
The Airport Security Grope - tswicegood
http://www.pixiq.com/article/the-airport-security-grope
======
vaksel
I think the president, the VP, every senator, every representative, every
supreme court judge and their wives/husbands should be required to go through
this.

And the scanner print outs should be publicly available, as well as videos of
the groping...eh "pat downs".

Surely they wouldn't require the cattle to do something that they themselves
would object to? Surely.

BTW filling out a complaint form is a complete waste of time...if you want to
get attention, actually call your senator/representative.

~~~
_delirium
That aligns with my theory that these insane flight-security rules are mostly
supported by constituencies that don't actually fly. If you take national
polls, you get high support; but I bet if you restricted the polls to people
who had _actually been on a plane_ in the past year, you'd get much lower
support. Instead, we have our flight-security policies dictated by terrorist-
hatin' paranoiacs in Kansas and Montana who rarely themselves fly on planes,
but love the idea of any policy that'll supposedly be tough on terrorism.

~~~
brc
I don't know about that. The person who flies once or twice a year probably
don't care that much and appreciate the security theatre- all part of the
drama of flying. Definitely those that never fly would support unlimited
security restriction - like those who don't work support higher taxes.

I recently was at a conference, and was pulling my old laptop from my bag. I
joked to some people standing around that I use my old laptop in case the TSA
decide they like it more than I do. One person looked at me seriously and said
'why would they do that'. I responded with 'well, it's not like anything they
do makes any sense at all'. Most people laughed at my joke but that one person
looked offended.

I'm guessing that person was the visible representative of a population who
thinks the TSA is doing important work and actually improving things.

I don't know what the answer is. Everyone is painted into a corner by this :
any politician that mentions disbanding the TSA is going to be slammed by
opponents for being soft on terrorism. Soon enough the TSA employees will have
a srong union and lobby against any changes and actually ask for more. The
only way around would be an eventual change in technology that busts the old
paradigm apart - like a new way of getting onto planes, or a whole new
transport system. If you look at shipping, there are practices and laws which
date back 400 years. I don't think all this cruft being attached to air travel
is ever going away. Maybe with another big war when there is not enough
resources or something. 'TSA abandoned for war effort' - that type of thing.

~~~
loewenskind
>like those who don't work support higher taxes.

Warren Buffet doesn't work?

>any politician that mentions disbanding the TSA is going to be slammed by
opponents for being soft on terrorism.

Has the TSA ever stopped even a single real threat? Ever? If they haven't [1]
then how could disbanding them be seen as being soft on terrorism. Nothing
they do appears to actually be related to terrorism.

[1] I can't remember anything. All the bombings I've heard about got past
them. And I hope no one starts this nonsensical "oh they stop hundreds, we
just never hear about because they're so good!" nonsense. These are clearly
"bottom of the barrel" workers.

~~~
brc
The premise was that nobody but people who work support higher taxes. It was
that people who don't work probably support higher taxes, because they get
benefits with no cost to them personally.

It doesn't matter what the TSA does - the fact is they were invented as a
response to terrorism. Thus removing them would be an opportunity for an
opposing politician to use the attack of 'being soft on terrorism'. I think
the TSA should be abandoned - I shudder to think of the lost actual dollars in
funding, as well as the lost productivity of millions of air travelers going
through a couple of minutes of invasive screening.

As for 'prevention' - many western nations have been victims of Terrorism
attacks since 2001 - including the UK and Spain. None of these countries
have/use TSA style screening or restrictions. None have had an airline-based
terror attack since. That should tell you about the need for the TSA.

