
Poll: Nearly two-thirds of Americans support full-body scanners at airports - jonmc12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/22/AR2010112205514.html
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redorb
I think this reflects the number of a)Those who haven't traveled recently and
b)Those who haven't traveled in the last few months...

Ideally the poll would ask if those answering have ever been scanned; then at
least show me the segmented results.

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timepilot
Not sure you are correct - I'm in the 2/3. I have been scanned several times
and I'm fine with it. For me: safety > personal privacy.

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yequalsx
I would like to know where you draw the safety vs. personal freedom line. How
far is too far? For me we crossed the line a long time ago. It would be nice
to hear a different perspective. As it stands now, a 13 year old boy or girl
will be groped during an enhanced pat down.

As I see it, 9/11 can't happen again. That is, an airplane will never again be
hijacked and used as a missile. It's possible for someone to blow up a plane
but not to turn it into a missile.

There are lots of places where a terrorist can kill 200+ people that don't
have any security at all. Given this, I don't understand why having the level
of security in our airports is justified. We've made it so that airports are a
much harder target than a sporting event. Thus, airports are much safer from a
terrorism point of view. Enhancements to security are not needed and a waste
of time.

I genuinely would like to know why my reasoning is wrong in your opinion and
where you draw the line.

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timepilot
Actually, I think your reasoning is well "reasonable". :)

I also agree with you that the hijack/missile scenario seems unlikely at this
point (existing safety precautions seem appropriate).

I remain surprised (but happy) that terrorists have not gone after softer
targets (malls, etc). For some reason, they remain very focused on airplanes
(maybe the shock and awe effect). As a result, taking steps to make air travel
as safe as possible seems reasonable.

Now - how we do that is an open question. We have already had an underwear
bombing attempt. How do we prevent this from being attempted again? The only
solution I have seen is the current scanners and sadly the "pat down". If
there is a better one, lets deploy it. If not, then it seems the argument is
personal privacy > the lives of the unfortunate passengers aboard the plane
that explodes when the terrorists are successful. No?

If the underwear bomber had been successful, would you have a different view?

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yequalsx
No, I would not have a different view.

It's not a goal to try to prevent someone from doing this again. That's simply
not possible. The goal is to make its success as unlikely as possible without
causing too great a burden. Groping and virtual strip searches go too far in
my opinion. The so called underwear bomber was stopped because when people see
a man trying to ignite his underwear they stop him. We're not that helpless.

Life is risky. Zero people have died in the U.S. from terrorism on airplanes
since 9/11. It's extremely unlikely that a terrorist will blow up a plane with
the security measures that were in place 1 year ago. No need to go further.

The next place to hide explosives are vaginas and anal regions. Do you think
those should be probed as well? If a terrorist blows himself up at a TSA
checkpoint should we have a checkpoint in order to get to the checkpoint?

At what point does the security become theater to you?

~~~
timepilot
"It's not a goal to try to prevent someone from doing this again. That's
simply not possible. The goal is to make its success as unlikely as possible
without causing too great a burden." - agreed

"Groping and virtual strip searches go too far in my opinion." - Understood.
Personally, I'm ok with the virtual strip search. If the physical search is a
"professionally executed" pat down, I'm also ok with it. My wife and I fly
multiple times/month and so far this has been our experience. If the search
turned into "groping", I would have a different view.

"Zero people have died in the U.S. from terrorism on airplanes since 9/11.
It's extremely unlikely that a terrorist will blow up a plane with the
security measures that were in place 1 year ago." - We just had a few close
calls. The terrorists appear to be adapting.

"The next place to hide explosives are vaginas and anal regions. Do you think
those should be probed as well? If a terrorist blows himself up at a TSA
checkpoint should we have a checkpoint in order to get to the checkpoint?" -
This is indeed the rub. Where do you "draw the line?" - is always the issue
when discussing giving up/forcing people to give up personal liberties for the
good of others. Nevertheless, we do it all the time. For me the
scanners/searches have not crossed the line. For you, they have.

~~~
OpieCunningham
So your line is slightly beyond the current TSA policy. What happens to your
line when a terrorist successfully destroys a plane full of people with a anal
cavity bomb? Do you and your wife submit to cavity searches or, as you stated,
your "personal privacy > the lives of the unfortunate passengers aboard the
plane that explodes when the terrorists are successful. No?".

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steve19
If you mix with tech and/or libertarian-minded people, this may surprise you.

Discussing this with my educated, liberal (Democrat) and wealthy (travel a
lot) family, they think this security theater is wonderful. They have been so
well conditioned that they are really fearful of terrorists. They think I am
naive.

