<p>A young person who has been through years of therapy because he had been molested as a child. Big whoops. A cancer survivor with colostomy bag. What’s the big deal. Prostetic breast? No biggie. Should they just man up or grow up? Do you speak for these people as well?</p>
<p>I would love to see a study comparing how worried someone is about the new scanning / pat-down at airports and how much talk radio the person listens to… Orson Wells - “War of the Worlds” had nothing on some of these politically motivated fear mongers… </p>
<p>I object to the scanners only because I think we could spend less and get better results using other means, But I do appreciate that the institutions charged with protecting us found the toner bombs before they could cause damage, so who am I to say… So thanks to the people involved and Happy Thanksgiving…</p>
<p>I hope you aren’t talking to me,bb. I’m all for reporting abuse, and I think this is ridiculous and isn’t going to stop anyone from attempting to pass a bomb through. But for a young man traveling alone, I tell him to just go through the scanner if they steer him that way, remove metal from his pockets so he doesn’t set anything off and he probably won’t get tagged for a personal inspection. If he does, don’t make a big deal, but do it in public and if someone is doing something inappropriate, he should say loudly, “Don’t touch my junk, man.” Just kidding. No, actually, I told him to say, “What are you doing?” Loudly, precisely, non-threateningly, but so nobody can get away with anything, if he can read their nametag, do it. He thinks I’m an idiot for even mentioning that.</p>
<p>My hubby is fine with the new TSA procedures & options. He says as his fed govt workplace, they can tape your conversations without any warning or any beep, search your computer at will, have you give a urine sample while being watched by a same sex person twice/month, and all sorts of other things. He feels this TSA stuff is minor compared with all of those things. </p>
<p>I think that the money for the scanners could be better spent–metal detectors and making eye contact and profiling people seems more effective to me. Israel has a lot to teach us on deterence and detection. We have a lot to learn. I have had the “old fashioned” wanded & less invasive pat-downs in the past, because I bought my ticket at the last minute, perhaps?</p>
<p>Please let me know when they start buses, trains or other transportation in & out of HI. We did try ferries, but they didn’t last long or do well. Cost was very high also.</p>
<p>Let me know when they start transportation other than planes from & to HI, please. We tried the Superferry, but that didn’t last very long or work too well.</p>
<p>Also, I have frequently walked thru the metal detector with my watch on my wrist and a belt with a metal belt buckle (at least I’m assuming these items are actually metal); the alarm never sounded. We have often forgotten & left 2-3 ounce hand sanitizer, lip balm and other small items in luggage scanned and not been asked about it by TSA. We DID get fruit confiscated–not supposed to bring it into our out of our state due to ag regs (don’t want to export or import problems for crops).</p>
<p>busdriver, apologies. My post was addressed to Pizzagirl.</p>
<p>I told my DD the same thing: be polite, remove all metal, opt out for a patdown if selected for enhanced screening, do it in public and make note of the TSA employee’s bagde. And I forwarded her a link to the ACLU’s TSA complaint page.</p>
<p>“He says as his fed govt workplace, they can tape your conversations without any warning or any beep, search your computer at will, have you give a urine sample while being watched by a same sex person twice/month, and all sorts of other things.”
I work for a private company that can do similar things. However, unlike the TSA, they cannot strip me naked, ruffle through my purse or subject me to a dose of X-rays. And just an FYI - H and I have no plans to stop our almost quarterly visits to your beautiful state :)</p>
<p>I think the problem with metal detectors is that explosives are not metal – and even some guns are made of plastic these days. Certainly a wannabe terrorist could figure out how to bring all sorts of dangerous stuff that is not made of metal. So IF you really want to screen all passengers for a wide variety of potentially dangerous stuff, then the scanners make sense… though it is still questionable as to whether that is the most cost-effective approach. Maybe random selection of a significant number of passengers, with a variety of different possible search protocols that might be followed, would be more effective as a deterrent – that way the would be terrorist would face a high likelihood of being searched without knowing for sure what type of search he was likely to face. Harder to prepare for, harder to maintain one’s cool when singled out. </p>
<p>It seems to me that I have gotten through security much faster when I’ve gone through the body scanners (millimeter wave) than with metal detectors – though I’ve been flying a lot this past year, much more than normal, and I might just be getting a lot more efficient my own preparation. But it goes very fast. </p>
<p>As to metal detectors missing your watch, etc… the metal detectors have various sensitivity settings, they can essentially be tuned up to be more sensitive, tuned down to be less sensitive. I used to have to go through a lot of metal detectors at courthouses & jails & the like, and usually found those detectors to be much more sensitive. But there’s a difference – for example, jailers are worried about very tiny pieces of metal that can be passed by visitors to prisoners – a nail file or a razor blade could be a huge problem for them. Whereas the airline people are worried about bigger stuff. </p>
<p>I do think it was silly to be requiring the scans and pat down search of the airline pilots, simply because if the guy flying the plane wants to divert it or bring it down, he doesn’t need guns or explosives to do so. I mean… if I can’t trust the pilot, then I’ve got bigger worries than whether he got away with bringing in an oversized tube of toothpaste.</p>
<p>“I work for a private company that can do similar things. However, unlike the TSA, they cannot strip me naked, ruffle through my purse or subject me to a dose of X-rays.”</p>
<p>Same for me. I just hope that people don’t get their lives too disrupted over this, particularly the people that fly infrequently. This could be just the thing to discourage them from ever flying.</p>
<p>“I do think it was silly to be requiring the scans and pat down search of the airline pilots, simply because if the guy flying the plane wants to divert it or bring it down, he doesn’t need guns or explosives to do so. I mean… if I can’t trust the pilot, then I’ve got bigger worries than whether he got away with bringing in an oversized tube of toothpaste”</p>