------
duke_sam
I'm hoping that this is finally the straw that breaks the camels back and
people start to push back on these "security" measures. Not traveling via air
is an option for some people but for most when they fly they aren't any
reasonable alternatives. Making these invasions a prerequisite to flying means
you are going to have strangers looking at you naked regularly or being
groping (which I'm presuming is meant to be as invasive as possible to
encourage use of the scanners). The alternative to this is turning down a job
away from anybody you would like to see regularly, or any job that requires
frequent travel or going to college in another state etc. And boy is your life
about to suck if you travel with kids or someone elderly.

~~~
davidcuddeback
I sincerely hope that enough people push back to make a difference. I think
for a lot of people, it's easier to just stop flying---and some people already
have---than it is to protest the security theater. If it's clear to the
airlines that they're losing a significant number of passengers due to the
security measures, I would expect them to lobby against the security measures.
Whether or not they will have an effect is another issue entirely.

I for one love travelling but hate flying. I see two options for people who
enjoy international travel but don't want their privacy invaded by TSA.

1\. Travel by boat. You can hitch a ride on a cargo ship to just about
anywhere in the world: [http://matadornetwork.com/notebook/how-to/how-to-
travel-by-c...](http://matadornetwork.com/notebook/how-to/how-to-travel-by-
cargo-ship/) It's more expensive than flying and takes longer, so this is
probably not an option for most people.

2\. Depart from another country. I recently traveled to New Zealand, and when
I flew home from the Auckland airport to San Francisco, I had to go through an
extra security screening because it was a US-bound flight. I was left with the
impression that airport security in the rest of the world is not as draconian
unless one of the endpoints of the flight is in the USA. So I suspect if you
can drive or take the train to Mexico or Canada, you can avoid an unnecessary
invasion of privacy. Last year, I took an Amtrak train from Vancouver to
Seattle, and the border crossing was a piece of cake.

Edit: Does anyone know how airport security in Mexico or Canada compares to
the US?

~~~
prawn
Is there yet a web site yet that catalogues the security procedures at each
airport? If some people consider avoiding flights, they might actually be
interested in such info. Not the standard detectors which aren't that
annoying, but things like control of liquids, these new scanners, the grope,
etc. Can just imagine selling third-party widgets to travel sites:

"On this itinerary, you may be subject to these security checks: genitalia
scan (arr: LAX) or grope (arr: LAX), liquid check (dep: SYD)."

~~~
Vivtek
Five bucks says you'd be attacked as a terrorist supporter.

Damn good idea, though.

~~~
davidcuddeback
I really like that idea as a way to resist the security theater. It would give
travellers the information they need to vote with their wallets for privacy
over "security."

------
nagrom
I wonder: can I claim to be gay and would therefore prefer to be patted down
by a woman? Can we make this a standard thing to claim?

I would imagine that if they did not adhere to this request, then they would
be guilty of sexual discrimination. I can equally imagine the scene if 95% of
male travellers claimed to be gay and demanded to be groped by a lady 'for
American values'. I cannot imagine that there will be _that_ many women
willing to grope a man on command.

Other things to try: not washing for several days before the flight, telling
the patting-down officer to be careful because you have lice, feigning injury
from an aggressive pat-down and rolling around on the floor clutching your
privates, like a soccer player who's been roughly tackled. Air travel has been
turned into a fucking circus; let's go along with it and have some fun at the
same time!

~~~
TamDenholm
I like the idea but I don't think the gay thing would work, I think it's more
about the sexual orientation of the TSA agent.

------
ScottBurson
I think we're at the point where if you offered every traveler a choice of a
screened flight or a non-screened flight, most would take the non-screened
flight.

I suggest we all write our Congresscritters and explain this. I don't think
protesting to the TSA, at any level, will accomplish anything at all.

~~~
tomjen3
Why should your congresscritter care? At most you represent one vote, and you
aren't likely to donate money to them.

No if you want to change this, you have to go after the TSA people, not with
violence (as tempting as it is, and as deserving of it as they are) but by
totally ostraciseing them: if you work in a shop, you don't serve them, if you
are a doctor you don't treat them, if you used to have them over for lunch you
don't invite them anymore, if their children goes to your children's school
you don't talk to them, invite them for birthday celebrations, etc, etc.

Then maybe the TSA will learn that they too need other people and can't go
around being assholes.

~~~
daten
I understandthat arguing with the TSA screeners at the ceckpoint is pointless
as they have no ability to change policy and you don't have time to miss your
flight, but I have also wondered wht kind of person can work for the TSA and
be happy getting paid to do this.

