None of this security theatre is doing a damn thing to help keep us secure and it’s doing everything to fulfill the objective of terrorists. Nation of chickenshits…

You are so right, M-S. By the way, did you know that in the UK if you refuse the scan, you can’t board your flight? No pat-down option. I am supposed to travel to the UK soon, and am pregnant. I may have to cancel my trip now.

Michelle, you are so right. It goes back to the last sentence of my first comment. The reason we get this costly, inefficient and intrusive pretend security is because it makes the sheeple FEEL safe. The stuff that really keeps us safe is complex and less dog and pony show, so it doesn’t play well to the masses.

Although I agree that these scanners really don’t protect us, I wonder how this action will pan out. I can see a scenario where people get really angry with the protesters for causing delays which might cause a backlash against this movement. Thankfully we won’t be traveling that day.

As a side note, my family is Arabic and so we are more likely to be targeted in things like this. However, they hate these kinds of protests, saying people should be happy they can get on a plane, and if they don’t like it they should stay home. (I can especially see my mother, if she were flying that day, yelling at anyone who was obviously protesting.)

Also, I don’t think you can completely discount the value of making people feel safer even if they are not safer. We need people to feel safe so they continue to fly, do business, travel, and overall help contribute to the economy. I’m not saying this makes it necessarily “worth it” to give up some privacy for a better economy, but it is not completely useless.

Wow some of y’all have some serious freakin’ issues. Go through the damn scanner. Big whup. Nobody cares about seeing your fat ass naked. You don’t want to? Nobody is making you fly.

Comments: Analysis of the radiation dose delivered by the machines, conducted by David Brenner and colleagues at Columbia University, found that because the beams concentrate X-rays on the body’s skin, the effective dose may be 20 times higher than previously estimated.
Because the skin is one of the body’s most radiation-sensitive organs, the scanners significantly increase the risk that passengers will develop basal cell carcinoma, a kind of skin cancer. Children and the 5 percent of adult passengers with certain relatively common gene mutations are at significantly higher risk due to their reduced ability to repair DNA damage.
“If there are increases in cancers as a result of irradiation of children, they would most likely appear some decades in the future,” Brenner said. Full Story at: Sources for this story include: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?… ; http://www.counterpunch.org/nader06… ; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a….

Boycott Flying! Please join us: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-Flying/126801010710392

To those who say “big deal” if you don’t like it, you don’t have to fly. If that is the standard, what’s next? Mandatory pat downs for all vehicle passengers. “You don’t have to drive”. Don’t worry, it’s “for your safety”. Think, sheeple!

Even before the scanners were put in place, I always heard people complain about how inconvenient traveling was, how our rights were being taken away because you had to take off your shoes, put your stuff through an x-ray, go through a metal detector, etc. I have always been a frequent flier (before and after 9/11) and I have to say I don’t see a big difference between what we go through now and what we went through before 9/11. At least in our nearby airports, TSA taking over was good in one way that they were way more competent than the security people our airports used to have. It used to take forever to get through the lines mainly because they didn’t know what they were doing. Also, recently airports have put in separate lines, for families, expert travelers, etc., which I think have been great. We travel a lot with our son and I really don’t find this to be that big of a deal, and I see it as Americans being so spoiled they have to complain about something.

Maybe when I actually have to go through a scanner I’ll feel differently. I admit when I first heard the hubbub about this I took it as yet another thing to complain about and didn’t take a lot of time looking into the issues behind it. I’d rather spend my time advocating for public health. If you think the scanner issue is important, you should advocate for that, but don’t just assume anyone who doesn’t share your passion is a “sheepie”.

@Laure68: check out this gentleman’s account and let me know your thoughts:
http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/2010/11/these-events-took-place-roughly-between.html

@M_S – This is obviously a very unfortunate story. (Although, if I were him, I think I would have found a more diplomatic thing to say than “if you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested.”) However, I have seen some bad things before 9/11 too.

I guess my overall point was that, post-9/11 and pre-scanner, all I heard people say was how horrible TSA had made getting though the airport, where I didn’t see it that way. (Really, getting through an airport was no picnic in the 90′s). I sometimes felt like this was more of an anti-federal government thing. So then it becomes a “Boy Who Cries Wolf” thing, where my initial reaction to the protests against the scanners was “not again”. Admittedly I probably don’t know enough about these scanners. Supposedly the amount of radiation you get is equal to 2 minutes of flying. (Everyone gets more radiation while flying than while on the ground.) However, there was a comment on how that is inaccurate, which is obviously an issue.

Also, I’m not too bothered by the scan images, because (again, supposedly) the person looking at the scan is your same gender and in a separate room, so nobody else can see the images. Anyway, I’d rather be scanned than groped. There were several times in the 1990′s while I was in Europe that I was pulled aside to be patted down. I knew it was a part of flying, but I would welcome the scanners as an alternative.

@Laure68: sure, he could have been more diplomatic, but are you really okay with being told that your informed consent to security procedures is the fact that they think they posted info on a website? Do you see how reasonable people might object to having themselves photographed naked or being groped intimately? This guy’s unfortunate tale of rejecting both methods and after being denied boarding and getting a refund of his ticket… being pressured and threatened to consent to a scan or a grope before he could be allowed to leave the airport? How is this okay?
This is not the same pat down of the 90s. I used to travel extensively for business before 9/11 and flying is nothing like that now.

@Laure68: I see why these procedures seem not as big a deal to you now. I’m saddened that you may have been subject to more aggressive screening because of your heritage.
I’m not traveling anytime soon so its pretty useless for me to get riled up. But I enjoy our debates and I was wrong to characterize everyone not incensed by this procedure as “sheeple.” Experiences count. Thanks.

If you are pregnant you shouldn’t be flying anyways. When an airplane is in flight you and your fetus are exposed to higher doses of ionizing radiation.

I didn’t really have an opinion on this because I don’t fly a lot, but this morning on the Today Show there was a clip of the actual physical pat-down and lemme just say that I will go to jail before I allow someone to do that to me. I refuse to allow someone to fondle by breasts and genitals in a public airport under the guise of “safety”. People should not have to chose between boarding a plane with a ticket that they paid their good, hard-earned money for and giving up their right to privacy.

I’m no in favor of either the scan or the pat-down, but I have to point out that flying isn’t exactly an inalienable right. That being said, I understand that people fly for more pressing reasons than a weekend at the beach.

Why is everyone thinking they see you naked? they don’t. the scan is simply looking for solid opjects like a weapon. it looks exactly the way your stuff looks going through the x-ray. its not like a pair of glasses that can see what kind and color of underwear you’re wearing. nor can it see skin tones or your wax job (or a lack thereof), or what you had for lunch that day. it shows contours of the body in a sickly gray color, and any solid objects you may be carrying. it is not a hustler magazine.

Oh well, we really don’t have a choice. The only way we can go see my family is by flying. So for me, it boils down to x-ray or patting and I rather go thru the x-ray than be touched all over by a stranger, nooo thanks.

Wondering how long it will take before all who opt out will opt back in when they miss their flights. Airlines are not delaying their flights. Also you will be on stand by after you miss your flight and there is a charge for that. GOOD LUCK to all!!

Let’s review one of the fundamental pillars of this country: capitalism! The airlines have a monopoly on travel in this country, too much power, and an inflated sense of their own importance– what they need is a challenge. They need our money? Well, let’s make them work for it. Trains, buses, boats, cars… We need to bring out a competitor and give them our business. How heavy-handed do you think they’ll be when they have to beg for business?