis SGMM

    November 21, 2010 at 8:31 pm

    Have any of the scans or the gropings actually found anything or is this just more get-rich-quick security kabuki?

  23. 23.

    sukabi

    November 21, 2010 at 8:35 pm

    they should just combine flying and healthcare screenings… have everyone pass through a metal detector to screen for metal… this would make sure that those folks that have metal in their bodies won’t be ripped apart by the next part of the process…. have everyone go through an MRI machine… has the benefit of no radiation, AND they can be screened for cancer and other conditions… like stuffing that doesn’t belong that the naked scanners can’t see…

    and wear these t-shirts in addition to the pasties to express your displeasure at being molested.

  24. 24.

    Betsy

    November 21, 2010 at 8:35 pm

    I helped a friend this past week whose boyfriend raped her last weekend.

    I’m sure the search(es) she gets to experience when she travels for Thanksgiving are going to do wonders for her recovery process.

  25. 25.

    burnspbesq

    November 21, 2010 at 8:36 pm

    Tangentially related: If you are in the market for a new set of travel headphones, don’t ignore the Beats line just because of the advertising hype. I’ve auditioned three different pair over the weekend (Solo HD, Tour, and iBeats), and at their respective price points ($200, $150, and $100) they are good values. No, they don’t stack up well against top-of-the-line Sennheisers or Ultimate Ears custom in-ear stage monitors, but those are 5-15x the price, so what do you expect? And they beat the snot out of what came in the box with your iPod or other portable music player.

  26. 26.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    November 21, 2010 at 8:38 pm

    The only question I have is will they still let me fly after becoming acquainted with the DYNOMITE IN MY PANTS!??

  27. 27.

    burnspbesq

    November 21, 2010 at 8:39 pm

    @sukabi:

    I like the t-shirt on the left in the ad, but they don’t need probable cause to feel you up. TSA procedures arguably come under the administrative search exception.

  28. 28.

    jl

    November 21, 2010 at 8:40 pm

    You can get me to fly on Thanksgiving about as easy as getting me to go to a dentist who uses a sledgehammer for cleaning teeth.

    I mean, Christmas is just a few weeks away. If I have to fly, it is too far to go for Thanksgiving. Period.

    I guess I am Thanksgiving grinch. “Get off my turkey, you damn kids.”

    So, I can postpone worrying about the new security measures.

    What is depressing about the flap is that the only ideas I hear for fixing it seem worse to me than getting felt up, and are promoted by right wing nut cases.

    So far we have going back to easily dodged racial profiling. And privatization, in which case, anything that happens, from mass feel ups, to innocent people getting yelled at, pushed around and detained for no reason, to tragic ‘incidents’ caused by incompetence, will all be retroactively declared optimal due to ‘non union free market!’.

  29. 29.

    burnspbesq

    November 21, 2010 at 8:40 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    There’s a joke about detonators in there somewhere, but I can’t find it.

  30. 30.

    parsimon

    November 21, 2010 at 8:41 pm

    Suffice it to say, to some people it is a big deal, and just because it’s not a big deal to you doesn’t mean that you should pish posh those who don’t want unwanted touching.

    They might have to avoid flying until the TSA refines its guidelines and personnel. Certainly, the fewer people who fly, the better for flight security purposes.

    You likened the new TSA guidelines to sexual assault earlier, and I didn’t have a chance to reply, but that frankly sounds like the worst sort of hyperbole. The lines I’ve quoted above are open to all sorts of unfortunate analogy about just what’s a big deal to some people but not to others, and I’m not sure we’d want to argue that just because, say, higher taxes on the rich are a big deal to some people, we shouldn’t pish posh their feeling that they’re being financially raped.

    Or should we? I hear that John Cole feels that his socks are ruined, just ruined, by having to take his shoes off at the airport. (This last is a joke. I’m joking.)

  31. 31.

    jl

    November 21, 2010 at 8:42 pm

    @sukabi:

    “they should just combine flying and healthcare screenings”

    Great idea. Maybe the GOP will go for it as a substitute for healthcare reform, if we can do it will low pay low skill non union labor.

    Edit: on justification of the flap over new TSA rules, I have not flown since they began so do not know. I have to wonder about how much of it is due to rude, confused, and often seemingly incompetent personnel who are poised to go all paramilitary at the drop of a hat, or shoe, or lack of a drop of an undie.

  32. 32.

    rageahol

    November 21, 2010 at 8:47 pm

    @jl:

    yeah, it’s strange that the one thing that is known to be effective against terrorism, i.e. POLICE WORK, is left out of the conversation entirely. i guess that would require too much training and not be visible/invasive enough to make the average joe/jane feel like theyre being protected from scary brown people.

  33. 33.

    shortstop

    November 21, 2010 at 8:47 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    @BGinCHI:

    Y’all tie for the win.

  34. 34.

    sukabi

    November 21, 2010 at 8:48 pm

    @burnspbesq: then they shouldn’t mind if someone insists that the police be called to report an assault… because that’s what they are doing, every time they grab a persons breasts or crotch or touch children in those areas…

  35. 35.

    GregB

    November 21, 2010 at 8:50 pm

    I think there is a deliberate move on part of rightwingnuttistan to fan the flames of discontent on the TSA issue.

    It gets them to beat the drums against the big gummint unions and the Obamaslamosfacsist state.

    They are hoping for some tea-bag moments, maybe some old dude in a tri-corner hat getting his powder horn fondled by some Black or Muslim TSA operative.

    Now civil liberties are something that real Americans fight for and the old “the Constitution is not a suicide pact” talking point has been retired.

  36. 36.

    Mnemosyne

    November 21, 2010 at 8:52 pm

    @parsimon:

    You likened the new TSA guidelines to sexual assault earlier, and I didn’t have a chance to reply, but that frankly sounds like the worst sort of hyperbole.

    I’m not sure how else you’re supposed to characterize the fact that TSA personnel will be touching your breasts and groin with enough pressure to figure out if you’re carrying explosives in your underwear. This isn’t a light frisking that they’re doing.

    If I’m walking down the street and a strange guy grabs my breast, that’s sexual assault. I’m not sure why you think having a strange TSA guy grab your breast is so obviously different that it’s a ridiculous comparison.

  37. 37.

    sukabi

    November 21, 2010 at 8:54 pm

    @parsimon: think of it this way… if someone other than a nurse or doctor doing a medical exam, or a parent/caretaker cleaning them touches a child on their breasts, butt crack or genital area we’ve legislated that it constitutes sexual assault on a child… what makes that any different for an adult? and why should TSA agents be able to sexually assault children as part of their jobs?

  38. 38.

    Greenhouse Guy

    November 21, 2010 at 8:55 pm

    Fook, I haven’t flown since 2000… that is, until tomorrow morning. My pops tells me to limit any liquid to under 8 oz and to remember to have my shaving razor in my checked baggage. Next time… It’ll be amtrak, and fuck the t s a goons.

  39. 39.

    Roger Moore

    November 21, 2010 at 8:56 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:
    I think you’d get a lot more men, and many fewer women, flying unless you make sure that’s the private option.

  40. 40.

    Dennis SGMM

    November 21, 2010 at 8:56 pm

    How much is too much? I have this (Admittedly demented) vision of a couple of TSA types chuckling over just how much indignity they can heap on people in the name of security:

    “I’ve got it: we’ll pull out every fiftieth passenger, drag them into a room, strip ’em naked, shove a feather duster up their ass and make them sing ‘I’m a Little Teapot. If they refuse then they go on the No Fly list.”

    “Cool!”

  41. 41.

    Angry Black Lady

    November 21, 2010 at 8:57 pm

    @Yutsano: Ha! I saw a sign at the Rally that said “Repeal Rule 34.”

  42. 42.

    jl

    November 21, 2010 at 8:59 pm

    Are they doing moobs? That will be the true test of whether the breast feel ups are an excuse for sexual harassment.

    And what will happen after the undie bomber in the future who will pack in the rear end.

    Then they might as well combine the screenings with health exams.

    A TSA prostate exam, I can hardly wait for that happy happy joy joy.

    We need to look around to see how other countries are doing it (oops, no, that is unpatriotic because it questions American Exceptionalism). Or police work (no, that will take money, and they are thuggish worthless layabout union oafs now, anyway).

    Maybe this will the new frontier for Blackwater, or Xe, or Xie, or whatever they call themselves now.

  43. 43.

    sukabi

    November 21, 2010 at 9:00 pm

    @Dennis SGMM: at this point, I wouldn’t bet against that being their secondary criteria for this nonsense… first criteria is pumping as much $$ into the coffers of Rapiscan and Chertoff’s pockets.

  44. 44.

    JPL

    November 21, 2010 at 9:01 pm

    @GregB: Well ..yeah!
    The republicans gave Chertoff a blank check to take away our rights and now that the changes are in place, it’s the President’s fault. Sounds like a winning strategy to me.

  45. 45.

    Yutsano

    November 21, 2010 at 9:03 pm

    @Angry Black Lady: If there was no replacement suggestion it’s a frivolous argument. There’s some fancy lawyerly way of saying that but I fergot what it was.

  46. 46.

    sherifffruitfly

    November 21, 2010 at 9:03 pm

    @Angry Black Lady:

    Rule 34 applies to that, too.

  47. 47.

    Dennis SGMM

    November 21, 2010 at 9:05 pm

    @sukabi:
    If I was a 62 year old cynic, I’d say that they’re making this process as obnoxious and invasive as they can so that when they suddenly come up with a new generation of gear that’s less obnoxious and invasive they’ll be easily able to sell us that as well.

  48. 48.

    Allan

    November 21, 2010 at 9:07 pm

    I hope that, just as they began offering more toiletries to travelers, hotels will be adding marijuana to the room service menus, now that we can’t secrete our stash in our crotches anymore.

  49. 49.

    Allan

    November 21, 2010 at 9:07 pm

    I hope that, just as they began offering more toiletries to travelers, hotels will be adding marijuana to the room service menus, now that we can’t secrete our stash in our crotches anymore.

  50. 50.

    BGinCHI

    November 21, 2010 at 9:08 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Depends how many sticks you have.

  51. 51.

    Betsy

    November 21, 2010 at 9:08 pm

    @Mnemosyne:
    Hear hear.

