Quite a few on here travel quite a bit, so I thought you might be interested in these links about the new whole body scanners, specifically relating to safety.
Most pertinent is this letter from senior faculty members at UCSF detailing their serious concerns about the safety of the x-ray based scanners. tinyurl.com/29oy36w
CNet also have a useful longer piece on rights and risks here. tinyurl.com/33afnzr
Obviously this is a personal choice, and you may feel otherwise, but on the evidence I have seen so far, I have urged my employees to opt out of the scan and instead ask for an enhanced pat-down. You have the right to do so.
Last edited by: Statistical Outlier on Fri 26 Nov 10 at 16:49
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I'm not sure you have the right to opt out of the scan in the UK. If you're picked for a pat down and bag search you can have this done in private. Entry to airside areas is conditional on you volunteering to be searched/scanned. No one can compel you to submit to the search but you'd be refused entry if you didn't want to.
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what's the big deal? Ashamed of the size of your tadger/the extent of your beer gut?
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Nope. I'm just old-fashioned enough to believe that the only person that should see me as nature intended (which these scanners all but do) is my wife. Same goes for her - I no more want some knuckle-headed security guy seeing my wife's bounteous curves than I want to feed my privates to my dog. Accompanying my wife to a colposcopy was bad enough...
This is probably a whole different thread, but I am heartily sick of the majority being marginalised and effectively penalised because of the actions of the minority.
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>> This is probably a whole different thread, but I am heartily sick of the majority
>> being marginalised and effectively penalised because of the actions of the minority.
>>
The terrorists have won. USA, the land of the free is no more. The TSA has more draconian powers now than in some communist dictator states.
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...I no more want some knuckle-headed security guy seeing my wife's bounteous curves than I want to feed my privates to my dog...
I understand those monitoring the super scanners can only see the body from the neck down, so they can't see the face of the fit lass, or any other lass come to that.
Nonetheless, there's been disquiet over the, er, detail of the images.
The Sun's headline on the story was a good effort, even for them: Scanner Glamour Ding Dong.
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I've got no objection at all to a security guy (or lady) seeing my manhood via a scanner if it means that the bloke behind is prevented from getting on board my plane with a grenade where his gonads should be.
As my equipment is barely a foot long it probably wouldn't register anyway!
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Ian, congratulations, you share the collective selective vision of the rest of your profession.
Millimetre scanners - no problem. Patdown - no problem. Both assuming the staff are friendly or at least courteous of course, but I've found them to be pretty good. If any want to see my todger then that's their problem, especially if they find the sort of CT images they'll get stimulating, they deserve my pity.
X-ray scanners delivering high doses of radiation just to the skin. Problem. At least as far as I'm concerned, and I don't see why I should suffer definite harm just to reduce some nebulous possibilty, especially when I am not convinced it really reduces it anyway.
Overkill, erosion of civil liberties, and a complete loss of perspective.
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>> Overkill, erosion of civil liberties, and a complete loss of perspective.
>>
To which you could add quite probably ineffective.
I'm not sure what the answer is, other than to take a certain amount of risk, which is probably little reduced by the TSA procedures which in my opinion are a bottom covering exercise for the bureaucrats.
I've departed twice from Ben Gurion airport and experienced Israeli security, which in my case was as advertised. The scanner operator even passed two cups of boiling coffee through for us (we hadn't expected to be pushed through security so quickly) and nodded through a pair of scissors my wife suddenly remembered she had in her bag, saying something like "we look at people, not things like that". I have no doubt though that if they don't like the look of you in the pre-check-in interview, you'll be subjected to something at least as intrusive and unpleasant as the TSA searches.
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>> X-ray scanners delivering high doses of radiation just to the skin. Problem.
At max 4 times a year? No problem
At least as
>> far as I'm concerned, and I don't see why I should suffer definite harm
Definite harm? I don't see any proof where Definite harm has been caused? its just a theory so far.
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>> Definite harm? I don't see any proof where Definite harm has been caused? its just
>> a theory so far.
A potential 30+ times a year for me, and since when was there any doubt that x-rays cause harm?? Granted, not much harm in a single dose, but it's cumulative, and skin cancer is not nice (I work with skin cancer patients day in day out). Ionising radiation is fine when justified, but this is a complete waste of time and a typical ignorant knee jerk reaction to yesterday's threat.>>
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>> A potential 30+ times a year for me, and since when was there any doubt that x-rays cause harm??
According to my Miles and More printout I flew 88 times in 2009, considerably less in 2010, though 16 times through the naked scanners in Moscow. Do our Honoured Leaders also allow themselves to be "exposed" to these things.
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Will these new scanners fog photographic film?
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Apparently not all these whole-body scanners are equal, and in general they don't use x-rays.
goo.gl/PGOk3
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It's not that convincing that they even work.
Look at Adam Savage's experience:
news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20023820-71.html
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They've had whole body scanners at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow for the last 5 years or so. This being Russia, they were installed without any consultation and I suspect a lot of Russians have only become aware of them due to the frenzy in the Western press.
This also being Russia, the precautions to stop passengers seeing the images are half hearted to say the least. The computer screens showing the images are positioned just behind the scanners so you walk past them as you leave the scanner. There are shoulder high partitions separating the computer screens and their bored looking operators from the public, and that's it.
It's very easy for passengers to look at the images, so I did. I fact I waited until a suitably leggy blonde went into the scanner (this didn't take long - one of the great things about Russia is the number of attractive women). I have to admit after the hype I was disappointed. The images are very detailed and you can clearly the shapes and contours of the various bodily parts. The image looks like a CT scan or X-Ray though and not a photograph and you would have to be more than weird to find anything vaguely sexual about it. Like I say, a disappointment.
