<p>Great point, LitGuy.</p>
<p>Screening random passengers is a hit or miss proposition. Unless everyone gets the screening, what’s the point? What is the statistical liklihood that you will get the right one?</p>
<p>
I think if a scanner happens to be at the gate you get screened at, you will be scanned unless you choose the pat down, and from what I’ve read, it sounds like the enhanced pat down is a special punishment, er, I mean, option, for those who object to the naked scanner. </p>
<p>Not every airport has these scanners yet, but isn’t it the plan that eventually they all will?</p>
<p>Yes, I believe that is the plan - that each airport has these scanners on the premises.</p>
<p>Seatac has the scanners in completely deployed and functional condition at all gates, yet only a small % of travelers are being offered to choose between a dose of radiation or a groping session. It would be insane to screen everyone using this method in a busy airport like Seatac where it already takes 40 minutes to get through the security lines on a moderately busy travel day.</p>
<p>Random boarding pass numbers (every “x” number of passengers on a flight) are selected for the naked pictures or groping, without regard to whether they are 97 year old women in wheelchairs, or 20 year old males named Mohammed, clutching a Koran, and shouting Allahu Akbar as they enter the security line with one-way tickets to Yeman and no checked luggage – because, of course, profiling wouldn’t be politically correct.</p>
<p>I’m concerned about the radiation emission, not my anonymous sorta-kinda-naked image (which no one would be likely to look at for long, I’m sure :D). My husband, an MD, is usually pretty laid back about environmental health threats - didn’t mind much when the kids ate dirt, for instance. He is, however, very concerned about the backspatter technology and has advised our daughters to be groped, not scanned, when going through security. His advice is that the less radiation you’re exposed to over a lifetime, the better; a 20 y/o person may do a lot of future traveling. Has anyone raised the issue of women in the early stages of pregnancy going through scanners? I’m talking about women who may not yet know they’re pregnant - has the TSA issued warnings about the potential harm of low-level radiation to the fetus?</p>
<p>Frazzled1: I’m with your husband on this. I don’t want my two daughters (17 and 20) exposed to these rays at all. And of course on the other hand, who can fathom their young daughters being groped in the name of security? Both my girls have medical conditions and who really knows what the impact is on people with preexisting health issues including just pregnant woman. From what I’ve gleaned from reading many articles over the past week, the TSA says the rays are only penetrating the skin. Some of what I’ve read says these back scatters will not even catch something under a skin fold. However with that said, I’ve also read that these machines can determine if a woman is menstruating. Not sure if that means the machine looks internally or looks at what the woman might be wearing externally. But I sure would not go through one of these if for a second I thought I was pregnant. I’d also add that to anyone who has a choice skip flying and I am sympathetic to those who do not have that luxury. If enough of us who can make the choice NOT to fly, airlines will be hit with a bottom line they don’t like and I am sure pressure will be put on the TSA to make significant changes.</p>
<p>
My personal experience was that there was only one machine, the naked picture scanner, and every person in the line was put through that machine. No one was offered the choice of a pat down instead. I think you have to ask for the groping option, and honestly, I did not even realize it was a naked picture scanner at the time. After going through the machine, certain people (me) were pulled aside for a pat down, but this was before the new pat down procedures, so it wasn’t offensive.</p>
<p>interesteddad - in my opinion - you have hit the issue square in the noggin - profiling is the only realistic solution. I know that is offensive to all of the Arab young men out there who are not terrorists - but I still thinks it beats making everyone else who flies subject to these ridiculous procedures.</p>
<p>interestdad and rockvillemom: You are both dead on about the profiling. Is it really profiling? I have a very hard time believing it is. It wasn’t born in USA, 80 year old grandpas/grandmas or middle aged born in USA moms and dads with children who did 9/11 or any of the other terrorist activity over the past 15 years. </p>
<p>Here is an interesting link regarding the safety of the scanners:
[Are</a> the New Airport Scanners Safe?](<a href=“Yahoo Life”>Yahoo Life) </p>
<p>How would you feel if you learned that the TSA agent running the machine completely screwed up and way overdosed you on the radiation? I guess this good news/bad news scenario is that you would never know because the TSA would never admit to it. This alone would make me always opt for the “enhanced” pat down.</p>
<p>I am also of the belief that the people in the TSA who do these pat downs and x-rays have truly sold their souls the devil. No job would pay me enough to degrade fellow human beings to this extent.</p>
<p>^^^ Can’t agree with you there, 2ndof3. It seems far more likely that they’re fellow human beings who need their jobs to earn a living and provide for their families. I’m not looking forward to going through security next time, but I see the TSA agents as pretty reluctant participants themselves.</p>
<p>[TSA</a> pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine - Travel - News - msnbc.com](<a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40291856/ns/travel-news]TSA”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40291856/ns/travel-news)</p>
<p>A retired special education teacher on his way to a wedding in Orlando, Fla., said he was left humiliated, crying and covered with his own urine after an enhanced pat-down by TSA officers recently at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.</p>