  52. 52.

    Angry Black Lady

    November 21, 2010 at 9:10 pm

    @parsimon: common law assault is an unwanted touching without justification or excuse. other definitions include intent, ability to inflict injury, fear of injury.

    certainly the “justification” is the war on terra, but that ignores the targeting of women that goes on. then the issue becomes, if TSA agents are using their hands to feel your crotch and bits, how are passengers supposed to know how far is too far? where is the line? how is a person supposed to know when they’ve been “groped” beyond what the TSA regulations require?

    it is not hyperbole. if you google the opt-out page, and click on the links, there are scads of stories about the humiliation that passengers are undergoing. that humiliation or dredging up past humiliations is an injury. is it justified? seems like all the experts are saying “no.”

  53. 53.

    parsimon

    November 21, 2010 at 9:11 pm

    @sukabi: @Mnemosyne:

    My understanding is that the TSA policy is that children under 12 are not subject to a personal examination, and that personnel who’ve done that were not properly apprised of the protocols. So the frisking of children is presumably — hopefully — a nonstarter.

    I’m not inclined to describe the TSA exam as a case of someone “grabbing your breast” any more than I would describe an ob/gyn doing a breast exam as doing that. A passenger has gone into the situation knowing that the exam will occur.

    I keep going back to this ObWi post about the enhanced pat-down experienced by the poster there.

  54. 54.

    Dennis SGMM

    November 21, 2010 at 9:13 pm

    @Mnemosyne:
    It’s astonishing how little time it took to go from “Show us on the doll where the man touched you,” to “I’m feeling up this kid for your safety.”

  55. 55.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    November 21, 2010 at 9:15 pm

    I can hear it now:

    TSA: “Sorry sir but your junk is too big to be allowed on the plane.”

    Citizen: “Wha…?!”

    TSA: “We’re sorry sir but that junk of yours is considered a deadly weapon. If you wish to fly you are going to need junk reduction surgery.”

    Citizen: “Junk reduct… what, my junk is too big to fly?! That’s bullshit!”

    TSA: “Sir, junk like yours is known to cause men to curl up in the fetal position, leaving them tearfully sobbing. It also causes women to drop in a dead faint. If you were to pull that junk out on a plane there would be nothing anyone could do to stop you. We had to find a guy with big junk to do these body scans so he could warn us about men like himself and you. He told me that he was nearly overcome when he viewed your scan but he was able to pull it out and quickly recover.”

    Citizen: “Really?! Wow, I guess I see where you are coming from. Thanks for the information!”

    /walks away happily whistling

  56. 56.

    Angry Black Lady

    November 21, 2010 at 9:17 pm

    @parsimon: i posted a video last week of a three year old being frisked. whether or not it was a case of the parent not being in control of the child, or the teddy bear being taken away, or whatever, it looks to me like the kid was frisked.

    and you are missing the point-you can’t get into the mind of the TSA agent. are they being pervy and getting enjoyment out of it, or not. they probably aren’t. but that’s not that comforting to people like Betsy’s friend.

    also, doctors undergo a level of training that the average TSA agent does not. and still, there are plenty of women who won’t see male gynos. i know i won’t.

    i understand that flying is a choice, but if the new standard is, be willing to have a stranger forcefully pat you down, or don’t fly, then… well… that just sucks.

  57. 57.

    sukabi

    November 21, 2010 at 9:18 pm

    @Dennis SGMM: it would be nice if they’d actually make use of all the email, phone conversations, instant messages, texts and shit they’ve been hoovering up en mass for the last decade and do some ACTUAL POLICE WORK and track down the actual terrorists, instead of using the airports as a reason to assault everyone they feel like without having cause, other than you were randomly selected to be abused.

  58. 58.

    parsimon

    November 21, 2010 at 9:18 pm

    @Angry Black Lady:

    how are passengers supposed to know how far is too far? where is the line? how is a person supposed to know when they’ve been “groped” beyond what the TSA regulations require?

    Now we’re getting somewhere. Thanks.

    We can think about the rules for GYN exams: there, a same-sex doctor is preferred. If not a same-sex doctor, a same-sex assistant must be present. Maybe there should be a second person present at all times.

    And so on. Those kinds of rules make a hell of a lot of sense, because of course there’s room for misbehavior in this kind of thing. I don’t dismiss that by any means.

  59. 59.

    burnspbesq

    November 21, 2010 at 9:20 pm

    @sukabi:

    then they shouldn’t mind if someone insists that the police be called to report an assault… because that’s what they are doing, every time they grab a persons breasts or crotch or touch children in those areas…

    Sorry, but that’s not the law. It’s consensual. You manifest your consent by entering the sterile area. If you don’t want to be groped, go through the scanner.

    Sucks, but there it is.

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    November 21, 2010 at 9:24 pm

    @parsimon:

    You mean the post that has this in it?

    In the third place, it wasn’t presented as the alternative (disobedient passengers, for the use of) to a technically and ethically dubious device that had cost a lot of money and that higher-ups wanted to see being used, whether it did any good or not.

    That, I think is really what most people object to — this pat-down is basically being used as a punishment for refusing to go through the x-ray scanner.

    You really see nothing wrong with government officials essentially being able to say, “Okay, if you won’t go through our intrusive x-ray scanner — pictures from which have already turned up on the internet — our personnel will grope you until you wish you had”?

  61. 61.

    sukabi

    November 21, 2010 at 9:26 pm

    @burnspbesq: I will refer you to this account by Penn Jillet, who asked for the local pd to be called… granted it’s from 2002, but it seems to me that most of the TSA horseshit that’s gone on hasn’t really been “tested” as to it’s legality. Are TSA agents duly sworn law enforcement officers, or are they underpaid sub-contractors that are doing something someone may or may not have told them to do?

  62. 62.

    parsimon

    November 21, 2010 at 9:31 pm

    @Angry Black Lady:

    also, doctors undergo a level of training that the average TSA agent does not

    Understood, and as I said just previously, better-trained TSA agents, with better protocols, are called for. The TSA has messed this up in initial phases, no doubt, but I’m not yet willing to go to the view that any and all security pat-downs are akin to sexual assault, that’s all.

    If you want to make the case that pat-downs, as well as the new scanners, are gratuitous security theater, that’s a separate argument.

  63. 63.

    Roger Moore

    November 21, 2010 at 9:31 pm

    @parsimon:

    My understanding is that the TSA policy is that children under 12 are not subject to a personal examination, and that personnel who’ve done that were not properly apprised of the protocols.

    So the excuse is that the people doing the exams haven’t been trained on the protocols. If that’s true, why should we have any confidence that they’re performing the screenings properly? And that seems to me to imply that problem is systemic, or the screeners who were improperly applying the technique to children would have been stopped by their better informed coworkers when the parents started to pitch a fit.

  64. 64.

    Mnemosyne

    November 21, 2010 at 9:33 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    And, yes, I am taking this whole thing personally, because it’s my boobs that are going to be groped by a strange TSA agent. This may be verging on one of those situations where a man calmly explains why having one’s boobs felt up in the abstract is no big deal while I try to explain that it’s a big goddamned deal to me since I am the one who will be having my boobs groped, not you.

  65. 65.

    WereBear

    November 21, 2010 at 9:33 pm

    @rageahol: yeah, it’s strange that the one thing that is known to be effective against terrorism, i.e. POLICE WORK, is left out of the conversation entirely.

    I remember John Kerry being mercilessly ridiculed for suggesting just that. Even though WHO THE EFF ELSE is going to do it? Hmmm?

    The right wing are not my kind of redneck.

  66. 66.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    November 21, 2010 at 9:38 pm

    Dear Penthouse Letters,

    Recently, I had to fly to a conference and I was a little nervous about security procedures at the airport. All that changed when I found myself face to face with Jerome and Michelle in the sterile room………..

  67. 67.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 9:44 pm

    I find it difficult to take seriously all the pearl-clutching about pictures possibly maybe turning up on the net. If some poor soul gets a kick out of a second-rate scan of my rhythm stick, I imagine they have enough problems that compassion is in order rather than outrage. Equally, if some luckless TSA person has to pat down my various bodily parts to make my life a little safer, well, let them. I think that there’s a reasonably clear distinction between groping and a security patdown, having experienced both. FWIW, I highly doubt most personnel are going to endanger their jobs by behaving inappropriately. Doubtless the system is imperfect – but that’s life and if you wanted perfection you came to the wrong planet and the wrong species. You lose as much of your dignity as you choose to surrender.

  68. 68.

    parsimon

    November 21, 2010 at 9:54 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    You really see nothing wrong with government officials essentially being able to say, “Okay, if you won’t go through our intrusive x-ray scanner—pictures from which have already turned up on the internet—our personnel will grope you until you wish you had”?

    As I said to ABL upthread, if you want to argue that the personal pat-down as well as the security scanner are unnecessary measures, that’s a different argument.

    All I’ve been interested in pushing back against is the claim that the pat-down is essentially sexual assault.

  69. 69.

    sukabi

    November 21, 2010 at 9:58 pm

    here’s the thing…. how many terrorists have actually been stopped from boarding planes due to these x-ray machines or the pat downs? my bet is the number is ZERO.

  70. 70.

    Mnemosyne

    November 21, 2010 at 9:58 pm

    @parsimon:

    All I’ve been interested in pushing back against is the claim that the pat-down is essentially sexual assault.

    Again, I find it interesting that you wish to explain to me that having my breasts groped by a stranger is not something I should be upset about as long as they’re wearing a TSA uniform. Because apparently my feelings on the subject of having my breasts groped by strangers are inconsequential when it comes to an abstract point about somewhat similar actions taken by doctors who are screening me for breast cancer.

  71. 71.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 9:59 pm

    @parsimon:

    In any case, what the officials are saying is:

    If you want to be exempt from security measures, you have the right to leave the airport and not fly today. If you want to take the plane, you go through security, and you can take your choice of two procedures.

    It’s not an unreasonable approach in in itself. Whether security is enhanced by these measures is another issue, but not one that will be usefully debated as long as people keep turning it into a luridly imaginative scene of rape by proxy.

