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<p>I’m so glad you brought this up, as I’ve just been on planes to / from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. I wonder if the same people who are all worried about the sensitivities of 80 year old grandmothers who don’t want their lady parts touched will be equally worried about the sensitivities of Muslim women. Somehow I’m guessing not.</p>
<p>(Personally - too bad so sad. Religious objections aren’t any more valid than any other objection, IMO.)</p>
<p>As a freq flyer, I’ve never seen the TSA be surly. They needn’t be super friendly, either, though. Just professional, doing-their-job is fine with me. </p>
<p>The moment that you start to say “Well, no grandmas,” though, is the moment that the enemy decides to recruit grandmas, or dress women up to look like grandmas. And there would be major egg on the TSA’s face.</p>
<p>An ABC News employee said she was subject to a “demeaning” search at Newark Liberty International Airport Sunday morning.</p>
<p>“The woman who checked me reached her hands inside my underwear and felt her way around,” she said. “It was basically worse than going to the gynecologist. It was embarrassing. It was demeaning. It was inappropriate.”</p>
<p>That search was against protocols and “never” should have happened, TSA Administrator John Pistole told “Good Morning America” today. </p>
<p>So - there is TSA policy and then there is an incident like this. Where is the training and supervision of TSA agents? </p>
<p>Pizzagirl - is this ok with you? Do you want to be searched in this manner? Do you want your daughter searched in this manner?</p>
<p>It’s against the protocol, so what do you want me to say? Talk to me about searches that are done in protocol.</p>
<p>The article that says Napolitano is considering letting Muslim women pat themselves down has a distorted headline. It is misleading, probably on purpose.</p>
<p>In the story is this:</p>
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<p>So CAIR is recommending to the authorities that Muslim women be permitted to pat themselves down. </p>
<p>Napoplitano is considering changes to procedures…the afore-mentioned “adjustments” — to address the religious issues. It does not mean that TSA will go along with CAIR’s recommendations. It does not mean that Muslim women will be “exempted” from screening. Maybe they’ll try to hire more Muslim female TSA guards and these screenings will be done in a private room but it does not mean what the headline says.</p>
<p>Well, when interviewed by CNN, the TSA head said something along the lines of “anything goes”. When did he change his tune?</p>
<p>Pizzagirl: you stated earlier that your husband is an MD. Will he be willing to use a non-FDA approved device on a human?</p>
<p>BB - he’s not a radiologist, so he would have no greater expertise than anyone else in answering that question.</p>
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<p>FWIW - when flying out of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to Cairo two weeks ago … men and women went through separate screening lines (don’t get me started on their segregation!) and we, as women (no matter whether Muslim or not) went into a private screening room and were wanded and patted down by women. We were all wearing abayas and headscarves (myself included); the more conservative Muslim women had the full veil, revealing only the eyes.</p>
<p>pizzagirl said: “Talk to me about searches that are done in protocol.”</p>
<p>Ummm . . .you might want to rethink the “no reality based discussions” policy.</p>
<p>Any service delivery system consists of both the policy and the implementation. They are not separare entities.</p>
<p>But to stay in the policy area with you for a minute, I’m wondering if there is any inspection protocol that would go too far, any action that has the virtue of being a direct response to security threats (like groin inspections occurring because of the Underwear Bomber, or shoe remvoal because of the Shoe Bomber) but that in its search for bad things would be too invasive?</p>
<p>Because the logic of the TSA policies seem to be that as long as the inspection is tied to a previous real world occurrence it’s OK to go ahead and implement it.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I’m not talking about x-ray emitting devices, I’m talking about “a medical device” not cleared by the FDA and not being a part of a clinical trial. Will he or will he not?</p>
<p>As far as Im aware, there are only two types of radiation-emitting devices intended for irradiation of a live being (e.g., a human) that are legal in the US: medical devices, that are cleared by the FDA through a very specific, clearly outlined, and thorough approval process and weapons (DoDs jurisdiction). If the FDA has nothing to do with the approval of the devices, are they then classified as weapons?</p>
<p>Jazzymom- with all due respect, the issue as I see it is special treatment for any group. If you are going to have security standards, they need to be standard for all. I fully realize the need for security on plane/train/bus travel, but should a Catholic nun be subject to screening that is different from a Muslim woman? Religion should not be the determining factor. An atheist female should be entitled to the same fair treatment as any other. Regardless of what “adjustments” they make in regard to Muslim women, I don’t think it is fair for women and/or men to receive different levels of screening based on their personal beliefs. Seems like that would be racial profiling in reverse.</p>