<p>I was absolutely humiliated, I couldnt even speak, said Thomas D. Tom Sawyer, 61, of Lansing, Mich.</p>
<p>Sawyer is a bladder cancer survivor who now wears a urostomy bag, which collects his urine from a stoma, or opening in his stomach. I have to wear special clothes and in order to mount the bag I have to seal a wafer to my stomach and then attach the bag. If the seal is broken, urine can leak all over my body and clothes.</p>
<p>(Skipped ahead a bit as it was a long piece)</p>
<p>One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants.</p>
<p>The security officer finished the pat-down, tested the gloves for any trace of explosives and then, Sawyer said, He told me I could go. They never apologized. They never offered to help. They acted like they hadnt seen what happened. But I know they saw it because I had a wet mark.</p>
<p>Humiliated, upset and wet, Sawyer said he had to walk through the airport soaked in urine, board his plane and wait until after takeoff before he could clean up. </p>
<p>Very, very sad that this is what we have come to. Do you feel safer now? I don’t.</p>
<p>Rockvillemom: I heard snippets about this story but WOW…how much worse could it get? I sure hope this man has a great lawyer. How absolutely humiliating. I can’t even imagine. But I do know I’ll never fly again while these practices are in place.</p>
<p>I really hate the new practices. I’m seeing a lot of public outrage, and I hope this translates to a change in policy. However, I REFUSE to stay home because of this. If time and money allow, I will continue to travel and see the world. There are so many places I want to see before I die. I feel that if I don’t do what I want to do, the terrorists have won. They are probably laughing that our gov’t is instituting these measures, knowing that we are all so afraid of them or upset about them. What I hope happens is that public outrage will effect change in policy. However, I believe that if I stay home as a result of them, it’s not the TSA who wins, it’s the bad guys.</p>
<p>I just do not understand the objections to profiling.</p>
<p>If we’re looking for a pedophile, we have certain demographics, traits, characteristics, and histories we zero in on, right?</p>
<p>If we’re looking for a serial murderer of prostitutes, the same kind of profile information informs the search.</p>
<p>Why, then, is it so anathema to some that we profile Islamic terrorists? We know the profile; why aren’t we using it instead of tormenting, infuriating, and violating the rights to basic decency of ordinary citizens who DON’T fit the known profile?</p>
<p>^^^^I agree. But there are a whole lot of people who are more concerned with being politically correct than doing what is most effective. These people won’t listen to reason, and they seem to be able to influence policy to a considerable degree.</p>
<p>One problem with profiling is that it can be based on what happened in the PAST - just like the shoe searches. Haven’t you read that the latest people being arrested in Europe on terrorism charges are females who were born in the USA? Just because 9/11 was young middle-eastern men doesn’t mean the next bomber will be the same. It’s sad, but it’s true.<br>
The Oklahoma City bomber was a blond-haired, blue-eyed US Veteran. And not to be PC, but isn’t profiling how we ended up with detention camps for Asian-Americans during WWII?</p>
<p>I really wish we would adopt the El-Al style tactics, but I suspect it would take a long time and a lot of training. How many airports does Israel have? 2 or 3? We have 3 in NYC alone.</p>
<p>My 18 year old daughter is 700 miles away at college. She has to fly if she wants to come home for any break shorter than a week. I don’t know whether to advise her to go with the scan (which she’s already had more than once) or the pat-down. I did think it was a little creepy that on our last trip together, neither me nor my husband - middle aged folks - were pulled for the scanner, but my very pretty 18 year old daughter was pulled both times. Maybe it was random - every third or 4th person - or maybe not… D shrugged it off.</p>
<p>^^^A recent DFW area talk radio show pointed out that DFW does more traffic than the entire state of Israel. You can’t necessarily compare apples to oranges.</p>
<p>To some degree I think the screening is working. The last bombing attempts came from people boarding flights abroad - or putting cargo in a plane abroad. The terrorists will look for the easiest holes in the system - if we make it more difficult for them to get onto a plane in the USA, they’ll move to a different method or a different target. That seems to be what’s happening.</p>
<p>OTOH, I thought the pilots had a really good point. Why should they be screened for weapons? They control the entire plane. If they want to crash it, they don’t need a weapon.</p>
<p>I do feel bad for the TSA screeners. My son worked at a stadium and had to pat men down to check for weapons and alcohol at concerts. He hated it.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if there have been any attempted terrorist attacks using airplanes by people who boarded their flights in the US since 9/11/2001? I can’t think of any on domestic flights. The shoe guy, the underwear guy, the plot involving fluids all came from international flights.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if any potential terrorists have been stopped at airport security stations since 9/11/2001? I haven’t heard of any.</p>
<p>Why then would we possibly need to upgrade our security procedures? How does it make us safer? The chance of a terrorist getting through security and causing some kind of an attack is already extremely slim for any given domestic flight. These “enhanced security techniques” can only be reducing that already tiny risk by an infintessemile amount. And we will never get the risk to 0, so why don’t we call it good and move on to more important security measures – like all that unscreened cargo?</p>