so, the terrorists win...

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 30
Is there a friendlier, tail-wagging alternative to explicit body screens and "enhanced" pat downs of the flying public?

So far, being nosed by an explosive-sniffing dog is not an option for travelers at airports, who for security reasons are now being screened via the high-tech scanners or intrusive pat downs. But some passengers and security experts say it's high time to send dogs sniffing up and down airport lines, perhaps reducing the need for methods that are more invasive of personal privacy.

For decades, canine explosive-detection teams have been used to screen air cargo on passenger flights. The US military uses dogs in Afghanistan and Iraq. In June, the European Union for the first time approved use of explosive-sniffing dogs to screen airline passengers. Bomb-sniffing hounds already pad aisles on Amtrak and many US commuter-rail trains. "Dogs would be a wonderful solution," says Jeffrey Price, co-author of a textbook on aviation security and chief of Leading Edge Strategies, a security consulting firm in Denver. "They're much friendlier than some of the current processes--and yet, if you're hiding something, the last thing you want to see is a dog."

Bomb-sniffing dogs could improve passenger screening and explosives detection, while reducing concerns about privacy and radiation exposure, some US security experts say. And Congress, after the 9/11 attacks, mandated increased use of explosive-detection dogs. By 2008, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) had deployed 370 certified canine explosive-detection teams to 69 airports and 56 teams to 14 mass transit systems, the Government Accountability Office reported. That year, TSA's aviation canine explosive detection teams received $36.3 million in funding. Today, more dogs than ever are sniffing for explosives in the US transport system, though TSA will not say how many teams now scan air cargo, specifically. "More than 750 TSA-certified explosive detection canine teams are deployed to mass transit systems, airports and cargo facilities," says Greg Soule, a TSA spokesman, in an e-mailed response to questions. "These teams are a highly effective, mobile layer of security to detect explosive materials in various transportation environments."

But TSA has not approved use of dogs for routine passenger screening in airports. Why? Concerns about costs and passenger resistance (whether possible allergic reactions or fear of being bitten) top the list. Training a single dog and the dog's handler can take 10 weeks or more, not including regular recertification. Moreover, real explosives must be used to train dogs, which can be both inconvenient and potentially hazardous. One big concern, Mr. Price notes, is that explosive-sniffing dogs are effective for only one or two 30-minute sessions a day. They may become ineffective after that, mostly because they get bored, he says. Their record is not perfect, either. Earlier this month, bomb-sniffing dogs in England initially failed to detect bomb material hidden in printer cartridges shipped from Yemen. Three bomb-sniffing dogs assigned to inspect cargo at Philadelphia International Airport earlier this year were reported to fail recertification tests. "Explosive-detecting dogs are held to a higher standard of performance than other types of dogs, like narcotics-detecting dogs," Price says. "If a dog misses drugs getting on a flight, that's not a huge problem. If a dog misses some explosives, that's a major issue."

Even so, dogs' noses are as sensitive as any mechanical explosive detector now deployed and can detect trace amounts of scores of explosive vapors. Unlike machines, a dog can track a suspicious scent to the source. They also work cheap--for a little kibble and the praise of their handlers. Bomb-sniffing dogs are not necessarily breeds that present a fearsome posture to travelers, but include beagles, Labrador retrievers, and familiar guard dogs such as the Belgian Malinois.

The number of dogs required to sniff at least 2 million domestic airline passengers a day would be large, acknowledge Price and others. There would need to be a huge force of such dogs, not to mention kennel space near airports. TSA cannot rely solely on dogs from its Canine Breeding and Development Center at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, canine explosives experts say. Many dogs are purchased from private breeders. Even so, only a handful of canine teams are available per mass transit system, and they are spread thinly just for sniffing cargo, some experts say.

It's not known which method would be cheaper: scanning machines or trained dogs. TSA has conducted some passenger-screening tests using dogs, but it has not done any comprehensive pilot study to see how dogs compare overall with body scanners on costs and detection rates. Machines can cost $150,000 or more. "I'm not saying we should rely solely on dogs, but there's no question they can provide great deterrence in passenger screening," says John Pearce, associate director of the Canine Training Center's Animal Health Performance Program at Auburn University in Alabama. "How do you calibrate a dog's nose? A terrorist can calculate a lot of things about mechanical detectors, but concocting a plot that deals with a dog's nose gets complicated for them."