~~~
swombat
One of our interns this summer used to work in one of the London airports,
where his job was basically to tell people that they were allowed strictly one
bag, and yes, that little plastic bag they're carrying with a book they just
bought counts as one bag, and yes, you're going to stuff your purse into your
backpack because that counts as a bag too, and so on.

Very irritating stuff, particularly since it has absolutely zero bearing on
security (why would the number of bags make a difference??), and so seems like
a completely arbitrary imposition of force. I once chatted with someone who
worked for the airlines and they said they didn't care about how many bags you
carried (within reason), but the regulation is imposed by BAA (British
Airports Authority).

So, our intern worked there for a month or two. Every time he let someone
through with more than one bag he was told off by his supervisor after someone
at the security checkpoint reported him, and eventually at one point when the
guy was complaining about him once again, he had enough and he quit.

Why'd he do it? For the money. Easy money, not a tough job, not that risky.
Yes, people think you're an asshole, but when you're a starving student with
no money, you can cope with that.

I don't think being angry at these people would help any more than it would
help to be angry at the piece of paper that a parking fine is printed on.

~~~
loewenskind
>Yes, people think you're an asshole, but when you're a starving student with
no money, you can cope with that.

If someone is ready to be an asshole for money don't expect me to go easy on
them because "they're just doing their job". You are responsible for what _you
do_ and "just doing my job" is not a legitimate excuse. If you're just trying
to take the easy way out then I want to make your life a miserable living hell
so you never think of taking this shortcut ever again.

I can't express how much I loath this non-excuse. People like Hitler are able
to commit such atrocities because of literal armies of people "just doing
their job".

------
waterlesscloud
I've written to the airline I use for most travel and explained why this
holiday season I'll be driving to my destinations.

The airlines have the power in this situation, if they protest, this _will_ be
changed.

~~~
dkasper
Relevant: American Airlines pilots are protesting the new measures -
[http://www.minyanville.com/dailyfeed/american-airlines-
pilot...](http://www.minyanville.com/dailyfeed/american-airlines-pilots-
revolt-against)

~~~
davidcuddeback
Unfortunately, they're only protesting that it be used against pilots. They
say nothing about the rights of their passengers. From the article (emphasis
mine):

"the practice of airport security screening of _airline pilots_ has spun out
of control and does nothing to improve national security"

They would have deserved more kudos if they had stood up for passengers'
rights as well.

~~~
jrockway
I am not a pilot, but I find the fact that they have to be security screened
to be pretty darn annoying, and I'm glad they're protesting. A pilot does not
need a box cutter to crash the plane. They have full control over the plane by
definition.

This has even happened -- 217 people dead because the pilot wanted to kill
himself: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990>

~~~
anonymous246
How else do you prevent a pilot from smuggling in weapons etc and giving it to
a (non-pilot) accomplice who flies on a _different_ flight?

Am I missing something obvious here? Pilots' protest seems totally misplaced.

~~~
jrockway
How do you prevent the pilot from hijacking his own plane and flying it into
the one that his accomplice was going to box-cutter-and-toothpaste?

~~~
mzl
Well, the value of a sympathizing pilot that is willing to smuggle in truly
dangerous stuff is probably higher than the value of the average guy that is
willing to crash a plane with himself in it. Using the (unscreened) pilot, one
could generate a stream of well-armed terrorists.

------
jerf
A thought comes to mind: Is it arguably illegal now for a job to require you
to fly? It may not be sexual assault in the legal sense when the TSA does it,
but that's partially because you can be said to have consented. If someone
else is "forcing you to consent" (quoted for oxymoronicity) then that is a
different thing altogether, and given the extreme attention the law pays to
sexual harassment in the workplace it would not surprise me that while the
government and the TSA agents are indemnified, your company may not be.

Actually, let me refine that to merely point out that one could plausibly file
a very expensive and uncomfortable-to-your-employer lawsuit over this; I
wouldn't guarantee victory, but I wouldn't guarantee defeat, either.

------
p2phs
The solution is rather simple tho requires a fair bit of determination and
ground swell to achieve.

The Gandhian strategy of civil disobedience, TSA wants more people to pass
thru the porn machine. We as a country should request not passing thru the
machine. Assume that more people require individual attention resulting in
greater lines and longer delays at the airports. Delays that will not be
acceptable to the airlines, TSA or even us the traveling people.

Small price to pay to secure the freedoms of those after us.

There are a couple of consequences that could happen as a result, (a)
mandatory porn machine scan for everyone no exception or (b) a change in
policy.

For a president who claimed that we were winning the war because the terrorist
hated our freedoms, this loss of freedom should come as a shock. We might be
winning the battle of the guns, we are losing the war of the minds.

\--- Interim recruiting slogan for the TSA --- Come one , come all, we grope
them all. White or color, young or old, women and men. Gay straight and
transsexuals we like to feel them all.

(Small print): TSA is an equal opportunity groper. Guarantor : United states
Govt.