  72. 72.

    zuzu

    November 21, 2010 at 10:00 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Sorry, but that’s not the law. It’s consensual. You manifest your consent by entering the sterile area. If you don’t want to be groped, go through the scanner.

    Considering that the TSA has refused to disclose exactly what the search entails, how informed is the consent?

    Also, quite the Hobson’s choice there: either cancer/nude photographs or sexual molestation. And for what?

    I worked on strip-search litigation for several years, and I’m horrified by what the TSA is doing. This level of search and exposure is not allowable in jails unless there’s particularized suspicion of contraband or weapons, and there’s a hell of a lot better chance that someone’s got that on their person considering what pat-downs and wandings turn up in holding cells than there is that someone going on a plane has enough explosive on them to do more than set their crotch on fire.

    The Second Circuit, at least, has specifically rejected arguments that administrative security concerns trump human dignity, even in a post-conviction setting. And here we’re talking not convicted criminals, but people just trying to get from here to there in less than eight days.

    And where’s the evidence that these kinds of searches are effective for anything other than putting money into the pockets of defense contractors? Dogs could probably do a much better job of detecting explosives for a fraction of the cost and much, much less humiliation for travelers.

  73. 73.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 10:00 pm

    @sukabi:

    That’s unprovable. We don’t know how many terrorists were deterred by such security measures being in place. On this one, there just aren’t any reliable numbers.

  74. 74.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 10:03 pm

    @zuzu:

    quite the Hobson’s choice there: either cancer/nude photographs or sexual molestation

    That’s quite an intriguing dichotomy you’ve constructed. Nothing like taking the extreme worst case scenario as a baseline for discussion, eh?

  75. 75.

    parsimon

    November 21, 2010 at 10:04 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    This may be verging on one of those situations where a man calmly explains why having one’s boobs felt up in the abstract is no big deal while I try to explain that it’s a big goddamned deal to me since I am the one who will be having my boobs groped, not you.

    If this is a response to me and also to the Doctor Science post on ObWi, I don’t know if it matters that I’m female, as is Doctor Science.

  76. 76.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 10:06 pm

    @parsimon:

    It’s also worth pointing out that men can be groped in unwelcome ways, sexually harassed and even raped.

  77. 77.

    Sheesh

    November 21, 2010 at 10:07 pm

    @morzer:

    Doubtless the system is imperfect – but that’s life and if you wanted perfection you came to the wrong planet and the wrong species.

    You make a good argument here for not having gropes or nude xrays.

    This system won’t prevent the next terrorist that manages to get aboard a plane with explosives. So why implement it? Layered security, behavioral screening, human intelligence would all provide more safety without feeling my cock and balls.

    But, as we all know, safety is not the primary concern of the TSA. Every time terrorists have been caught (or successful) while on the plane, having successfully cleared all airport security.

  78. 78.

    zuzu

    November 21, 2010 at 10:10 pm

    @morzer:

    Equally, if some luckless TSA person has to pat down my various bodily parts to make my life a little safer, well, let them. I think that there’s a reasonably clear distinction between groping and a security patdown, having experienced both.

    First, we don’t have evidence that any of this is making us safer, whether a little or a lot. How many shoe bombs have been detected in all the years we’ve been putting our shoes on the belt, for example?

    Second, the new pat-downs aren’t the pat-downs of yore. I regularly get the old-school pat-downs, with tit-grabbing, because I have large breasts and my bra contains enough metal to set off the detector. Those are humiliating enough. Now I have to have someone GRAB MY CROTCH as well, since I outright refuse to subject myself to any x-rays without a legitimate diagnostic purpose (and let’s not think about the guffaws my big tits will generate with the screeners).

    You’ll be singing a different tune when you realize that the TSA agent is indeed going to grab your junk and you haven’t actually gone through quite this kind of pat-down before.

  79. 79.

    zuzu

    November 21, 2010 at 10:13 pm

    @morzer:

    That’s unprovable. We don’t know how many terrorists were deterred by such security measures being in place.

    So how many were caught, then? How many were detected? There are stats kept on how many weapons were confiscated with metal detectors; how many non-metal explosives have been detected with these scanners?

  80. 80.

    Tookish

    November 21, 2010 at 10:14 pm

    I think it’s worth asking what type of physical pat down or exposure to radiation would cross the line for those posters here who think those of us who are strongly objecting are overreacting. Then, imagine if you were subjected to that in order to visit your dying mother. Or see family you hadn’t seen in years over the holidays. Or come home after a traveling job commitment that would repeat itself every week for the foreseeable future. Then imagine yourself being told that it’s really no big deal and that you are overreacting by administration officials (who are not subject to said searches) and that said searches are not proven effective in stopping the danger they are being used to stop (the jury is still very, very much out on whether these are effective security strategies and there is much to suggest that they are far more likely security theater and a way for Michael Chertoff to make $$$). Also, for good measure, imagine the employees who are anointed with this task are underpaid, have very little training, and some may in fact enjoy the invasions of privacy they are participating in (not at all unlikely). Then ask yourselves whether you can imagine as sanguine an attitude as you are currently sporting.

  81. 81.

    burnspbesq

    November 21, 2010 at 10:15 pm

    @zuzu:

    If you can find a plaintiff with standing, go for it.

    For the moment, the law is what it is.

  82. 82.

    JITC

    November 21, 2010 at 10:15 pm

    For those of you who are more modest (or for those of you who do not want to risk getting cancer in 30 years because some jackass at the TSA has deemed the scanners completely safe when they may not be)

    I don’t get it. How does that underwear protect you from radiation?

  83. 83.

    Cliff

    November 21, 2010 at 10:15 pm

    @Greenhouse Guy:

    Dude, you are gonna get that stuff confiscated they are total dicks about this shit:

    http://www.tsa.gov/311/index.shtm

    3-1-1 for carry-ons = 3.4 ounce (100ml) bottle or less (by volume) ; 1 quart-sized, clear, plastic, zip-top bag; 1 bag per passenger placed in screening bin. One-quart bag per person limits the total liquid volume each traveler can bring. 3.4 ounce (100ml) container size is a security measure.

    Be prepared. Each time TSA searches a carry-on it slows down the line. Practicing 3-1-1 will ensure a faster and easier checkpoint experience.

    3-1-1 is for short trips. If in doubt, put your liquids in checked luggage.

    Declare larger liquids. Medications, baby formula and food, and breast milk are allowed in reasonable quantities exceeding three ounces and are not required to be in the zip-top bag. Declare these items for inspection at the checkpoint.

  84. 84.

    sukabi

    November 21, 2010 at 10:16 pm

    @morzer: buying a plane ticket and actually trying to use it, doesn’t constitute probable cause. The assumption they’re making is that EVERYONE that wants to get from point A to point B on an air plane is a potential terrorist, until proven otherwise.

    It seems that basic screenings, traditional metal detectors, wanding, basic pat down, would be fine for 99.99% of the people flying… and that they have ample time to pre-screen everyone prior to their arrival at the airports… presumably the information on who’s purchased tickets is available PRIOR to the day of their flight, surely the government has been busy the last decade making lists of folks that are “iffy”… folks that should be further screened beyond the basic airport security screening would be those that purchased one way tickets, or paid cash, or come up on some terror / wanted list…

    they’ve spent billions on equipment that sucks up every piece of communication you put out on the wires, surely they could use some of that information to figure out who’s actually dangerous.

  85. 85.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 10:17 pm

    @Sheesh:

    Again, I point out that we don’t know how many terrorists were deterred in the first place. If you want to argue that the system is imperfect, I agree with you. I just don’t see how any arguments for something better are going to be enhanced by making claims about how the present system is tantamount to molestation or rape. That line of argument is so exaggerated that it will only damage the credibility of those presenting it. I have every sympathy for people who suffer harassment or rape, and think their cases should be handled with the utmost care and sensitivity. I just can’t see a security pat-down done properly as comparable. Are there badly trained security people out ther? Sure. But the answer is to improve their training and the system they work in, rather than immediately jumping to full red alert about something that will not happen to the vast majority of passengers. If a security person touches my junk in the process of making sure I am not attempting to become the eunuch bomber redux, well, I can either tell myself that I am the victim of assault, or, I can accept that people are imperfect and move on without losing my dignity. I think I am mature enough to know the difference between deliberate and sustained touching, and when someone is just ensuring that nothing untoward is on my person.

  86. 86.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 10:19 pm

    @zuzu:

    People who were deterred by the presence of security are unlikely to show up as having being captured by it. That’s why I say that this is unprovable.

  87. 87.

    burnspbesq

    November 21, 2010 at 10:19 pm

    @sukabi:

    buying a plane ticket and actually trying to use it, doesn’t constitute probable cause.

    Probable cause is irrelevant. TSA is relying on the administrative search exception to the warrant requirement. If you’re up for a frontal assault on 80 years of settled case law, by all means go for it, but don’t expect me to bet a mortgage payment on your chances of winning.

  88. 88.

    parsimon

    November 21, 2010 at 10:21 pm

    @zuzu:

    How many shoe bombs have been detected in all the years we’ve been putting our shoes on the belt, for example?

    This is making me laugh a bit — it’s getting late! So, um, no shoe bombs since then, since you can’t put bombs in your shoes any more. So far no underwear bombs, since … uh … well, people are fighting about that. But if full-body scans and pat-downs continue, you can’t put bombs in your underwear any more either!

    Drat! A person is going to have to put a bomb up his/her ass at this point. Or, say, under a wig. It’s almost like carrying explosives onto planes just doesn’t really work any more.

  89. 89.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 10:24 pm

    @sukabi:

    Strictly speaking, everyone is a potential terrorist. Yes, potential ain’t the same as actual, but there’s no way to know for sure, and so they have to do what they can to ensure the safety of travellers. I miss the happy old days when you could catch a plane without security, but we don’t live in those times any longer.

    On your wider point – pre-screening would only be effective up to a point. Fake IDs, sudden conversions, sleeper agents, clean skins… you just can’t be sure that pre-screening would catch the one person who counts. Any information system can be gamed by someone who takes the time. If you want safety, at some point you have to come back to physically ensuring it.

  90. 90.

    Lolis

    November 21, 2010 at 10:25 pm

    I had a layover in Germany in 2003. The security lady literally stuck her hands inside my pants and felt around. I honestly didn’t care. I know that is not liberal to say. But I think people are overreacting a tad to airport security. If that was happening at my courthouse or at a school I would feel differently.