Mr. Pearce's center specializes in "vapor wake detection," which trains a dog to detect and track an explosive's odor to its source, even in a crowd. A VWD dog, he says, can also sample a plume of air coming off a person or that person's bag as he or she passes a choke point. Diag-nose, based in Britain, shows on its website a picture of airport crowds filing past an explosives-detecting dog--the dog separated from the people by a plastic sheet perforated with holes. The dog sniffs the air passing through the holes and alerts the handler if it detects something. "Dogs are really relatively inexpensive compared to other forms of technology out there," says Pearce, whose canine-training center is talking with TSA about using vapor wake dogs for airport passenger screening. "To those who say dogs can be used for only 20 to 30 minutes before taking an hour break, I would say that dogs can work much longer if they are trained to do it, just like long-distance runners."
Click to expand...
 
My understanding is that any and all anomalies determined to be seen or detected by the scanner will get you an automatic pat down. Just like with the regular metal detectors, etc. Anything in/on your clothing or in/on your person.

So voluntarily taking the scan has nothing to do with avoiding pat downs.
 
Here's the other thing about this that confuses me and I think makes this whole issue so much more absurd. I found this news story today online:

Guns on Amtrak Trains - ABC News

Now I know this is in regards to a train and not an airplane, but still...so we have obsessive pat downs and scanners and can't bring liquids and all this other sort of stuff onto an airplane, but carrying guns on trains (or buses) is a-ok? Some people have actually suggested in the past that civilians and/or pilots arm themselves on planes as well. It just strikes me incredibly odd that we freak out and have all this security stuff, extreme or not, done in the name of safety when we fly, but we don't bat an eye when we hear about civilians carrying guns on trains, we don't seem to get as frightened then. Then it's all about our "Constitutional rights" and such.

If we must have security measures for one mode of transportation (or public building or whatever else), shouldn't we have them for all?

Angela
 
No, but a hijacked train would've caused its own type of nasty damage and death to an area full of people. At the train station itself, as the train's passing near residential areas or various buildings of note. The attack wouldn't necessarily be on as grand a scale as 9/11 in terms of numbers and area, but it'd still be just as horrific nonetheless.

Angela
 
Headache in a Suitcase said:
the amazing irony is that these people who are deathly afraid of passing through the backscatter machine because of radiation are getting on an airplane, where they will be exposed to a hell of a lot more radiation than they will from passing through the machine.
Click to expand...

It's so true.

I've eaten 165 millicuries of radiation during my cancer treatment.

Everyone's going to be fine.
 
deep said:
I don't think a hi-jacked train would have brought the WTC down.
Click to expand...
No, but you may be missing the bigger picture.

Flying a plane full of fuel into a building was, um, a terrorism "Think Different". It doesn't seem to have been on anyone's radar before it happened, and after it happened it will never likely occur on the scale of 9/11 ever again due to the new precautions.

So we have made air travel as uncomfortable and dehumanizing as possible, and now we move on to, "Oh what if they attack a train, or a Greyhound bus, or what if someone sticks a bomb up their ass and walks around Time Square."

And bam, you wake up in a police state (or England).
 
Butterscotch said:
I know they don't want to profile anyone but it really seems ridiculous to waste so much time and money and put so many people through such trouble when they know damn well from looking at a lot of people they are not a terrorist- take an old person or a family with little kids. So what happens is that everone is inconvenienced because they do not want to offend a very small portion of the flying public.
Click to expand...

Just one reason profiling doesn't work:

Man arrested for alleged plot to blow up a military recruitment centre | Mail Online

Here legally and his ID would have said Antonio Martinez, yet many like Butterscotch think they know what a terrorist looks like.
 
Taimour-Al-Abdaly-007.jpg


This man would not want to have been patted down or naked scanned.
 
Yeah, well, you wouldn't likely make it through any kind of airport security with an armful of pipe bombs, a backpack filled with nails and explosives, and a kaffiyeh tied over your face.
 
All this security theater yet a teenager can somehow bypass all security and get into a wheel well of an airplane in NC and die a horrible death falling into a suburban neighborhood in MA. If he could do that then why not someone with terrorist motives?