~~~
dholowiski
I agree- everybody should go for the grope, in public. This will jam the lines
up, flights and embarrass (most of) the tsa officials.

~~~
alsomike
That's a great idea, but if you're truly committed to civil liberties, you
need to take it to the next level by faking an orgasm while you're being
groped.

------
alanh
Is there a dress code at airports? To make a point, I’m considering showing up
to the security queue in a Speedo.

~~~
nkurz
I've done things similar to this with mixed results. Instead of a thong, I
stripped to T-shirt and boxer shorts (plus underwear) or to top and bottom
long underwear (pajamas, essentially). Boston and Albany didn't blink an eye,
whereas El Paso involved an unpleasant exchange with a police officer.

This was a while ago, though, after the initial shoe bomber I incident.
Responses may be different now. Try to decide in advance what your goals are:
are you hoping to make a scene or not? Likely you should not do not do things
like this if it is not acceptable to miss your plane. I'd recommend choosing a
final outfit that you would feel comfortable defending to a judge as not
indecent to wear in a public place.

(I suppose I should mention: I personally have no problem with backscan X-ray
so long as it is fast, safe, and effective. It's the security theater that I
am willing to protest against, not the perceived invasion of privacy.)

~~~
grandalf
Is it safe? I recently learned that a CAT scan has 400x the amount of
radiation as an x-ray and that it's speculated that a nontrivial number of
cancer cases are caused by CAT scans.

~~~
nkurz
I don't know if it is safe. I'm pretty sure it is faster than the
alternatives. I also don't know if it is effective in preventing terrorist
attacks. Safety and effectiveness would be my primary concerns rather than the
worries about 'naked' pictures.

------
sixtofour
It's hard to think of a procedure that would encourage more disrespect and
fear of government, its personnel and policies than the aggressive pat down.

It's clearly meant as intimidation. Your government disrespects you so much
that it will subject you to a humiliating experience to intimidate you into
accepting a different humiliating experience.

When my government shows me this much disrespect and intimidation, I start to
wonder whether they're serving my needs, and whose needs they really are
serving.

This is thuggery, and the only difference between the aggressive pat down, and
slapping me in the face until I agree to go in the scanner, is in degree, not
in kind.

------
physcab
The actions by certain TSA employees as depicted by recent articles on HN are
reprehensible. No doubt about it.

However! I fly about every 2 to 3 weeks in and out of big airports and small
airports. I have had pat downs and swipes and millimeter wave scans. I have
even worked on next generation explosives detection technology(THz,Long Range,
Surface UV). Yet, over the past 3 years of this type of mobile lifestyle, I
have never observed or have been subjected to the types of harassment recent
articles have detailed. Surely it happens, yes. But my experience both on the
inside and out of this industry tells a different story. Privacy IS respected
by people developing and deploying these technologies. Privacy IS respected by
TSA employees who are concerned for the safety of each passenger.

Whether these policies or technologies are effective is another debate, but I
just think there is a great deal of overgeneralization going on here. Maybe
I'm just an outlier.

~~~
RK
The article (and others) is in regard to the very recently implemented policy
changes by TSA in the past couple weeks. Otherwise I agree with you and
haven't personally experienced problems in my frequent travel.

~~~
physcab
I understand that. I flew as recently as last weekend to Chicago and
Jacksonville and didn't notice a single difference.