  91. 91.

    sukabi

    November 21, 2010 at 10:25 pm

    @burnspbesq: and my overall point was that they are assuming that EVERYONE is a potential terrorist. Doesn’t that smack right up in the face of “Innocent until proven guilty”?

    And with all the “tools” the government has granted itself, ie the wholesale capture of all electronic communications, wouldn’t it be logical that they’d do a better job of “pre-screening” folks prior to them actually getting to the airport for the x-ray and or grope treatment?

    It was my impression that they were going to use those communication captures to actually, you know, find terrorists.

  92. 92.

    Dennis SGMM

    November 21, 2010 at 10:26 pm

    If suicidal terrorists are such a threat, why hasn’t there been a single incident of one of them detonating a backpack full of explosives and ball bearings in a crowded mall? Are they only trained to work above a certain altitude or…?

  93. 93.

    zuzu

    November 21, 2010 at 10:27 pm

    @morzer:

    That’s quite an intriguing dichotomy you’ve constructed. Nothing like taking the extreme worst case scenario as a baseline for discussion, eh?

    There’s nothing worst-case about it. Scientists have pointed out that there is no safe dose of X-ray radiation, and that the particular way that the backscatter works — not penetrating the body but concentrating on the skin — may be especially problematic for skin-cancer survivors. We already know that the nude photos can be and have been saved on at least some machines despite government assurances that there’s no way for that to happen.

    The TSA has already given three-year-olds the kind of pat-down search that would get anyone else arrested for child molestation, and the TSA is now claiming that it was just some people who haven’t been trained properly on the new protocols.

    So, yeah, reeeeeaaal false, that dichotomy.

    As for giving “consent” by entering the security line: forced consent or consent given under duress isn’t consent. If you have to fly for work, you can’t really back out. If you’ve forked over hundreds or thousands for a vacation that will be forfeit unless you submit to the procedures, that’s not consent. Just as having sex with your boss to keep your job isn’t consensual.

  94. 94.

    KCinDC

    November 21, 2010 at 10:31 pm

    If you don’t want to be groped, go through the scanner.

    No, @burnspbesq, even if you go through the scanner, you may very well still be groped. If the metal detector goes off or something shows up on the scanner (and of course we know neither of those would ever happen unless you’re carrying something dangerous, right?), you’re subject to a “patdown”.

    If you don’t want to be groped, there’s no way to avoid “consenting” to it except never flying anywhere.

  95. 95.

    sukabi

    November 21, 2010 at 10:31 pm

    @morzer: The next step is strip searches of all passengers, and you know what? There is still going to be the occasional person that gets through and does some stupid shit… You know what else? More planes go down due to pilot error, mechanical malfunction or weather conditions than have gone down due to terrorist action. Why not ban flying altogether if you want to be “perfectly safe”? Besides, what’s to stop a terrorist from taking a plane down with a rocket or something else? You don’t have to be on a plane to do that, and there’s very little that can be done to stop that from happening — EXCEPT ACTUAL POLICE WORK.

  96. 96.

    zuzu

    November 21, 2010 at 10:31 pm

    @parsimon:

    This is making me laugh a bit—it’s getting late! So, um, no shoe bombs since then, since you can’t put bombs in your shoes any more. So far no underwear bombs, since … uh … well, people are fighting about that. But if full-body scans and pat-downs continue, you can’t put bombs in your underwear any more either!

    You’re dodging the point. How many bombs have been detected through these means? Obviously, the reaction to the shoe bomber didn’t deter the liquids guy, and the measures put in place didn’t deter the crotch bomber. But neither did any of those measures detect the next guy.

    So, again, I ask you: How many explosives have actually been detected using these methods?

  97. 97.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 10:32 pm

    @zuzu:

    Yes, it is a false dichotomy, and one based on the worst cases – as you are well aware. You could just as easily construct an alternative choice between a harmless trip through the scanner with no saved pictures, versus a professional body search where no-one gropes you and all is fine.

    If you want to go another round of finding the most scary choices, feel free.

  98. 98.

    Sheesh

    November 21, 2010 at 10:32 pm

    @morzer:

    But the answer is to improve their training and the system they work in, rather than immediately jumping to full red alert about something that will not happen to the vast majority of passengers.

    Exactly. That’s why these enhanced screening measures are an absolute waste, grope or not. They are responding to a threat that will not happen to the vast majority of passengers.

    You’re right that I’m not trying to have the argument about whether this is sexual assault (in most cases). I think the intention is that it is not. The implementation though cannot be secured as it stands. There has been no claim or guarantee that screeners are trained to caress genitals in a safe way and that rapiscan’s machines are guarteed to provide secure image storage, or secure image exportation. I.e., can nerdy dudes like me that work for TSA take home the pictures they like? What clearance do they need to do that? Is merely physical access enough? Hardened? Encrypted? Keys secure?

  99. 99.

    zuzu

    November 21, 2010 at 10:33 pm

    @burnspbesq: What law allows this kind of invasive searching?

  100. 100.

    parsimon

    November 21, 2010 at 10:34 pm

    @Lolis:

    I know that is not liberal to say.

    ? Why?

    I know that sides are being drawn here in such a way that conservatives somehow stand for an enhanced security state, while liberals are agin’ it, but I’d really resist that perspective. The details matter.

  101. 101.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 10:39 pm

    @sukabi:

    Logically, if you don’t want to risk something bad happening on a plane, then avoid planes. Ditto trains and automobiles, and even a walk down the street. The reality of that isn’t going to change. It’s just as easy to point out that the police are not angels either and construct elaborate fantasies about what a full-fledged police state might look like. In a terrorist age, people are going to be searched before they are allowed into areas where people gather. if you want total liberty, you have to give up a measure of personal safety, and vice versa. That’s just the reality. Obviously, different people will have different stickingpoints, but it doesn’t help their case when they take possibilities to extremes pre-emptively.

  102. 102.

    Sheesh

    November 21, 2010 at 10:40 pm

    @Dennis SGMM:

    If suicidal terrorists are such a threat, why hasn’t there been a single incident of one of them detonating a backpack full of explosives and ball bearings in a crowded mall? Are they only trained to work above a certain altitude or…?

    Absolutely. Again that’s why this is merely security theatre. There’s a perfect soft target in every airport right now: the line in front of the metal detector. What would happen to our transit system if a dude in a backpack took off his shoes and then blew himself up right next to you in JFK? It would grind to a halt for days.

    We are not at risk of terrorism. Not now, not yet. This is all a phenomenal waste.

  103. 103.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 10:43 pm

    @Sheesh:

    There’s rather a difference between one person being groped, unpleasant as that is, and one bomb going off on a plane. That’s why there’s a difference between the cases, rather than a perfect parallel.

    On the issue of perfect security, it’s doubtless possible to improve the system, maybe even perfect it – but I can see why those responsible for security wanted to get it in place, warts and all, rather than waiting.

  104. 104.

    KCinDC

    November 21, 2010 at 10:44 pm

    If that was happening at my courthouse or at a school I would feel differently.

    @Lolis, suppose tomorrow someone tries to blow up a courthouse or school. Will you then be okay with having these invasive security measures there as well? If not, why not? If so, is there any line you won’t cross to have a sense of security?

  105. 105.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 10:44 pm

    @Sheesh:

    You say we are not at risk of terrorism – having just outlined one very clear potential risk. This strikes me as a contradiction.

  106. 106.

    zuzu

    November 21, 2010 at 10:48 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Probable cause is irrelevant. TSA is relying on the administrative search exception to the warrant requirement. If you’re up for a frontal assault on 80 years of settled case law

    Searches of your effects are not the same as searches of your person. Rules are different when it comes to invasive searches of your person, including strip searches and partial strip-searches. There must be a particular suspicion, not just an administrative exception.

    They’ve relied on the administrative search exception to inspect your bags and send you through a metal detector. They’ve now entered invasive-search territory, for which they don’t have 80 years of precedent in their favor.

  107. 107.

    Dennis SGMM

    November 21, 2010 at 10:49 pm

    @Sheesh:
    Anyone else remember the chaos that was caused by John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo (The Beltway Snipers)? They had an M-16 knockoff rifle and an old Chevy Caprice with a hole cut in the trunk. I’m inclined to believe that the terrorists aren’t actively fucking with us because we are doing such a great job of fucking with ourselves.

  108. 108.

    Corner Stone

    November 21, 2010 at 10:49 pm

    Take it for what you will but I found this hilarious:
    “Operation Hemorrhage”: AQAP Mocks Airline Security
    Jeralyn summarizes some supposed proclamations from AQAP, and what their goals were with the recent suspicious packages on flights.
    If true, which I leave up to the reader, it’s pretty sad that we continue to fall for low tech asymmetric warfare. And basically react as our enemies planned.

    ETA sloppy wording by me. Jeralyn isn’t the target of credulity, it’s the AQAP magazine and their goals I’m dubious about.

  109. 109.

    Sheesh

    November 21, 2010 at 10:51 pm

    @morzer:

    In a terrorist age, people are going to be searched before they are allowed into areas where people gather.

    No, we are absolutely not at risk in a real sense. If we were all actually rational numerate people we’d know that to actually be at risk of terrorism the risk would have to be higher than dying in an auto accident on the way to the airport.

    We do not live in a terrorist age, by your criteria, because on Friday there will be huge huge huge masses of people standing around in the dark in front of mall and shop doors, some of them will even be trampled to death, but the likelihood that that there will be a coordinated terrorist attack that kills over 3000 people this Friday is next to nil.

    No really.

  110. 110.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 10:51 pm

    @Dennis SGMM:

    I’ve often wondered why OBL didn’t try replicating the Beltway snipers with say a hundred young men in big cities. The chaos would be horrendous.

  111. 111.

    zuzu

    November 21, 2010 at 10:52 pm

    @morzer: Sorry, punkin. I’ve already been outright groped even before the new “enhanced” procedures have been put in place. And knowing the groper’s just someone doing a job doesn’t make it okay to be touched without my full consent.

    Are you willing to guarantee that the scanners are perfectly, 100% safe, and that I’m imagining all those photos that have been saved by these scanners that don’t save photos and put on the internet?