TSA Agent Tells Boy You Don't Have Boobs | Adrienne Durso | Video | Mediaite

A California woman is suing the TSA following an allegedly harassing and offensive episode at Albuquerque International. Adriene Durso claims to have been subjected to an “invasive breast groping” in full public view by a TSA agent, despite protestations that stemmed from undergoing a mastectomy in the previous year. When the woman’s son asked why he wasn’t getting similar treatment, the TSA supervisor reportedly told the boy “you don’t have boobs.”

Writing for InfoWars, Steve Watson reports:

Adrienne Durso describes how a female TSA officer pulled her out of line after she had gone through the metal detector and proceeded to pat her down, “Heavily concentrating on my breast area” in a search that “just seemed to go on and on”.

Relating her story to KOB Eyewitness News 4, Ms. Durso explained how she was made to feel humiliated in front of her seventeen year old son and the rest of the queuing passengers.

“I felt as though I didn’t have any rights other than I had to stand there and let them do what they want to do to my body,” Durso said.

Feeling violated and embarrassed, Ms. Durso asked to speak to a TSA supervisor.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, when the supervisor arrived and Ms. Durso’s son asked why he had also not been subjected to the body search, the TSA agent told the boy “well you don’t have boobs”.
 
Canadiens1131 said:
No, but you may be missing the bigger picture.

Flying a plane full of fuel into a building was, um, a terrorism "Think Different". It doesn't seem to have been on anyone's radar before it happened, and after it happened it will never likely occur on the scale of 9/11 ever again due to the new precautions.

So we have made air travel as uncomfortable and dehumanizing as possible, and now we move on to, "Oh what if they attack a train, or a Greyhound bus, or what if someone sticks a bomb up their ass and walks around Time Square."

And bam, you wake up in a police state (or England).
Click to expand...

So? Whats wrong with a minor inconvience to avoid a tragedy?
 
(CNN) -- Count Jesse Ventura among fliers who don't want their "junk" touched by Transportation Security Administration agents.

The former Minnesota governor and pro wrestler filed a lawsuit Monday in federal court in Minnesota against the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA.

The suit alleges enhanced airport security procedures, including pat-downs and full body scanning, violate Ventura's rights under the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Ventura is not seeking monetary damages, according to his attorney, David Olsen. Ventura wants an acknowledgment from the court that his rights have been violated and a court order that would stop the government from subjecting him to the screening procedures, Olsen said.

"We consider the pat-downs and the whole body scanners to be a step too far, and they have crossed into the realm of the unreasonable," Olsen said.

The TSA said it cannot comment on pending litigation, but it has characterized pat-downs as one of multiple layers of security used to protect the traveling public.

"Pat-downs are one important tool to help TSA detect hidden and dangerous items such as explosives," the agency said on its website.

The lawsuit calls the TSA's enhanced pat-downs "warrantless, non-suspicion-based offensive touching, gripping and rubbing of the genital and other sensitive areas of the body."

Ventura had hip replacement surgery in 2008, and the resulting titanium implant routinely sets off metal detectors, requiring him to undergo pat-down searches, according to court documents. The lawsuit alleges the pat-downs and the TSA's whole body imaging procedures meet legal definitions of unlawful sexual assault and unlawful video voyeurism.

Ventura, who is host of a TV program called "Conspiracy Theory" on truTV, a CNN sister network, flies two to three times a week for work, according to the suit.

His professional schedule means he must either submit to routine searches, "or retire from his television work and forgo his income," the lawsuit said.

Ventura has stopped flying commercially to avoid the screening, Olsen said.

"It virtually makes it impossible for him to work in his present job," he said.
 
If it's true that the mastectomy was the reason for the patdown, well I don't even know what to say about that. Any "irregularity" in the scan I guess. Way to go TSA.

(AP)SEATTLE — An Alaska state lawmaker is returning home by sea after refusing a pat-down search at a Seattle airport, a spokeswoman said.

Rep. Sharon Cissna underwent a body scan as she was preparing to leave Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Sunday and was then required to undergo the pat-down by Transportation Safety Administration officials, said Michelle Scannell, her chief of staff.

Scannell said that TSA called for the pat-down because the scan showed Cissna had had a mastectomy. But it wasn't immediately clear from statements by the lawmaker's office and TSA why that would necessitate the further search.

Scannell described the pat-down search as "intrusive" but did not elaborate on the Anchorage Democrat's decision.

TSA spokesman Kwika Riley was asked to respond to Cissna's comments when contacted by The Associated Press. But a general statement issued later did not mention her or her claims, saying the agency is "sensitive to the concerns of passengers who were not satisfied with their screening experience and we invite those individuals to provide feedback to TSA."