My point is that these changes are not implemented universally or equally.
People shouldn't be so quick to paint TSA with a broad brush of criticism.

~~~
gfodor
I see your anecdote and raise you mine, where I saw a old lady get invasively
patted down for about 15-20 minutes at SFO.

------
toast76
I'm from Australia, but we will be flying to the US in the next few years with
our son (and we have a second on the way).

My question is, are children subject to the requirement of either a scan or a
pat down?

I find it hard to believe that any law would allow the photographing of a
child effective nude, much less the touching of "genitals". I would never
allow my child(ren) to be subjected to either of these measures. Does this
mean I should find another country to visit?

Even for adults, call me ignorant, but how is this not sexual assault? In any
other situation, if I was subjected to a genital grope I'd be pressing
charges.

~~~
megablast
Wow, so you have not heard about this outrage yes. Yes, Children are subjected
to both the pat down and the scan. Find somewhere else if this concerns you.
The US is making itself more and more unfriendly to visit, which is a shame,
because it is such a great place to go.

~~~
toast76
Yeah I've been following the outrage, I just wasn't sure if it applied to
children. Thanks for the info.

If my child needs to be viewed naked by a stranger, or has to be groped to get
onto a plane in the US, then yes we'll be finding somewhere else to visit.

It is a shame, my wife and I travelled across the US for our honeymoon 4-5
years ago and loved it. But I wouldn't subject my children to such a perverse
security screening process.

------
daimyoyo
The war on terror is over. The terrorists won. God save us.

~~~
troutwine
Not quite. Islamic extremists don't care one bit about the erosion of American
civil liberties; they simply want foreign powers _out_ of lands they view as
sacred. Capitulation in the face of terror is one method of achieving this
end, the other is a ruinous, lasting and unwinnable war designed to sap the
power of the invader. What we do to ourselves that does not achieve their
ambition is irrelevant.

Terrorists haven't won: the sacred lands they prize so highly are still
"occupied". Rather, we've simply been dullards content to walk around in our
socks, whistling 'God Bless America' to pass the time.

~~~
orangecat
I would slightly rephrase the GP to "terror won".

------
lsc
I think the interesting bit is this choice between getting groped in public
vs. private.

Personally, I'm _much_ more comfortable with an authority figure in public
than in private. I mean, photos of some TSA guy with his arm halfway up my ass
are going to be a _whole lot_ more embarrassing for him than for me. I mean,
he could loose his job, while for me, the worst that would happen is my
friends would tease me a bit.

Really, "what you would be willing to do when other people are watching" is
often a reasonable ethical shorthand for 'the right thing' - allowing people
to (optionally) release the recording of their interaction with law
enforcement would go a long ways towards reducing abuses by law-enforcement.

On the other hand, what I'm really afraid of is getting put on some secret
list, and video taping doesn't protect me from that.

------
drags
I'm flying for Thanksgiving, I plan to get to SFO a little early and hand out
some of these flyers that a Flyertalk user created:
<http://www.dontscan.us/downloads.html> They're not perfect, but pretty
accurate all-around.

Whether you prefer to let someone see you naked or grope you is a personal
decision, but I imagine there are plenty of people who haven't flown in the
last 2-3 years, and they should at least know their options before they get
into security and blinded by authority.

~~~
follower
From that page (compare to the image):

"These images are friendly enough to post in a preschool. Heck, it could even
make the cover of Reader’s Digest and not offend anybody." --
[http://blog.tsa.gov/2008/04/first-significant-deployment-
of....](http://blog.tsa.gov/2008/04/first-significant-deployment-of.html)

Wow, I can't believe they actually said that.

------
chrischen
Let's hope the next terrorist doesn't hide the bomb up his ass or ingest it,
or else politicians will make sure those places are checked too.

~~~
khafra
On the other hand, video tapes released from Sudan of terrorists in intense
training to increase their payload capacity for rectally delivered explosives
could become an overnight internet sensation.

------
tswicegood
Not explicitly tech related, but since a lot of tech folk are photographers
and we all tend to fly a bit more than the average person, thought it was good
info to have here.

Just wait until someone tries to smuggle something onboard using their iPad or
Kindle. _shakes head_

~~~
callahad
Or, heaven forbid, in a body cavity.

~~~
jmaygarden
They probably wouldn't get caught since the pat-down doesn't check for that
and they don't have to go through the body scanner.