More offputting to me personally are the thugs employed by the TSA as security staff at airports in the US. The heavy handed treatment by these people is one reason I only travel to the US these days on business, I don't go there on holiday any more.
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>> More offputting to me personally are the thugs employed by the TSA as security staff
>> at airports in the US. The heavy handed treatment by these people is one reason
>> I only travel to the US these days on business, I don't go there on
>> holiday any more.
Had no problem at all this year, and that was at the peak of one of the scares,
Security was high but friendly and relaxed, No issues with TSA staff and the US immigration officer was friendly, relaxed and polite.
From the point of landing, I was unpacking in the hotel an hour later.
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Yeah, I've heard other old people say they don't get too much hassle at airport security. I suppose they just think "aw bless them they're still trying at least" ...
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I think its the " I am cool, I dont need to worry about not having a fag for the next 10 hours" look.
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Funnily enough I never did smoke on aeroplanes even on long haul. Dunno why. Just didn't appeal. In fact I get a form of narcolepsy on planes. Buckle up and snooze most of the time.
Although having said that, I was having a lot of bother with jet lag at one time and years ago got some sleeping pills from a dodgy brazilian who told me his dad was a doctor. I think they must have been pretty strong because one night I was flying from Rio to London and took one while we were still on the ground. Anyway, the plane had a problem and they had to ask everyone to get off but they couldn't wake me. I came round in the first aid room at Rio airport having been giving an adrenalin shot. They thought I'd had some kind of seizure I think.
That really beggered up my sleep when they finally let us back on. Hangover from Hades without the pleasure of the drink in advance.
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Humph
Interesting comment about the adrenalin shot and 'hangover' - I used to suffer dreadful migraines following dental injections. I subsequently went onto 'plain' injections (no adrenalin), and never had a migraine since.
Apparently dentists prefer to use the adrenalin based injections as they do not wear off so quickly.
Last edited by: pmh on Sat 27 Nov 10 at 15:34
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Oh, ok, I'd always imagined it was just the effects of one set of chemical instructions doing battle with another and me getting caught in the crossfire. Maybe something in what you say. I was so out of it that night I really can't remember much detail.
They used to come round with hot towels on those Varig flights and later I was sitting there in cuckoo land when the steward put one straight out of the microwave into my hands. My instinctive reaction was to throw it straight back up in the air and as misfortune would have it, it landed like a scalding hot pancake right on top of the bald head of the bloke in front of me. Well, I was so doollally I started to laugh. The guy got upset and the steward had to calm him down. All the rest of the flight he kept turning round to glare and mutter at me which unfortunately just made my giggle fit worse.
Not a good flight that one.
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>> Had no problem at all this year, and that was at the peak of one of the scares,
>> Security was high but friendly and relaxed, No issues with TSA staff and the US
>> immigration officer was friendly, relaxed and polite.
>> From the point of landing, I was unpacking in the hotel an hour later.
To be honest the most TSA seem to reserve the most obnoxious staff for the domestic airports, especially Pittsburgh. Oh, and any airport with regular flights from Mexico.
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Same experience with TSA no troubles...
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I don't go through those scanners because I have a heart pacemaker which can be affected by magnetic fields.
They pat me down instead just as they would if they didn't have the scanner.
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www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1333432/Humiliated-Female-passenger-subjected-patdown-sanitary-towel-showed-body-scanner.html
The detail in this may make you think about taking your chances with the rays AC
Last edited by: Pugugly on Sat 27 Nov 10 at 18:34
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"Privacy-invasion claims like Eliana Sutherland's have become increasingly common since the TSA introduced the full body scan.
She complained that she was singled out by agents because of her large breasts."
Surely it didn't take a body scanner to spot them??
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"She complained that she was singled out by agents because of her large breasts."
I had a similar problem. They thought I was trying to smuggle saveloys out of the country.
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>>> They thought I was trying to smuggle saveloys out of the country.
Tee hee!
In my case though they knew it was a gun. Somehow they could tell I wasn't just pleased to see them.
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>> "She complained that she was singled out by agents because of her large breasts."
>>
>> I had a similar problem. They thought I was trying to smuggle saveloys out of
>> the country.
you mean you had more than one and they were thin and floppy?
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 27 Nov 10 at 21:37
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You're just sore because they thought you were smuggling a cocktail sausage.
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Dont you poles think of anything other than sausage?
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I was going to contribute to the 'swallows' thread but decided that what my wife does is her own business.
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Yes, airport scanners. Notice security never go through them. When no one's around they use it to cook their lunch.
The best thing is to get through them as quick as possible - maybe back up 20 metres or so to get a good running start.
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I can remember back in the fifties when some children's shoe shops had X ray machines to check the fitting of your shoes. Seems incredible now
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So can I. I used to insist on going to that shoe shop in Elland.
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Shops that provided x-ray machines were certainly popular. I would have thrown a tantrum if taken anywhere else.
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Tammy Banovac, Protesting TSA Pat-Downs, Confronts Airport Security in Bra and Panties ..
... and in a wheelchair ... all the while, clutching a small, white pooch.
www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20024321-504083.html
Last edited by: John H on Thu 2 Dec 10 at 16:53
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...Confronts Airport Security in Bra and Panties...
Better than being confronted by a solicitor with his trousers down:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wear/4799155.stm
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That was well remembered !
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...That was well remembered !...
Those of us who know the solicitor concerned are unlikely to forget it.
Let's just say he's unlikely to be offered a job as a swimwear model.
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What became of it in the end ?
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...What became of it in the end ?...
I'm not certain, but I suspect not very much.
There were 12 of them from various firms protesting at the time.
As I expect you will have guessed, as a local solicitor he was well-known to the court staff and well-liked by many.
It was only one of those staff who had a sense of humour failure.
The solicitor's still doing the job as far as I know.
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Airport scanners - Woodster