Both full body scanners and pat-down searches have come under increasing criticism as the TSA has stepped up its airport security measures.

Cissna, who had undergone medical treatment in Seattle, is traveling by ferry from Bellingham, Wash., to Juneau, Scannell said.
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky couple said Wednesday that they want the Transportation Security Administration to change how it screens children after their 6-year-old daughter was frisked at the New Orleans airport.

Selena Drexel told ABC's "Good Morning America" the family was returning home from a vacation earlier this month when their daughter Anna was selected for a pat-down.

The couple posted a video of the search on YouTube. It shows a TSA agent patting down the child and explaining the procedure to the girl and her parents. The screener says that she will use the back of her hands on sensitive areas and will "put my hand in the waistband."

YouTube - TSA still groping kids...and drug testing them

The girl's father, Todd Drexel, says Anna was confused by the search and started crying afterward because she thought she'd done something wrong.

Selena Drexel says such searches are inappropriate for children because they're usually told not to let adults touch them in sensitive areas. She said she posted the video because she "had a very bad feeling that what happened was wrong."

In a statement, the Transportation Security Administration says the officer followed proper procedure but that the agency is reviewing its screening policies for "low-risk populations, such as young passengers." The statement says the agency is exploring ways to "move beyond a one-size fits all system."

TSA screeners are instructed to use a "modified" pat down for children 12 and younger, according to the agency's website.

A congressman whose subcommittee oversees national security issues said he was "personally outraged and disgusted" over the security pat-down.

"This conduct is in clear violation of TSA's explicit policy not to conduct thorough pat-downs on children under the age of 13," Rep. Jason Chaffetz, of Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, said in a statement Wednesday.

Jennifer Mitchell, a child safety advocate, said after viewing the YouTube video that the pat-down seemed "a little invasive."

"This is a hard issue because we have national security on one hand... and children's safety on the other," said Mitchell, co-president of Child Lures Prevention, a Shelburne, Vt., organization that works to prevent crimes against children.

Mitchell said she knows families who have declined to fly because they don't want their children frisked. She recommended that parents tell children before going to the airport that they may get a pat-down.

But children should be told "the only reason it would be allowed is the parents are right there, the clothes are not being removed, the parents are watching to make sure it's done ok," Mitchell said.

Martin Macpherson, the director of the London-based Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, said he is not aware of instances when terrorists have used children as young as six in an attack.
 
I think either you're against the pat downs or not. Seems pointless to pat down the parents if their children are exempt. It wouldn't be the first or last time a parent has used their child as a mule of some sort. The hullabaloo over this video really blows my mind. A couple seconds of thought after the initial outrage and it makes perfect sense.
That said, I think the pat downs in general are ridiculous.
 
I don't know if "drug test" means they were seeing if she were being used as a mule, or if it means something else, but a TSA representative has said this:

"TSA does not drug test air travelers. We screen passengers for dangerous weapons and explosives. I realize the mother of this little girl speculates that we're going to test her for drugs, but that couldn't be further from the truth."

So if it wasn't a drug test, then you were seeing if she had bombs strapped to her? The kid's wearing a snug shirt and snug leggings - anything bulging out of there would be pretty visible to anyone looking without touching, I'd say.
 
I meant 'mule' in the sense of anything: drugs, weapons, whatever. If they're going to be screening people, it would seem a fairly large hole in the process if all you had to do was bring a kid along with you to hide stuff. It didn't have to be a bomb. Could've been a blade or what have you.
 
Otherwise you'd get people like GAF adopting kids just so he can smuggle extra booze in from the Duty Free
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Headache in a Suitcase
  • Locked
  • Sticky
Reminder - Forum Downtime for Software Update Begins January 23, 2024.
Replies
0
Views
269
Headache in a Suitcase
Headache in a Suitcase
M
Ticketmaster app
Replies
3
Views
486
rosephile
R
MrsSpringsteen
Gilead States Of America
Replies
16
Views
872
MrsSpringsteen
MrsSpringsteen
Janet H
Forum Downtime - software update 1/23-24
Replies
13
Views
674
Headache in a Suitcase
Headache in a Suitcase
Janet H
  • Sticky
Forum Update - We're back! Ask your questions here.
2
Replies
36
Views
2K
Popmartijn
Popmartijn

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom