Get Nude For Your Country-Invasion of the naked body scanners

[dogday]

Psssst. Want to see Susan Hallowell naked? Look at the Feb. 24 New York Times. She's on Page A10.

Hallowell runs the Transportation Security Administration's research lab. Four years ago, she volunteered to be scanned by a backscatter X-ray machine, which sees through clothing. She was wearing a skirt and blazer. But in the picture, she's as good as nude.

Now it's your turn.

Last week, TSA began using backscatters at airports to screen passengers for weapons. The first machine is up and running in Phoenix. The next ones will be in New York and Los Angeles. The machines have been modified with a "privacy algorithm" to clean up what they show. But even the tempered images tell you more than you need to know about the endowments of the people seated next to you.

Are you up for this? Are you ready to get naked for your country?

This is no joke. The government needs to look under your clothes. Ceramic knives, plastic guns, and liquid explosives have made metal detectors obsolete. Carry-on bags are X-rayed, so the safest place to hide a weapon is on your body. Puffer machines can detect explosives on you, but only if you're sloppy. Backscatters are different. They can scan your whole surface, locating and identifying anything of unusual density—not just metals, which have high atomic numbers, but drugs and explosives, which have low ones.

http://www.slate.com/id/2160977/nav/tap1/

[gollygee]

1. I'm much more worried about the so-called Patriot Act

than people seeing my silhouette at the airport. But you're right, it's another intrusion.

[bdamomma]

5. this is total BS, they are infringing on our rights

damn those who say, "if it's going to protect me" sh$t.

[gollygee]

6. I didn't say that

I said it doesn't bother me as much, but it is another intrusion.

[bdamomma]

8. gollygee my comment was not meant as a criticism to yours.

[Psst_Im_Not_Here]

2. I say

get a group of forward thinking, nudists to show up at the airport en masse. You know, doing their duty to shorten the lines at the security screenings. Maybe paint thir bodies with statements like, scan the cargo not us. Would be quite a statement!

[liberal N proud]

3. I have considered just dropping everything and putting it in the tubs

But I didn't have time to sit in jail.

Every-time it seams you have to remove more and more, Shoes, Belts, clean out your pockets. Might as well parade through with nothing to hide.

[dogday]

4. I have to ask this, what if a women is at that time of the month?

is this not so intrusive that it goes beyond the bar of good taste???

[WinkyDink]

10. It is, in a word, disgustingly intrusive. Two words.

[Tracer]

7. My daughter and I had a conversation about this yesterday, ...

... since she flies constantly for her job.

Apparently, you can refuse to go through the backscatter x-ray and choose to be patted down instead.

Frankly, I'd rather go through the backscatter than have some stranger feel me up.

[WinkyDink]

9. And Pan Am 103 would STILL EXPLODE TODAY.

[rasputin1952]

11. This is just the next step in the obsession with the destruction of

our Rights and Liberties.

Each step takes us down the path to, "Let me see your papers old man! No papers? Shoot him like the dog he is!"

The situations are in increments so that they are not as noticeable: A Federal drivers license agency;
accessing and storage of private information via PC's, etc; a small electronic device that allows people access to their homes and cars, but can also be used to store medical and other information, read by a small scanner that can be placed anywhere; I just heard yesterday that several employers look at Google to see what your political leanings and other info they can gather before they interview a prospective employee.

Jeez, just what the Army has on me from years gone by could fill a book, add medical records, financial records and a host of things we haven't even dream of yet, and we can all see where this is going.

I'm a non-Conspiracy type, but there are times when I have to wonder just who is getting what into records we have no knowledge of. Hell, we can't even view bush's old drivers license because he got a new one when he became Gov of TX and the previous record was wiped clean, but the yahoos that run this country want to know how much toilet paper I buy! Seems to me, those that want info should give info, why is this a one way street?

[hedgehog]

12. Going by the standards of network television and general circulation

magazines, if no female nipples and/or pubic hair is showing and the image is in black and white rather than full color, technically you're not naked! I do have one question, would this scanner reveal if someone has stored something in an orifice not used for this purpose by most people but frequently used to smuggle small objects?

[dogday]

13. See my post #4

Someone has to ask these questions.... It is a normal part of life...