~~~
troutwine
The pat-down gloves are sometimes sent through a residue scanner. However,
assuming you place the foreign object into the cavity using a surgery setup
any residue that _would_ trip the detector is likely to be left on the long
discarded prep-clothes.

------
lesterbuck
I am reminded of the old Rodney Dangerfield joke:

"If it weren't for pickpockets, I'd have no sex life at all."

Now available in a new, updated TSA version:

"If it weren't for TSA genital groping, I'd have no sex life at all."

------
spectre
Reading these stories it makes it sound as if American Airports are becoming a
virtual Police State (I haven't been to the US since 2002).

I live in a first world country (New Zealand) and we only have metal detectors
and x-ray machines (and you only have to go through them if your plane has
more then 50 seats). They're quite lax about it as well I've gotten knives
through (accidentally) both in my pocket and on a tray through the x-ray
machine. Also our inbound customs care more about fruit than drugs or
explosives:
[http://www.customs.govt.nz/nr/rdonlyres/9bec875b-dc37-4309-9...](http://www.customs.govt.nz/nr/rdonlyres/9bec875b-dc37-4309-9033-67a34a770ed0/0/englishpassengerarrivalcardaug2010.pdf)

------
bshep
I'd drive or take a train if I could avoid flying. Unfortunately, I live on an
island, not much I can do except take a plane if I want to visit family in the
continental US.

I pretty much have to do what they want or be stuck here.

------
maxawaytoolong
It's interesting to note that if these machines produced a regular "skeleton"
x-ray image, instead of the "nude" image, nobody would care that much, and it
might even be an improvement, if it sped up the lines.

------
joeshaw
I think I am going to start wearing a protective cup whenever I have to fly.

Hmm, for that matter, would those protect you from the high tech strip search?

------
ChristianMarks
Pretty soon they'll be taking random innocent people away--for good. I've
stopped flying, myself.

~~~
freyfogle
What do you mean soon? The US already holds people indefinitely - see
Guantánamo. As to whether these people are innocent or guilty of anything, you
might have thought or hoped that's for a judge to decide via a trial, but it
doesn't seem to matter.

~~~
loewenskind
>As to whether these people are innocent or guilty of anything

If there is no evidence what so ever of their guilt (and obviously there isn't
or they would be tried) why would it be rational to assume they might be
guilty?

------
gasull
This is making the US look like a country with a repressive government. Many
countries with repressive governments don't look this bad when you visit their
airports.

------
tomjen3
Why do people keep insisting on flying under these conditions? Seriously, you
can find pictures of pretty much any place you want online, you can have a
video call to the other side of the planet for free through Skype, and you can
buy pretty much anything you want online.

It makes sense for the photographer, but it makes no sense for most people who
fly.

~~~
wonderzombie
My family lives on the east coast. I live on the west coast. Christmas and
family vacations are the only time I get to spend time with my mother, father,
sister, and brother. My parents are getting older--- I see them seldom enough
that every time I'm surprised at how much older they look. This among other
things makes me acutely aware of how we're each missing out on one another's
lives.

I hate traveling as much as the next person. Maybe more so since I do it
regularly, around Christmas, every goddamn year. It's awful. It's hideously
expensive. For my fiancee and I, it's costs more than $1000. And sometimes
it's downright enraging. Of course I've questioned whether or not it's worth
it, numerous times. My parents and I email one another. We talk on the phone.
I play L4D2 with my brother online. But there's three hours' difference, and
you might be surprised by how difficult that makes things. And for all of
technology's virtues, nothing compares with having a once-a-year, sit-down
dinner with the whole family; shootin' the shit in front of a warm fire; and
so on.

~~~
sixtofour
There is no substitute for being face to face with family and friends.

For co-workers, not so much. Of course you lose something, but it's not as
important a loss as not seeing family face to face.