  112. 112.

    burnspbesq

    November 21, 2010 at 10:53 pm

    @zuzu:

    As for giving “consent” by entering the security line: forced consent or consent given under duress isn’t consent. If you have to fly for work, you can’t really back out. If you’ve forked over hundreds or thousands for a vacation that will be forfeit unless you submit to the procedures, that’s not consent. Just as having sex with your boss to keep your job isn’t consensual.

    Good luck litigating that. Analogy fail. Did you sleep through Crim Pro?

  113. 113.

    burnspbesq

    November 21, 2010 at 10:56 pm

    OT: the officiating in the MLS final is horribly one-sided in favor of Dallas.

  114. 114.

    zuzu

    November 21, 2010 at 10:57 pm

    @Lolis:

    If that was happening at my courthouse or at a school I would feel differently.

    These pictures are from a courthouse using one of those scanners that we have been assured doesn’t save images.

    I suppose you could take morzer’s position that you could just avoid courthouses, but that’s a little difficult if you or your client will suffer penalty if you don’t go inside.

  115. 115.

    parsimon

    November 21, 2010 at 10:57 pm

    @zuzu:

    I think it’s more a question of what law doesn’t allow it. Hence burnspbesq’s invitation to find a plaintiff with standing and go for it.

  116. 116.

    KCinDC

    November 21, 2010 at 10:58 pm

    @morzer, I’d say one reason is that bin Laden doesn’t have a hundred young men in big US cities.

  117. 117.

    sukabi

    November 21, 2010 at 11:00 pm

    @morzer: and yet the DC snipers weren’t classified as terrorists, when what they did was actually to cause an entire city to shut down… and the result of that WASN’T a ban on assault rifles or the search and seizure of every person in every car… now why is that and why is the “standard” different for folks wanting to fly?

    the answer more than likely lies in where the money is. The NRA couldn’t care less if they are helping supply terrorists through the black market, and the folks who set up the current scan system are getting filthy rich using the TSA as their conduit for their machines.

  118. 118.

    Sheesh

    November 21, 2010 at 11:00 pm

    @Sheesh:
    I wasn’t clear here, I should have said:
    No, we are absolutely not at risk in a real sense. If we were all actually rational numerate people we’d know that to actually be at risk of terrorism –and I mean here enough to actually worry about it personally killing us to the extent that every single flier must be viewed naked — the risk would have to be higher than dying in an auto accident on the way to the airport.

    Edit: And further I mean spending millions of dollars during a purported age of austerity on machines, personnel and training to view every single flier naked.

  119. 119.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 11:03 pm

    @Sheesh:

    You don’t understand how the probability calculation works here. You are arguing that the probability is low of an attack in any given place as a reason against the security apparatus. This misses the point:

    The probability of any given attack or terrorist action is and always was very small, viewed in purely statistical terms. However, the consequences of a given attack would be potentially appalling. What security aims to do is minimize the risk in areas deemed to be plausible targets. Part of the whole calculus of terror is that it forces us to defend more than we can defend without increased expenditure and loss of liberties. We live in an age of terror because OBL, following others, saw terror as an effective weapon, and because his long-shot gamble paid off. We’ve seen attacks in Bali, Madrid and London have hideous consequences. None of them were high probability events in statistical terms – but they all happened.

    Also, next to nil is not nil. Think what the odds were on 9/11 happening/ It’s easy to be glib about how next to nil means it will never happen to me, personally. Unfortunately, some of the people who think that will be wrong. Security aims to minimize the number of such people.

    So the likelihood of an attack at a given mall this Friday is low. It always was. Is low equal to zero? No. Could the attack happen on Saturday? Sunday? At any mall? Yes, it could.

    Security is about trying to push the odds of a good outcome in your favor in the event of something unlikely happening – and it always was.

  120. 120.

    shortstop

    November 21, 2010 at 11:04 pm

    Okay, so kids can’t be groped by the TSA. That’s good.

    So kids, like vaginas and anuses (ani?), can be carriers of the dreaded contraband. That’s bad.

    This system has holes in it a mile wide despite putting everybody through a massive invasion of the most personal of space. That’s real, real bad.

    Except for the people selling the machines and the powers that rely on selling a false sense of security to a gullible and terrified public. It’s real, real good for them.

  121. 121.

    Dennis SGMM

    November 21, 2010 at 11:05 pm

    @morzer:
    That leads back to the question of why, with the old-fashioned means for creating chaos and destruction so easy to obtain in this nation, it hasn’t happened. I wouldn’t say that there’s no terrorist threat, there is. I would say that it would be worthwhile to follow the money trail and see who’s cashing in by pretending to protect us from hyped-up threats that pose less danger than being killed in a fall (Over 14,000 deaths every year) or in an auto accident (Over 40,000 deaths a year).

  122. 122.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 11:06 pm

    @zuzu:

    Well, punkin, sucks to be you, right? But that doesn’t mean that you can make any lazy argument you like and expect the rest of us to go along with it. An argument based on extremes is still an argument based on extremes, and that doesn’t change because one person experiences those extremes.

  123. 123.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 11:09 pm

    @KCinDC:

    Probably not, or at least not one hundred that he’s thought of deploying that way. But suppose he had say.. ten men in New York, or DC, or Dallas, or Boston? Suppose those men targeted law enforcement officials, firefighters, public officials in that city… what then?

  124. 124.

    shortstop

    November 21, 2010 at 11:09 pm

    We’ve seen attacks in Bali, Madrid and London have hideous consequences.

    Hideous, yes. And yet the UK and Spain have somehow managed to carry on without backscatter machines. Bali, too, as far as I know.

    Yes, I know that wasn’t your point. Hope you can recognize mine.

  125. 125.

    shortstop

    November 21, 2010 at 11:12 pm

    @morzer:

    But suppose he had say.. ten men in New York, or DC, or Dallas, or Boston? Suppose those men targeted law enforcement officials, firefighters, public officials in that city… what then?

    Dude, you’re starting to sound like a chain email from the right. What is your wife doing to celebrate her birthday while you play reflexively contrary boy on a blog?

  126. 126.

    Roger Moore

    November 21, 2010 at 11:13 pm

    @morzer:

    I’ve often wondered why OBL didn’t try replicating the Beltway snipers with say a hundred young men in big cities.

    Because he doesn’t have 100 young men who can get into the US and are willing to do that kind of thing. He has a fair number of people around the Af/Pak border, but most of them are low level grunts. For all that people freak out about al Qaeda, they’re a relatively small group, and hardly any of them are ready to carry out independent operations in the West. My impression is that the reason the 9/11 attacks weren’t any bigger is because they used every single AQ member capable of operating in the US.

  127. 127.

    Angry Black Lady

    November 21, 2010 at 11:14 pm

    @parsimon: i did not say all security pat-downs are sexual assault. the stories that have been posted on the interwebs thus far have made me more alarmed about this new security than i otherwise would have been.

    two of my friends (both gorgeous women) were stopped for “extra questioning” at lax and the TSA agent proceeded, essentially, to hit on them. this was before the new grope-down was put into effect.

    i’m pointing out that most of the discussions that i’ve read thus far about the intrusiveness of these searches have been from the male point of view– it’s all about junk touching and who cares and so what if some x ray of my wang ends up on the internet etc. i’m just trying to speak up for the women and men who will find this sort of touching humiliating, intrusive and in some cases, i would imagine, traumatizing. i don’t think these concerns should be brushed off as irrelevant, or hyperbole, or uncommon.

  128. 128.

    zuzu

    November 21, 2010 at 11:14 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Did you sleep through Crim Pro?

    Did you sleep through Con Law?

  129. 129.

    Sheesh

    November 21, 2010 at 11:15 pm

    @morzer:

    Absolutely. I don’t misunderstand the probability. That’s the whole goddamn point; appalling attacks or not. Appalling attacks cannot be avoided in a free society. Metal detectors, x-rayed luggage, bomb-sniffing dogs and behavioral analysts would be enough to deter nearly all in-flight attacks (the evidence is: they have! here and abroad!).

    So the likelihood of an attack at a given mall this Friday is low. It always was. Is low equal to zero? No. Could the attack happen on Saturday? Sunday? At any mall? Yes, it could.Security is about trying to push the odds of a good outcome in your favor in the event of something unlikely happening – and it always was.

    Spending billions of dollars a year for a security apparatus with no empirical evidence of efficacy is the phenomenal waste I was talking about. We aren’t checking every shopper’s naked body, even though those are SOFTER, HIGH CASUALTY TARGETS. We practically ignore “homegrown” domestic terrorism when the DHS and TSA budgets are doled out. If we lived “in an age of terrorism” as you defined it, malls would not be operating without body scanners, we wouldn’t be roaming around without curfews and checkpoints and identification.

    I know I know. Capslock. Sorry.

  130. 130.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 11:16 pm

    @sukabi:

    Well, it was an isolated set of incidents. If you had multiple small groups doing this, I imagine you’d see a pretty strong reaction and demands for classifying it as terrorism. How that would play into larger issues of gun rights is a very interesting question.

    Second, the men in question could be painted as crazy/monsters/freaks because they had no apparent parent organization or group behind them that claimed responsibility or called it part of a jihad (although John Allen Muhammed apparently did so in his own writings).

  131. 131.

    mbss

    November 21, 2010 at 11:18 pm

    point to on the doll where pedobear touched you.

  132. 132.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 11:18 pm

    @shortstop:

    I’d say you don’t have much of a grasp of logic here. But do feel free to try again if you come up with an intelligent contribution to the debate.

  133. 133.

    Bill Murray

    November 21, 2010 at 11:20 pm

    @morzer: who knew that how morzer thinks about things is the standard that should be used to set TSA policy.

  134. 134.

    Mike G

    November 21, 2010 at 11:21 pm

    @morzer:

    I’ve often wondered why OBL didn’t try replicating the Beltway snipers with say a hundred young men in big cities. The chaos would be horrendous.

    Notice the only “terrorists” they seem to have caught in the US since 9/11 are untrained wannabes, clowns who can barely tie their own shoes.

    In southern California in the summer, all you’d need is a couple dozen guys each with a book of matches in rural areas to cause incredible destruction on a hot windy day.

