
Comment Period for TSA Proposed Nude Body Scanner Rule Ends; 97% Opposed - tsaoutourpants
http://tsaoutofourpants.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/jonathan-corbett-publishes-comment-for-tsas-proposed-nude-body-scanner-rule/
======
tsaoutourpants
Happy to report this major victory to you guys. The TSA for years has cited
badly worded and poorly conducted opinion polls to show that America is
ambivalent towards the nude body scanners and pat-downs. This is a clear blow
to any argument of a public mandate.

~~~
krichman
But they aren't going to remove them because wealthy people with connections
have a vested interest in selling Rapiscanners to airports.

------
michool
Whatever the rationale for body scanners they aren't an effective means to
detect explosives for the simple reason that they don't see inside the body.
There are already plenty of cases, in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan to name
two, of bombers hiding explosives in their anal canal.

------
bulatb
The headline seems to be misleading: it's 97% _of the last 100 comments_.

------
jrockway
Why are we outraged about the body scanners, again? They don't show the TSA
agents any pictures of you, just "yes" or "no". They don't delay lines
anymore, either, you step in, the thing spins around, you step out, and in
like 2 seconds, you get the "yes" or "no".

(There were reasonable complaints about backscatter x-ray machines, but those
are gone now and only millimeter-wave units are in airports. So there's no
nudity and no ionizing radiation anymore.)

I dunno, I'm just not outraged. The machines seem pretty nice, to be perfectly
honest.

~~~
estebank
Regarding convenience, just travel internationally and you will see just how
"convenient" and "enjoyable" the USA is to get in and out compared to other
countries.

As for the machines and process themselves, there are plenty other complains
that are far more important than speed, convenience or how much the UI shows.
Sadly, usually and kind of ironically the only TSA agent that treats me as
anything else than a piece of meat is the guy doing a pat-down, and that guy
has me literally by the balls.

~~~
peferron
I travel internationally and do not notice a stark difference between the
security checkpoint procedures in the USA and in other countries. The only
difference I can recall is having to stop for a few seconds in the millimeter
scanner instead of just walking through a traditional gate, but this is hardly
a major difference. Can you mention anything else?

~~~
snogglethorpe
I mainly use Narita these days. It doesn't have any scanners at all except for
metal detectors (or didn't; I haven't flown for a couple of years). Security
checkpoints are very quick and efficient. The staff seem very competent and
quick. Lines are usually short, but even when they're long, things move along
very quickly, so there's really no sense of security as being anything more
than a minor bottleneck. [This is sort of how security was a long time ago in
the U.S.]

In the U.S. airports I usually use, O'hare, JFK, and sometimes other airports
for stopovers, things are slow and chaotic. The lines are _always_ huge and
move slowly, the required scanner procedure very slow, other rules slow things
down (everybody's taking off and putting on their shoes and belts, and despite
exhortations to do it in advance, this really bogs things down), and the staff
seem to often be inattentive and inefficient.

Where exactly the main problem is, I'm not entirely sure, but I do know that I
dread going through security in the U.S. these days...

------
jmadsen
There are so many potential jokes about the 3%, I can't even think where to
start