<p>Yes, exactly. Thankfully they just agreed not to require pilots to go through that (but they have to match you on some sort of central list, so I’m wondering if that is going to be a mess). Over the runway, a pilot trying to crash the aircraft could put the airplane into an unrecoverable situation in less than a second.</p>
<p>I’m just glad none of my loved ones will be flying for a few weeks while hopefully things are better sorted out. I admit to having mixed feelings about all of this. I still remember the old days when we didn’t even have metal detectors for courthouses, etc. (before OK City bomber). Sigh, those were simpler times. </p>
<p>I have noticed some airport metal detectors ARE more sensitive than others–some alarm with my watch and belt buckle while others don’t. It’s not that I intentionally am testing the machines, I just don’t always remember to take things off & have almost left things behind at many checkpoints (distracted travelling, I know).</p>
<p>Sure wish we could learn some lessons from Israel on security and how to keep folks off planes and other transportation that should NOT have access. Maybe it’s happening at some level? We can only hope.</p>
<p>DD flying out of Houston Busch International airport . Small lines, no scanner and no pat down. She ended up being way early for her flight. Now to fight the traffic on this end to pick her up when she gets here.</p>
<p>To return to the OP’s question, you might be able to make the trip on a cargo ship:
[A</a> la Carte Freighter Travel](<a href=“http://www.freighter-travel.com/]A”>http://www.freighter-travel.com/)</p>
<p>D flew BOS to ORD last night. no lines, no scanner, no patdown. And her flight arrived 1/2 hour early :)</p>
<p>D flew PHL to MDW this morning. Lines were so good she was at her gate less than an hour after she left home. Went through the metal detector. And her flight arrived early as well!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I do as well but they require time and, typically, money. Flying can greatly cut down on both. Also, I like to fly in part because it is so much safer than driving.</p>
<p>Are the new pat downs really that much more invasive? I usually get patted down when I fly due to using metal mobility equipment and didn’t find them that invasive last time I flew (end of Feb.). I can see where abuse survivors or transgender people might have particular, well-grounded concerns, but unless they’ve changed things drastically, I can’t see it being a huge deal for most people.</p>
<p>The radiation does much concern me, however. Even if I’m not going through the scanner personally, I worry about radiation spreading beyond the scanner.</p>
<p>On a side note, I dislike flying, though not to the point of a clinical phobia or anything like that (I’m willing to do it if I have to, but if there’s a doable plan B–say a “driving day” of driving or less–I’ll probably take that). Still, exposure generally works very, very well for both phobias and subclinical fears and yet my six weeks of flying around the country for interviews last year made me no more comfortable flying, even though I was definitely exposed to it (6 round trips, if you break it down into individual legs, probably 25 to 30 flights total).</p>
<p>OTOH, therapy has helped a lot of people with flying phobias to overcome them and it’s really well0supported by research, so my anecdote means slightly more than nothing. Exposure treatment for phobias in general definitely worth looking into</p>
<p>“I love how the response to people taking issue with the new TSA screening is that they have the option not to fly, but if they start looking for alternatives the peanut gallery has to chime in about how unreasonable they’re being.”</p>
<p>You have the choice not to fly. You don’t have the choice to require everybody else to be silent. If you announce on a public message board that you’re being silly, other people will comment on the silliness. People who don’t want commentary on their decisions shouldn’t discuss them on public message boards.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Let’s all remember, too, that we only need to worry about radiation that comes from technology – exposure to the stuff that comes from the sun isn’t worth worrying about. Technology that carries you to high altitudes doesn’t raise risks that deserve attention. I guess I can throw the sunscreen away next time I go skiing.</p>
<p>Hanna, people can have issues (religious, health, psychological, etc.)that determine their level of comfort with something. Without knowing the background issues, you cannot call someone “silly” for not being comfortable with something you and I are just fine with.</p>
<p>A side note: it makes me extremely sad that our HS science education fails to meet simple standards. Oh, well, uneducated public is easier to bamboozle with terms such as “millimeter waves” when the public does not even know what a millimeter is! Yet the same public freaks out because cell phones emit “harmful radiation” such as SHF and UHF (i.e., “millimeter waves”). Basically, you have a choice of getting a dose of X-rays (backscatter) or being microwaved (“millimeter waves”) at the airport. While you or I may encounter these devices once a year, I worry about the TSA agents who work near these contraptions… Unlike medical personnel, they do not leave the room when the device is on.</p>
<p>
Actually it is but it’s worth being concerned about even with the feet firmly planted on the ground - skin cancer.</p>
<p>But you probably meant the additional exposure one gets by flying with less atmosphere in the way. The alternative would be to only fly at night. :)</p>
<p>In order to make sense of it all it’s best if there were scientific studies done with the results released in layman terms that informed us of the relative exposures - i.e. compared to solar radiation at ground level and 40,000 ft, to a dental x-ray, a chest x-ray, a cell phone, electrical transmission lines, etc. One point in the comparison is the different spectrum areas of the radiation and it’s effect- x-ray, emf, etc. </p>
<p>One concerning point, unless it can be fairly readily compared to the other radiation sources, is that it can take years to discover how harmful some of this radiation is. For example, x-ray machines of a few decades ago probably would be banned today because of the level of radiation emitted.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Perhaps there are other online fora to explore such issues in the manner quoted above.</p>
<p>OP has hopefully gained some information to help her in her decision concerning her daughter.</p>