Full-body scanners

[Kiwi Phil]

Australia is soon to get full-body scanners at airports...I hope you all know what I am talking about.
And how, some are complaining about privacy and whatever else makes them important.

I came across this solution to all the controversy over these full-body scanners:

Erect a booth that you can step into that will not X-ray you, but will detonate any explosive device you may have on you.
It would be a win-win for everyone, and there would be none of this carp about invasion of privacy or ethnic/racial profiling!!!!!
That would change the direction of terrorism, wouldn't it?

Bonza idea eh mate!!
Cheers
Phillip

 

[jay_merrill]

Re: Full-body scanners

One thing that most people seem not to know about the full body scanners, is that the security techs that view them, are in a separate room and can not see the actual person. Similarly, the security people at the check point, can't see the scanner screens. Even if the person appears to have something unusual on them that must be checked, unless it turns out to be a bomb, weapon, etc., the scanned image and the person are not "connected."

I'd rather be screened than to have to fight some moron with a sneaker bomb on the plane. Then again, if the security folks want to let me carry a nice big knife on the plane, I'd be happy to take care of the sneaker bomb guy!



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[JB]

Re: Full-body scanners

I saw this suggestion before but I can't remember where.

Machs nix to me. I don't fly commercial unless I am going where I cannot drive. Went to Hawaii in '06. That is the only commercial flight in the last 20 years.

It is not that I am afraid. . .I flew about 1500 hours for the Navy in the 50s. . .it is that I decline to be treated like dangerous livestock if at all possible.

 

[dingbat]

Re: Full-body scanners

I took over 100 flights last year. Got full body scanned three times. Had my choice of a full body scan or to get patted down. Choose the full body scan. Quicker, easier. Could care less. Gave up my vanity many years ago.

 

[gonefishie]

Re: Full-body scanners

those scanners can't tell the different between the silicone in surgically enhanced tatas from other suspicious subtances.

 

[WIMUSKY]

Re: Full-body scanners

I saw this suggestion before but I can't remember where.
.

It's going around. Just showed up today in my e-mail from a buddy.....

 

[PiratePast40]

Re: Full-body scanners

those scanners can't tell the different between the silicone in surgically enhanced tatas from other suspicious subtances.

Hmmmm ... maybe that's why some people are objecting so strenuously. They don't want people to know they have the "store bought" ones.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Full-body scanners

I worry more about being struck by lightning

Here is a worthwhile read C&P

Not going to do any editorializing here; just going to do some non-fancy math. James Joyner asks:

There have been precisely three attempts over the last eight years to commit acts of terrorism aboard commercial aircraft. All of them clownishly inept and easily thwarted by the passengers. How many tens of thousands of flights have been incident free?
Let's expand Joyner's scope out to the past decade. Over the past decade, there have been, by my count, six attempted terrorist incidents on board a commercial airliner than landed in or departed from the United States: the four planes that were hijacked on 9/11, the shoe bomber incident in December 2001, and the NWA flight 253 incident on Christmas.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics provides a wealth of statistical information on air traffic. For this exercise, I will look at both domestic flights within the US, and international flights whose origin or destination was within the United States. I will not look at flights that transported cargo and crew only. I will look at flights spanning the decade from October 1999 through September 2009 inclusive (the BTS does not yet have data available for the past couple of months).

Over the past decade, according to BTS, there have been 99,320,309 commercial airline departures that either originated or landed within the United States. Dividing by six, we get one terrorist incident per 16,553,385 departures.

These departures flew a collective 69,415,786,000 miles. That means there has been one terrorist incident per 11,569,297,667 mles flown. This distance is equivalent to 1,459,664 trips around the diameter of the Earth, 24,218 round trips to the Moon, or two round trips to Neptune.

Assuming an average airborne speed of 425 miles per hour, these airplanes were aloft for a total of 163,331,261 hours. Therefore, there has been one terrorist incident per 27,221,877 hours airborne. This can also be expressed as one incident per 1,134,245 days airborne, or one incident per 3,105 years airborne.

There were a total of 674 passengers, not counting crew or the terrorists themselves, on the flights on which these incidents occurred. By contrast, there have been 7,015,630,000 passenger enplanements over the past decade. Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.

 

[BWR1953]

Re: Full-body scanners

I worry more about being struck by lightning...

Here in Florida, lightning capital of the country, the odds of being struck by lightning are 1 in 90.

As far as the odds of being on a flight with a terrorist being high... it isn't the ODDS, it's the STAKES.

 

[slasmith1]

Re: Full-body scanners

The best way to not worry about the scanners is to fly naked!

 

[cheburashka]

Re: Full-body scanners

Erect a booth that you can step into that will not X-ray you, but will detonate any explosive device you may have on you.

Seems like a bad idea to me. I've been known to conceal large quantities of methane and hydrogen sulfide inside of my body. I don't think I should be blown up for concealing potential weapons of mass revulsion.

 

[jay_merrill]

Re: Full-body scanners

Does anyone remember "lighting methane" in summer camp, as a kid? If you do, don't tell the Dept. of Homeland Security - you just might be put on a list of people who attended a "terrorist training camp!"



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[rodbolt]

Re: Full-body scanners

dunno about full body scans, the females may attack me.
but who really cares, its not like the X-Ray vision glasses we used to buy from Grit magazine.

 

[banthafett]

Re: Full-body scanners

Just need to come up with the ones in Total Recall.

austin

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Full-body scanners

i can't imagine a more boring job, than to have to sit and look at a screen for 8 hours. it would be like playing the same image over and over.
i fly several times a year, i think anything they can do, to keep me safe is fine.