    The idea of significant “sleeper cells” is a crock of pants-pissing Repigs angling for politcal advantage.

  135. 135.

    shortstop

    November 21, 2010 at 11:24 pm

    @morzer: Reflexive contrariness and a soupcon of pure projection. I love me some lagniappe!

  136. 136.

    Sheesh

    November 21, 2010 at 11:27 pm

    @Mike G:

    The idea of significant “sleeper cells” is a crock of pants-pissing Repigs angling for politcal advantage.

    Right. And again that’s why this is not “a terrorist age”. Match sales in California aren’t regulated, and National Parks’ visitors aren’t viewed in the nude and sniffed out for matches.

  137. 137.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 11:28 pm

    @Sheesh:

    Tell me, if a bomb goes off in a mall, do you think that might change? So far, we’ve been lucky, but that probably won’t hold good forever. Security deals with areas that seem likeliest to be attacked first – and so far attacks have focussed on public areas and transportation. Thus, security tries to seal off those areas reactively.

    Unfortunately, we do live in an age of terrorism – we just don’t, and never will have the resources to achieve 100% security, leaving aside how far civil liberties could or should be compromised. The whole point of terrorism is.. terror, arising from the fact that we can’t be 100% safe, and just one “win” is enough to make the terrorists’ point.

    Basically, the security apparatus is equivalent to paying for a police force and fire brigade, even though your own home may never be burgled, and most likely will never catch fire. If you choose to do without them, maybe you’ll be lucky. If everyone goes without it, sooner or later the probability of a fire or theft is going to come through. You can’t judge the value of your investment until something has happened, and you can’t judge a security system based on the fact that so far nothing has happened. We don’t know how effective it has been as a deterrent, for one thing.

  138. 138.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 11:31 pm

    @Mike G:

    No, it’s a possibility which hasn’t come to fruition, and hopefully never will do, because the consequences would be pretty severe. I know it’s fashionable on here to assume that anyone who disagrees with the liberal orthodoxy on a given issue must be a right-winger, but it’s a particularly lazy way of ducking a real discussion rather than a reality.

  139. 139.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 11:32 pm

    @shortstop:

    Well, I am sure lagniappe will be very useful to you in your next spelling contest. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I intend to ignore you until you come up with some interesting facts or a real argument.

  140. 140.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 11:34 pm

    @Bill Murray:

    Bit early in the evening for that level of weak sauce, Bill.

  141. 141.

    parsimon

    November 21, 2010 at 11:35 pm

    @Angry Black Lady:

    i’m just trying to speak up for the women and men who will find this sort of touching humiliating, intrusive and in some cases, i would imagine, traumatizing.

    I understand, and no argument; the disabled, or differently abled, community, has a lot of concerns — and good writing — about this as well.

    You did, though, say that all security pat-downs are sexual assault, in your post of Nov. 20. Quoting:

    You’ve got George Bush making jokes about the TSA’s new policy of sexually assaulting nearly every person who comes within an eight mile radius of the airport. (And yes, in my view, it is sexual assault.

    I don’t mention that as some sort of gotcha. Just to say that I thought you were making an overblown statement then, and I shrugged and was mildly irked, but in this most recent post you seemed to be doing it again, so I said something. I do consider that hyperbole, and this isn’t coming from an uncomprehending male perspective.

  142. 142.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 11:36 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    I sincerely hope you are right, although I kinda doubt it. Who would have imagined that the random losers and wannabes he had available could have managed 9/11, after all?

  143. 143.

    sukabi

    November 21, 2010 at 11:37 pm

    @morzer: and this whole “we’ve been lucky so far” argument would be really good, if most of the terrorism being spawned wasn’t a direct result of shitty foreign policy that we embrace that relies on blowing shit up and taking resources. Until that’s changed we’re going to keep breeding terrorists who want to blow us up.

  144. 144.

    zuzu

    November 21, 2010 at 11:40 pm

    Morzer, how much stock do you own in Rapiscan?

    Also: the Israelis have lots of experience with malls getting blown up. And yet they don’t use these scanners.

  145. 145.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 11:41 pm

    @sukabi:

    Right – and if “we” (as in the right-wing crazies) weren’t busily trying to radicalize our own American Muslims by talking about burning Korans, denouncing projects to try and build a bridge with the Muslim world, howling at the idea of a mosque anywhere near us etc etc. What worries me most is that we are almost certainly going to push into OBL’s arms young men who would never have gone near him without our active assistance.

  146. 146.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 11:41 pm

    @zuzu:

    None. Did you just sell yours?

    Any other cheap hits you’d like to try?

  147. 147.

    Sheesh

    November 21, 2010 at 11:42 pm

    @morzer:

    Maybe you misunderstand. My argument is not for no security. My argument is that airport security was at the very least sufficient, even on 9/11. I know it’s scary that dudes with box-cutters can hijack a plane and do bad stuff, but –you know what?– boxcutters are pretty handy and don’t have to be banned for safety.

    My argument since post one in this thread is that nude x-rays are a waste of money. A phenomenal waste, I said. They don’t make you safer in any measurable sense. You’re already more likely to die on the highway (I work in traffic management, so I know all about it; in my line of work we can measure when something we implement reduces fatalities or is correlated with reduced fatalities). Empiricism, that’s how I roll. Attacks don’t even happen regularly enough for us to measure the deterrence of existing systems, so all we can measure is actual attacks!

    So here’s the facts: 3/4 of the attacked planes on 9/11 were successfully hijacked. No plane since has been hijacked. At least 3 actual attackers have made it through “post-9/11 security” to attempt attacks but have all been feckless or thwarted. Apparently it’s passengers that prevent airline terrorism and not seeing every flier naked.

    Reactive security isn’t a game you can win in an asymmetric fight, as you know, so why are we doing it? Why aren’t we dumping the boondoggles and going straight for human intelligence (aka “police work”) and behavioral analysis (aka “police work”)?

  148. 148.

    shortstop

    November 21, 2010 at 11:43 pm

    we just don’t, and never will have the resources to achieve 100% security, leaving aside how far civil liberties could or should be compromised.

    The first half of your sentence is, of course, what pretty much everyone else here has been arguing. And pretty much everyone else disagrees with your characterization of the second half as a point to be “left aside” at any stage of the discussion. Since we know we cannot achieve 100 percent (or anywhere near it) “security,” at what point do we characterize the significant compromise of civil liberties as not meeting the standards for a security tradeoff?

    Your answer appears to be never, or at least considerably farther down the road than everyone else’s cutoff. As support for this position you’re offering a version of the old snapping-my-fingers-keeps-out-tigers-and-here’s-the-tigerless-room-to-prove-it claim.

    You can’t judge the value of your investment until something has happened, and you can’t judge a security system based on the fact that so far nothing has happened. We don’t know how effective it has been as a deterrent, for one thing.

    Snap, snap.

  149. 149.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 11:47 pm

    @Sheesh:

    You can’t “win” a fight against an organization like AlQaeda, which is why giving them targets in Iraq and Afghanistan was the height of folly. What you can do is limit your own losses as far as possible, which is where the security system comes in. I don’t think we should write off things like airport security as boondoggles so quickly. Yes, bring in more police work, and reform what you have, but don’t assume that there is no deterrent effect. By its nature, a successful deterrent doesn’t provide much evidence of its success. I don’t believe that we can reform a system without an honest and open discussion of what it can and cannot do, much less by ignoring possible or actual abuses – but equally, we won’t get anywhere by insisting that the whole system is worthless and that every scan or touch is a sexual assault or produces cancer.

  150. 150.

    parsimon

    November 21, 2010 at 11:49 pm

    Further to my last: I don’t think it’s wise to let a George W. Bush “Heh, heh” locker-room response frame the discussion in such a way that the only reply that seems available is to declare that pat-downs are sexual assaults. Don’t let his kind frame it that way.

  151. 151.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 11:51 pm

    @shortstop:

    I am glad to note your agreement with me.

  152. 152.

    morzer

    November 21, 2010 at 11:53 pm

    @parsimon:

    It is a little surprising that those who detested Dubya and thought him an illiterate and ignorant clown should suddenly start using his off-color jokes as evidence for reality. Live long enough and you see everything.

  153. 153.

    zuzu

    November 21, 2010 at 11:57 pm

    Parsimon, if someone on the street groped me, it would be sexual assault. Why is it okay when it’s the government doing it?

    Because they gave me a choice? Some choice. “You can always choose not to fly, but if you do fly, you can’t opt out of security. Security means you go through a scanner which shows your nude body to someone in a booth who may not be the same gender as you AND subjects you to radiation which may be carcinogenic and is certainly contraindicted for skin-cancer survivors. Or, you can have your breasts and genitals touched in a manner that you teach your children is wrong. Once you get on line, you can’t back out, even if you don’t actually know what’s involved in the search; if you do try to back out, you may be arrested and fined up to $11,000. If you back out before you get on line, you forfeit your airfare and any associated travel costs. Have a nice day!”

  154. 154.

    shortstop

    November 22, 2010 at 12:01 am

    @morzer: We begin to see that sympathy for your partner’s solitary birthday evening is much misplaced. Keep snapping. Faster! Faster!

  155. 155.

    parsimon

    November 22, 2010 at 12:02 am

    @morzer:

    I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but you have a point. You’ve been under more stress in this thread than I have, and I haven’t been fully following that.

    Good night, all! Good conversation.

  156. 156.

    Sheesh

    November 22, 2010 at 12:05 am

    @morzer:

    You can’t “win” a fight against an organization like AlQaeda, which is why giving them targets in Iraq and Afghanistan was the height of folly. What you can do is limit your own losses as far as possible, which is where the security system comes in.

    Yes. We agree here. No argument.

    I don’t think we should write off things like airport security as boondoggles so quickly. Yes, bring in more police work, and reform what you have, but don’t assume that there is no deterrent effect. By its nature, a successful deterrent doesn’t provide much evidence of its success.

    Yes, bring in more police work. No argument there, either. But the rest is a faith claim — a fact-free, no evidence faith claim. And that’s where my argument is. We can’t measure how much of a deterrent existed before, so we can’t measure the old deterrent plus x of added gropes and nudey scans. Is there a deterrent at all? Unknown. You would like to think there is, imagine there is, hope there is, but you don’t know there is. And here’s where my argument comes in, the resources invested in rapiscan could have gone into human intelligence, hiring and paying for police and/or highly trained behavior experts and/or K9 units and/or entrance checkpoints. These all have a track record (evidence) of improving security (here and abroad).

    I don’t believe that we can reform a system without an honest and open discussion of what it can and cannot do, much less by ignoring possible or actual abuses – but equally, we won’t get anywhere by insisting that the whole system is worthless and that every scan or touch is a sexual assault or produces cancer.

    I don’t have an argument with you here either. I don’t think the intent of the TSA is to sexually assault all fliers. Some will be though. This system demands it. Maybe we shouldn’t use it if it’s not proven to be effective or less effective than other known quantities, perhaps human intelligence and behavioral analysis that don’t permit the opportunity for sexual assault.

  157. 157.

    Roger Moore

    November 22, 2010 at 12:06 am

    @Sheesh:

    Why aren’t we dumping the boondoggles and going straight for human intelligence (aka “police work”) and behavioral analysis (aka “police work”)?

    Because police work doesn’t put large stacks of cash into the hands of politically connected corporations. SATSQ.

  158. 158.

    morzer

    November 22, 2010 at 12:06 am

    @shortstop:

    Boysenberry pie, you say? Well, tastes vary.

  159. 159.

    morzer

    November 22, 2010 at 12:09 am

    @Sheesh:

    You do realize that your claim that the system isn’t a deterrent is not based on facts or figures? Given the impossibility of proving a negative, that’s not surprising, but it doesn’t add much force to your desire to dismantle the system.

  160. 160.

    Sheesh

    November 22, 2010 at 12:13 am

    @morzer:

    You do realize that your claim that the system isn’t a deterrent is not based on facts or figures? Given the impossibility of proving a negative, that’s not surprising, but it doesn’t add much force to your desire to dismantle the system.

    I claim there is a unicorn in my garden or a dragon in my garage. Both are invisible. Both are undetectable by any means known to man. Now, are they in fact there, because I wish them to be there? Or are they not there?

    Why are they not there?

  161. 161.

    shortstop

    November 22, 2010 at 12:17 am

    @Sheesh:

    But the rest is a faith claim—a fact-free, no evidence faith claim. And that’s where my argument is. We can’t measure how much of a deterrent existed before, so we can’t measure the old deterrent plus x of added gropes and nudey scans. Is there a deterrent at all? Unknown. You would like to think there is, imagine there is, hope there is, but you don’t know there is. And here’s where my argument comes in, the resources invested in rapiscan could have gone into human intelligence, hiring and paying for police and/or highly trained behavior experts and/or K9 units and/or entrance checkpoints. These all have a track record (evidence) of improving security (here and abroad).

    This, of course. The repeated suggestion that this negative has been proven, or has even been shown to be likely, fails. There just isn’t any evidence at all on this point.

  162. 162.

    morzer

    November 22, 2010 at 12:18 am

    @Sheesh:

    Megan McArdle would say that they are not there because her calculator lacks billions. Michael Steele would say that he is the voice of the Tea Party unicorns. Doubtless Jonah Goldberg would tell you that they might seem to be a unicorn and dragon, but they are really fascists in disguise. Personally, I’d recommend a good night’s sleep and a re-investigation of the topic tomorrow. I believe both creatures are partial to virgins, so if you can find a cooperative virgin, that might be your best bet.

  163. 163.

    Sheesh

    November 22, 2010 at 12:19 am

    @morzer: Or is the alternate meaning of your query that you don’t give a shit if it’s an expensive system with no measurable increase in safety? You just don’t give a shit?

    See, if it’s impossible to know if it’s a deterrent, then you can’t use deterrence as an argument in its favor. That would be illogical, irrational. Is it that you don’t care if we pump millions (in this so-called age of austerity) into airline safety irrationally and illogically?

  164. 164.

    Sheesh

    November 22, 2010 at 12:20 am

    @morzer: At this, I lolled. Cheers :)

  165. 165.

    morzer

    November 22, 2010 at 12:22 am

    @Sheesh:

    It seems you’ve decided to embark on wild re-imaginings of what my argument was. I’ll leave you with the unicorn and dragon. You seem to need some time alone.. or possibly not alone. Good night.

  166. 166.

    Roger Moore

    November 22, 2010 at 12:22 am

    @morzer:
    I would argue that the default position should be not spending money and not invading people’s privacy. It’s the responsibility of the people who want to pay for these boondoggle machines and implement invasive searches to show that they’re going to be effective, not their opponents’ job to show that they aren’t. I’d further say that proof these machines work isn’t enough; their proponents need to compare them to other potential uses of the money we’re spending on them to show that they’re a good place to spend our limited resources.

  167. 167.

    YellowJournalism

    November 22, 2010 at 12:25 am

    I have a real problem with Carville saying that about the president.

    I have an even bigger problem with the fact that he said it about the female SoS. The whole woman-in-power-having-butch-qualities is quite sickening and lowers that wonderful glass ceiling as much as angry black man stereotypes and other racist put-downs do for those of color.

    @Angry Black Lady: Hear, fucking hear! Don’t dismiss legitimate concerns just because the right has started co-opting this issue for their anti-Obama/anti-union stance or that some people actually do engage in a little as-bad-as-rape hyperbole.

  168. 168.

    Sheesh

    November 22, 2010 at 12:26 am

    @morzer:

    You do realize that your claim that the system isn’t a deterrent is not based on facts or figures? Given the impossibility of proving a negative, that’s not surprising, but it doesn’t add much force to your desire to dismantle the system.

    In light of your response, I’m glad it’s not what you meant. We can strike my previous question from the record! I was sort of perplexed why you even asked, hence my second guess at what your intent was.

  169. 169.

    Mnemosyne

    November 22, 2010 at 12:30 am

    @parsimon:

    If this is a response to me and also to the Doctor Science post on ObWi, I don’t know if it matters that I’m female, as is Doctor Science.

    And, oddly enough, Doctor Science does not actually share your opinion that having your breasts groped by a stranger is no big deal. In fact, she points out that it’s basically a threat by the TSA: go through the scanner or we grope you:

    In the third place, it wasn’t presented as the alternative (disobedient passengers, for the use of) to a technically and ethically dubious device that had cost a lot of money and that higher-ups wanted to see being used, whether it did any good or not.

    Again, when the offer from the TSA is “nude photos or groping?” it’s really not much of a choice. And I do find it disgusting that people are basically being threatened with molestation if they don’t do what the nice policeman says and step into the scanner.

    You may not have a problem being groped by strangers. I do. Why, exactly, is your level of comfort with being groped supposed to be the standard?

  170. 170.

    Mnemosyne

    November 22, 2010 at 12:33 am

    @morzer:

    You do realize that your claim that the system isn’t a deterrent is not based on facts or figures?

    Neither is your claim that it is a deterrent. Shouldn’t we fall on the side of not groping people unless we can prove it actually works with, like, evidence and stuff?

  171. 171.

    Yutsano

    November 22, 2010 at 12:34 am

    @Mnemosyne: There is a third option: don’t get on the plane and ruin all your travel plans. Since the TSA is counting on very few folks to actually take door #3, that leaves humiliation now or death later. It really creates a power imbalance, and power imbalances tend to lead to abuse. But too many political donors making too much money off security theater means there won’t be much change any time soon.

    And now I need a shower after touching this thread.

  172. 172.

    Sheesh

    November 22, 2010 at 12:37 am

    @Roger Moore: Yes, exactly. I want the government, the TSA, and everyone to proceed from actual reality. I want to see decisions made and policies implemented based on reason and evidence. For the “nude scan or get groped” situation I want to see a logical, evidence-based case for why we should trade off the invasion of privacy, the opportunity for sexual assault, and the chilling effects on other civil liberties (travel, free association) for some measurable amount of safety. With out some measurable amount of safety we have no basis for making the trade! We could be trading privacy, rights, assault for nothing!

  173. 173.

    Mnemosyne

    November 22, 2010 at 12:40 am

    @Yutsano:

    There is a third option: don’t get on the plane and ruin all your travel plans.

    Of course, that’s exactly what the guy who sparked this whole thing tried to do, and he was threatened with a $10,000 fine for leaving security. Apparently, once you enter the security area, you are not allowed to leave without either being x-rayed or being groped.

    If you don’t even have the choice to leave rather than be subjected to intrusive security measures, it’s not really a free choice on the passenger’s part at all.

  174. 174.

    Sheesh

    November 22, 2010 at 12:44 am

    @Yutsano: I hope people do boycott. If the monied interests in air-travel feel the sting they can apply more pressure to the TSA than we the plebes. I hope in general that the flying public refuses to normalize this and acquiesce.

    We’re already on the slippery slope; what if the next attack really is the “butthole bomber” or the “puked up some bomb-parts in a condom” bomber?

  175. 175.

    burnspbesq

    November 22, 2010 at 1:04 am

    @zuzu:

    What law allows this kind of invasive searching?

    A few days ago, someone posted in detail about the current state of the case law on the administrative exception. IIRC, the standard is that the search has to be no more intrusive than reasonably necessary to achieve its purpose. Under that standard, you could argue for body-cavity searches with a straight face, because it is indisputable that someone could shove a bomb into a vagina or an anus.

    Maybe we need a new standard, but that will require a trip to the Supremes, and you’ll probably lose 6-3 or 7-2.

  176. 176.

    Roger Moore

    November 22, 2010 at 1:05 am

    @Sheesh:

    We’re already on the slippery slope; what if the next attack really is the “butthole bomber” or the “puked up some bomb-parts in a condom” bomber?

    Or how about the “blows up a crowded security line, rather than waiting to get on the plane” bomber? This is the underlying problem that airport security people don’t want to talk about. We know that terrorists have a strong desire to blow up airplanes rather than other targets, but there’s a limit on how far they’ll go to blow up planes when there are easier targets. If we ever succeed in hardening our airport security to the point it’s impossible to sneak a bomb through, the terrorists will just go someplace else. I wonder how many people you could kill by blowing up a car bomb in the crowd waiting outside WalMart for the sales the day after Thanksgiving. It could give a whole new meaning to the term “Black Friday”.

  177. 177.

    burnspbesq

    November 22, 2010 at 1:23 am

    The number of potential targets is so large as to not be meaningfully different from infinity. They can’t all be defended. in “The Sum of All Fears,” Tom Clancy’s bad guys snuck a tactical nuke into the stadium where the Super Bowl was being played, disguised as a soda machine. A smart and determined attacker, who is willing to die, could absolutely blow up Yankee Stadium, most of North Michigan Avenue, or a big chunk of Disneyland. It would be trivially easy to smuggle a Stinger into the country and use it to take down a plane on takeoff or final approach at almost any airport in the country.

    There are two categories of responses. One is to wet your pants and abandon everything that your country used to stand for. That means the terrorists win. The other is to say “fuck you, bin Laden, I am going to live my life as though you don’t exist.”

    As a country, we picked the wrong category.

  178. 178.

    Joseph Nobles

    November 22, 2010 at 1:24 am

    I am personally concerned about security both national and personal, so I’m looking at some of these horror stories with appropriate horror. But I’m also put out by the claim that this never happened under Bush. If anyone’s interested, here’s a link to a December 2001 USA Today story about invasive pat downs. Strange how we’ve been having pat downs and stories about problems with pat downs all this time, but only now has there been a fever pitch of hype on them.

  179. 179.

    Zuzu's Petals

    November 22, 2010 at 1:27 am

    Disclaimer:

    Commenter Zuzu and I are two different folks.

    Zuzu, any chance of using a slightly different screen name here…like “Zuzu (not Zuzu’s Petals)”? Or something equally catchy?

  180. 180.

    Yutsano

    November 22, 2010 at 1:29 am

    @Zuzu’s Petals: Vuvuzela maybe? Seems to fit in your vein.

  181. 181.

    Ecks

    November 22, 2010 at 1:32 am

    @burnspbesq: You mean hair trigger, short fused detonators?

    Just sayin’ :P

  182. 182.

    Sheesh

    November 22, 2010 at 1:32 am

    @Roger Moore: I agree again, and brought up both cases earlier. And further, that’s sort of my defense against the claim we’re “in an age of terrorism”. We’re in an Age of Heart Disease or an Age of Fear more than anything. Ireland lived through an age of terrorism. Iraq is living through an age of terrorism. An AQ sleeper isn’t blowing up a car-bomb every week. You’re still more likely to be injured or killed in 10,000 other ways.

    I know it defies the conventional wisdom and is hard to hear in light of what the TV and the government is telling us, but terrorism is not a real problem in America yet, definitely not Jihadi/AQ/Brown-foreigner terror. Since 9/11, it’s what? I mean we have anthrax mailers, doctor murderers, and the guy that flew a plane into the IRS, but those were all just white dudes. Add to that some (5?) basically normal American Muslims that we radicalized by the killing their families or Muslims abroad and we’re still left with something that’s basically an anomaly.

    I guess I’m just blabbing at this point.

  183. 183.

    burnspbesq

    November 22, 2010 at 1:35 am

    @Ecks:

    LOL.

  184. 184.

    Sheesh

    November 22, 2010 at 1:36 am

    @burnspbesq:

    There are two categories of responses. One is to wet your pants and abandon everything that your country used to stand for. That means the terrorists win. The other is to say “fuck you, bin Laden, I am going to live my life as though you don’t exist.”

    1,000 times yes. Ignoring the minuscule chance of being the victim of terrorism is both rational and robs those assholes of their stated goal.

  185. 185.

    Zuzu's Petals

    November 22, 2010 at 1:43 am

    @burnspbesq:

    Different Zuzu here.

    Possibly this is the case you are thinking about?

    Rather, where an airport screening search is otherwise reasonable and conducted pursuant to statutory authority, 49 U.S.C. § 44901, all that is required is the passenger’s election to attempt entry into the secured area of an airport. See Biswell, 406 U.S. at 315; 49 C.F.R. § 1540.107. Under current TSA regulations and procedures, that election occurs when a prospective passenger walks through the magnetometer or places items on the conveyor belt of the x-ray machine. …
    __
    Although the constitutionality of airport screening searches is not dependent on consent, the scope of such searches is not limitless. A particular airport security screening search is constitutionally reasonable provided that it “is no more extensive nor intensive than necessary, in the light of current technology, to detect the presence of weapons or explosives [] [and] that it is confined in good faith to that purpose.” Davis, 482 F.2d at 913. We conclude that the airport screening search of Aukai satisfied these requirements.

    Granted, the case is from 2007 and did not involve a full-body pat down, but the rationale sounds pretty close to what you’re describing.

  186. 186.

    Zuzu's Petals

    November 22, 2010 at 1:48 am

    @Yutsano:

    My veins are teeny tiny.

  187. 187.

    Sheesh

    November 22, 2010 at 1:51 am

    “is no more extensive nor intensive than necessary, in the light of current technology, to detect the presence of weapons or explosives [] [and] that it is confined in good faith to that purpose.”

    That seems to include the out already for the assault case, if you could show perhaps with witness testimony that the screener was not acting in good faith to the purpose of finding weapons or explosives. Perhaps, “Yes, my co-worker/supervisor said ‘that lady is hot, pull her for enhanced pat down!'”

    The possibility for abuse is there. We’ll see this case eventually.

  188. 188.

    Yutsano

    November 22, 2010 at 1:51 am

    @Zuzu’s Petals: Phlebotomists must LOVE you. Not to mention vampires.

  189. 189.

    Zuzu's Petals

    November 22, 2010 at 1:55 am

    @Yutsano:

    I’ve learned to just request the child’s needle upfront. Saves everybody grief.

    Maybe I should request child vampires too?

  190. 190.

    Yutsano

    November 22, 2010 at 2:09 am

    @Zuzu’s Petals:
    I have a health condition that requires regular blood draws, but I got lucky: my veins are a phlebotomist’s dream. I’ve even had them try to talk me into subjecting myself to teaching institutions to learn proper draw techniques. Only thing is it only works on my left side: my right arm got so hashed by a couple of bad nurses that it’s pretty much useless now. Since I live in “Twilight” territory, if I see any young vamps around I’ll send them your way.

  191. 191.

    Zuzu's Petals

    November 22, 2010 at 2:23 am

    @Yutsano:

    Oh gosh, I would hate to get stuck if I could avoid it. Sounds like you have put your poor veins to enough work as it is.

    Yes, if you see a sparkler…

  192. 192.

    ribletsonthepan

    November 22, 2010 at 2:28 am

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: Yes Sir, your junk is just too big to get on that plane!

    A call-in on the Rhandi Rhodes show recounted the embarrassment on a number of occasions as of late of having to disrobe so that they could visibly confirm the source of his suspicious bulge. Apparently, the pat downs & groping do not convince them that he is not packing some sort of missile down there. Quite the freak show. Really felt for the guy.

  193. 193.

    zuzu

    November 22, 2010 at 2:47 am

    @Zuzu’s Petals: I’ve been using this screen name for 10 years. Hopefully people will figure it out. But I’ll try to think of something.

  194. 194.

    zuzu

    November 22, 2010 at 2:54 am

    @burnspbesq:

    A few days ago, someone posted in detail about the current state of the case law on the administrative exception. IIRC, the standard is that the search has to be no more intrusive than reasonably necessary to achieve its purpose. Under that standard, you could argue for body-cavity searches with a straight face, because it is indisputable that someone could shove a bomb into a vagina or an anus.

    You could argue it, but you’d likely lose. Because you’re going to have to define the purpose and what is “reasonably necessary” to achieve that.

    Again, the administrative exception has been used to justify searches of personal effects, but not invasive searches of a person. Despite the giggling, SCOTUS rejected this kind of argument for strip-searching a teenager for having a Midol. And it’s much more likely a kid is going to be carrying OTC medication into a school than anyone is going to be shoving a bomb up their ass and getting on a plane.

    And even if they did do that, these scanners? Aren’t going to do anything about it.

  195. 195.

    sukabi

    November 22, 2010 at 3:26 am

    @zuzu: it seems to me that if actual intelligent screening processes / police work was being employed, that the persons singled out for the full fondle would fall into some logical risk category… ie, folks that have associations with actual criminals, have a criminal past (not petty crimes like shoplifting, jaywalking or parking tickets) and or have purchased tickets with cash and or one way tickets… there should be some kind of criteria besides random searches, racial profiling or the current version – EVERYBODY GETS GROPED/ x-rayed.

  196. 196.

    Zuzu's Petals

    November 22, 2010 at 5:31 am

    @zuzu:

    I understand. I’ve been posting under this screen name here for several years myself…so anything that would help people to not confuse us would be great. Thanks. (Hmm…”The Other Zuzu”? “Zuzu Too” ? )

    What’re the odds we’d both be lawyers, eh?

  197. 197.

    burnspbesq

    November 22, 2010 at 6:21 am

    @Sheesh:

    “We’ll see this case eventually”

    Maybe. The typical TSA agent seems to have the IQ of a used paper towel, but I don’t underestimate the ability of a small group of people to tell the same lies to investigators and opposing counsel.

  198. 198.

    Stefan

    November 22, 2010 at 2:29 pm

    I think that there’s a reasonably clear distinction between groping and a security patdown, having experienced both. FWIW, I highly doubt most personnel are going to endanger their jobs by behaving inappropriately.

    For what it’s worth, I highly doubt most police are going to endanger their jobs by conducting warrantless and unjustified stop and frisks of young black men on the street….

    Yeah, that logic sure worked.

  199. 199.

    Original Lee

    November 22, 2010 at 3:04 pm

    The last time I flew, which was last April, I had to go through the whole-body imager and had a pat-down, besides. I wasn’t thrilled but the woman who did the pat-down was quick and professional. I have had a bunch of X-rays this past year due to a shoulder injury, so I wish I had had the choice of pat-down or X-ray instead of having both.

    I think it’s ridiculous to do this to everybody. It’s just a matter of time before TSA gets sued by a cancer survivor because the X-ray triggered a recurrence or something. Not to mention the lawsuits from the TSA personnel – they did not appear to me to be wearing any shielding, and their proximity to the machines would seem to me to lead to cumulative exposures that are not pretty.

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