Personally I am far more concerned about my safety when driving my car than I
am in the air.

~~~
SkyMarshal
Bruce Schneier has some numbers worth remembering for those debates with your
parents:

[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/11/tsa_backscatte...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/11/tsa_backscatter.html)

 _There's talk about the health risks of the machines, but I can't believe you
won't get more radiation on the flight. Here's some data:

A typical dental X-ray exposes the patient to about 2 millirems of radiation.
According to one widely cited estimate, exposing each of 10,000 people to one
rem (that is, 1,000 millirems) of radiation will likely lead to 8 excess
cancer deaths. Using our assumption of linearity, that means that exposure to
the 2 millirems of a typical dental X-ray would lead an individual to have an
increased risk of dying from cancer of 16 hundred-thousandths of one percent.
Given that very small risk, it is easy to see why most rational people would
choose to undergo dental X-rays every few years to protect their teeth.

More importantly for our purposes, assuming that the radiation in a
backscatter X-ray is about a hundredth the dose of a dental X-ray, we find
that a backscatter X-ray increases the odds of dying from cancer by about 16
ten millionths of one percent. That suggests that for every billion passengers
screened with backscatter radiation, about 16 will die from cancer as a
result.

Given that there will be 600 million airplane passengers per year, that makes
the machines deadlier than the terrorists.

Nate Silver on the hidden cost of these new airport security measures:

According to the Cornell study, roughly 130 inconvenienced travelers died
every three months as a result of additional traffic fatalities brought on by
substituting ground transit for air transit. That's the equivalent of four
fully-loaded Boeing 737s crashing each year._

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tptacek
~20% is a significant drop (from the CBS poll earlier in November) in public
support for scanners, but I don't think this issue is polled heavily enough to
draw conclusive observations about trends.

Roughly half of Americans objecting to the "pat-downs" is heartening, though.

~~~
Semiapies
I don't know whether that last is significant if the pat-downs work as
designed - to discourage people from opting out.

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rgrove
According to the data ([http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/politics/polls/postpoll...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/politics/polls/postpoll_11222010.html)) 85% of those polled _rarely or
never travel by air_.

Draw your own conclusions.

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tgflynn
What strikes me is how few reports on this issue attempt to quantify the risks
involved. Well over 30K people die each year in the US in traffic accidents
(<http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/stats.html>) whereas only about 3K have
died in the past 10 years due to airline terrorism. Hence the risk of being
killed in a traffic accident is on the order of 100 times greater than that of
being killed by a terrorist attack against aviation.

Now consider how willing most drivers are to trade a marginal increase in
accident risk for a marginal increase in convenience (say driving 10 MPH over
the posted speed limit to arrive at one's destination early).

In light of these risk preferences it is hardly surprising that many travelers
are outraged at being forced by the government to undergo a humiliating and
degrading procedure for such a minimal (and disputed at that) decrease in
risk.

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markbernard
It is slanted because of how the question was asked.

81% Of Americans Support Naked Airport Scans... If You Leave Out The Naked
Part In Asking The
Question([http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101116/17225811903/81-of-...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101116/17225811903/81-of-
americans-support-naked-airport-scans-if-you-leave-out-the-naked-part-in-
asking-the-question.shtml))

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Semiapies
Going by the answers to other questions, roughly 2/3 of respondents are also
_not worried about terrorism_.

Naturally, there's a huge number of permutations there, but this boils down to
an awful lot of people perfectly willing to be looked at naked or felt up just
because someone in charge says it needs to be done.

This is part of why I've gotten into arguments with other libertarians who
want to rain abuse on TSA employees simply for working at the TSA. The truth
is that the TSA simply isn't doing much that most Americans aren't _perfectly_
happy to let them do.

~~~
derefr
Maybe 2/3rds of people are just willing to be looked at naked/felt up for no
reason whatsoever, not associating it with any sort of internal shame, only
external social guilt. As long as they have some sort of social "hallway pass"
to escape the repercussions, and thus guilt, of their (in)action (such as "I
was drunk" or "he was wearing a lab coat" or "it was for a movie/documentary
they're making" or "it will stop terrorists") they'll do whatever depraved
things you like, and allow similarly depraved things to be done to them.

I call this the "Girls Gone Wild" hypothesis, although it's probably a
corollary to Milgram (though one testable with less ethical questionability,
certainly.)

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AceStar
Well, a quarter of Americans believe Obama is muslim, so go figure...

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qq66
You need to control the messaging. Opponents should have called these "cancer
scanners" from Day 1.

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davidj
I don't believe this poll for a second. Liars!

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klbarry
I certainly don't mind the scanners or the check as long as it's done
respectfully and professionally.