<p>“I have 4th amendment problems with this whole thing. There has got to be “probable cause.” Do we now consider it to be probable cause to buy a plane ticket?”</p>
<p>No, there doesn’t have to be probable cause. If probable cause was required, X-raying your bags wouldn’t be legal, either. Where there’s a legitimate public safety concern, as there is in airports, the legal question is whether every passenger is subjected to the same search (or the same chance of a random search).</p>
<p>Now that the cockpit doors are sealed, the danger to planes comes from explosives, not guns or knives. Metal detectors are essentially useless against explosives. There’s nothing but a false sense of security there.</p>
<p>El Al’s system works well for it. It operates a grand total of ~40 aircraft. American Airlines alone has 625 – with far more departures per aircraft due to the number of shorter flights. El Al also has the benefit of hiring flight crews and interviewers from a population where nearly every adult has military experience. It’s wishful thinking to suppose that El Al’s procedures could be equally effective if implemented on a scale a hundred times larger, with the interviews conducted by TSA recruits.</p>
<p>Never mind the fact that El Al’s system also keeps a lot of people out of the air, period. That’s not such a big deal in a country where you can drive anywhere in an afternoon, including to another country with different flight rules. El Al’s system, under which some percentage of citizens just can’t fly, would be immensely more invasive and disruptive in this country, where ground travel from coast to coast takes a minimum of three nights. If they have to pat me down to avoid that consequence, so be it.</p>
<p>If you are concerned about the amount of radiation from these machines, you certainly should not fly, especially on long-haul flights. Even assuming that the government is underestimating the radiation from the screening one hundredfold, you get more on a coast-to-coast flight.</p>
<p>Correct me if I’m wrong, but a scanner is not a medical device. It is not used to diagnose or treat a medical condition.</p>
<p>So why are you insisting it has to have a “clinical” trial? What kind of trial would you have? Hire a bunch of people to have dozens of scans done, then wait 20 years and see if they get cancer?</p>
<p>They’ve measure the radiation it emits, and compared it to known sources of radiation. Not sure what else you think they ought to be doing.</p>
<p>“there are only two types of radiation-emitting devices intended for irradiation of a live being (e.g., a human) that are legal in the US”</p>
<p>What about the devices that irradiate us unintentionally, but knowingly, like airplanes? The FDA doesn’t approve those.</p>
<p>“What about the devices that irradiate us unintentionally, but knowingly, like airplanes? The FDA doesn’t approve those.”</p>
<p>It is called environmental exposure, and an airplane does not have a built-in source of radiation by design, while the scanners do. If you or I try to design, build and sell an X-ray emitting device for use on humans, the FDA will shut down this operation really fast, and we will be looking at severe penalties. To the best of my knowledge, only military devices are exempt from 510(k) clearance. Has the govenment declared a war on the US air travelrs?</p>
<p>BTW, the talks about “low doses” are misleading. Take a look at this:
<a href=“http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ucsf-jph-letter.pdf[/url]”>http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ucsf-jph-letter.pdf</a> Excerpt:
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<p>^^That is a letter to the White House sent by a group of concerned UCSF doctors.</p>
<p>That is alarming, bunsen. I thought it was no big deal because I had heard the extra dosage of radiation was like just an extra 5 minutes of flight time.</p>
<p>I have rarely even seen those machines, and only have gone through them a few times. Does anyone know if they are supposed to be deployed everywhere, or just a small number of airports?</p>
<p>Every airport, I believe, because OSI Systems that makes Rapiscan devices, lobbied the government that without these devices there is no way to insure passenger safety. Someone made a bundle of money on this…</p>
<p>[OSI</a> Systems, Inc. Stock Chart | OSIS Interactive Chart - Yahoo! Finance](<a href=“OSIS Interactive Stock Chart | OSI Systems, Inc. Stock - Yahoo Finance”>OSIS Interactive Stock Chart | OSI Systems, Inc. Stock - Yahoo Finance)</p>
<p>BB - that is completely contrary to the TSA website which indicates that at least the backscatter device was evaluated by the FDA, CDRH, NIST and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.</p>
<p>Here is the link from the FDA:
[Products</a> for Security Screening of People](<a href=“Products for Security Screening of People | FDA”>Products for Security Screening of People | FDA)</p>
<p>Bunsen, that link says that Deepak Chopra is the CEO of OSI systems. The healing spiritualist? I’m very confused.</p>
<p>We have enough cancer risks at it is. I don’t care about the overly personal screenings, as long as they aren’t abusive (and the cases I’ve heard about, I’m sure those agents will be disciplined), but I do care about cancer. A trivial amount of radiation, no big deal. A large dose? Crazy. I fly all the time.</p>
<p>Justamom, it sounds like 2 completely different analysis. When you read ^^ what the UCSF doctors say in post 355, in more specific terms, it sounds pretty bad. There’s a truth there one way or another. I would love to hear from a radiologist.</p>