I think the solution, for some, is to live close to the people who are
important to you. Commute and telecommute to your _job_ , not your family.

~~~
nostrademons
Telecommuting will shut you out of many of the most desirable employers (eg.
startups, Google, FaceBook). You actually lose _a lot_ in terms of
communication efficiency and hence productivity, and most fast-moving
companies are very aware of that. If you do get a job at, say, one of Google's
remote offices, your project choices are much more limited than at the home
office.

My choice was to take the good job, see the family, and put up with the brain-
dead TSA regulations for the 3ish times a year that I fly home. I don't like
it, but it's the path of least resistance that lets me arrange the rest of my
life optimally. I suspect many other people make the same choice.

------
DanielBMarkham
I fear that the military-industrial complex has finally found something to be
afraid of that can't fight back: its own citizenry.

Sadly enough, this is not an issue of good people or bad people -- I think the
vast majority of TSA screeners are good people who want only what's best for
the public. This problem has two parts, framing and execution.

The framing is a one-sided issue: who's going to argue that we need less
security? It's a system designed to continue to turn the screws. Mark my
words. It will not stop here.

The execution is even worse: top-down, one-size-fits-all, factory-processing
of people. This makes for an expensive, cumbersome, and inflexible system.
Oddly enough, the more standardized you make security practices, the easier
you make it for _real_ terrorists to take down the system. It's the entire
basis of asymmetrical warfare. Small groups of highly-nimble adversaries
working against a huge standardized behemoth. The U.S. should have made a
conscious decision not to play that game. But it didn't.

When you have a problem that's defined poorly and executed poorly? Not much
chance of improvement, I'm afraid.

------
michaels0620
I wonder if this will ever get bad enough that we'll see people start to use
trains again, even if it does take significantly more time.

Of course, if rail were ever to get popular enough again, they'd just
institute the same scanning procedures there too.

~~~
SageRaven
I haven't stepped on a plane since 9/11 due to the stupidity of the new
regulations. In that time, I've taken 3 cross-country (Utah to east coast)
Greyhound trips and one drive that would have been normally taken by plane.
Two of those situations were for end-of-life situations for grandparents.

I've investigated trains, but they cost nearly as much as a plane and take
almost as long as the bus, so why not take the cheaper option?

I'd personally refuse to take any job that required air travel and wouldn't
let me drive in lieu of the plane. I'm sure that would limit my professional
options, but I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is.

------
NickPollard
As a counterpoint to what everyone is saying, there is no point in any pat-
down if it's not thorough.

A pat-down that doesn't touch the genitals or other sensitive areas is not
going to find any terrorists, it just gives the impression of security.

~~~
phjohnst
Yeah, but the point is that anyone with half a brain would put whatever
they're carrying out of reach of the pat down (ie places you'd have to do a
cavity search for, however it gets there), so all that we're accomplishing
here is feeling people up for that same impression of security (and, to drive
people to the scanners to be photographed naked, which still won't find
whatever is hidden in your body).

------
davidw
Haven't we had enough of these articles already? They're not about startups or
technology, really, and I think we've all formed our opinions at this point.
Posting them here won't change a thing, in any case.

~~~
miles
_"Posting them here won't change a thing, in any case."_

I strongly disagree, David. Keeping this issue in front of smart people (many
of whom travel extensively) is probably one of the best ways to initiate
change.

~~~
hfinney
But the fraction of the traveling public that reads HN has to be minute.
Seriously, what would you estimate the increase is in the probability of
significant improvements to TSA policy, by virtue of this article being posted
vs if it had been rejected as off topic? Even one millionth of a percent
increase in probability seems high to me. People like to vent and posture, but
in the moment of choice they'll almost always choose the most convenient
alternative. Very few will file formal complaints, even among readers here.
And as others have pointed out, the incentives for the TSA almost force them
to be over cautious, so that they can survive if something bad happens.

~~~
loewenskind
Something has to be done. This has continued to get worse at least every year.
We can't sit back and justify why we don't need to do anything.

This thing even has serious health issues associated with it. You know Doctors
stand behind lead shielding when they give X-rays, right? And I bet most
doctors give less than 40 X-rays a day, but this thing has at least 40 times
the radiation of an X-ray. Is dying of cancer convenient enough for you?

