Comments on: The Naked Truth: Security vs. Privacy

By: How Are Things In Your Country? « Accismus

How Are Things In Your Country? « Accismus — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:02:12 +0000

[...] we complain about taking our shoes off: NPR covered a story about security in Baghdad’s Green Zone, which centered specifically on [...]

By: Ella

Ella — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:01:04 +0000

Invasive airport security is why I’m going to be taking a train from California to New York later this summer (about a four day trip with no sleeper car). I don’t want strangers touching me and I sure as hell don’t want them to be viewing me naked. Perhaps if I started crying if I was selected for a “secondary screening” they’d let me go without it (and I’m pretty sure I would start crying my eyes out if that happened since just thinking about it has caused tears as well).

By: Mercurial Georgia

Mercurial Georgia — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:59:41 +0000

Um yikes, how does scans like this works? Heck, even regular x-ray would be an inhuman idea at checkpoints civi has to pass everyday in order to live their lives. Cancer?

By: Vanessa

Vanessa — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:14:11 +0000

Does this device see under folds of skin? Because I breastfed my daughter, if I’m wearing a more comfortable bra and not an uber-armor one (which I might do if I’m going to be sitting on a plane for several hours), my boobs do not form nice hemispheres that stand out from my body. Likewise, since being hugely pregnant, I have a poochy stomach that hangs down a little in the front.

I’d hate to have to lift up my boobs or my stomach in front of a huge crowd while standing in a little glass booth. In fact, just thinking about doing that makes me freak out a little.

Things like this can’t be helping the airlines make any money. I don’t think I’ll be flying again for a long, long time.

By: Broken Mystic

Broken Mystic — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:06:38 +0000

How invasive. I guess mutli-cultural competency goes out the window here.

By: UnFit

UnFit — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:07:05 +0000

Okay, I somehow got massivley sidetracked by the whole nakedness thing.
But in the end, yea, this is not about my vag bling, Fatemeh’s religious sensitivities or River’s medical condition.
It’s not about U.S. vs. Iraq either.

The much more important point is that we’re heading towards a world wide Orwellian surveillance empire where there simply is no opting out, of anything anymore.

So far, yea, you can choose not to fly or to switch doctors (how about uninsured Americans btw who depend on local public clinics?)
But warzone and airport security are only the starting points to a constant expansion.
In Paris, oyu have to go through a metal detector to get to the luggage lockers at the main station, as well as to enter various tourist spots. In Italy, banks have heavy security doors you have to go through for even a simple cash withdrawal; usually witha fully armed military cop standing nthe outside. And let’s not get started on the ubiquitous British CCTV’s – I read this article somewhere about one pointing straight into somone’s bedroom window!
In London, there is a sign on every CCTV so as to give you the hypothetcal otpion of dodging them, but I wouldn’t want to take on the task of finding the meandering path through heavy traffic and probably some of the sewer system that gets you from a to B without being filmed.

And even without high technology, a friend of mine got pulled over by Bavarian motorway cops and strip searched for drugs because in their opinion he looked like a dealer (he never took or owned any drugs beyond nicotine, but that’s beside the point here).

So even the way it is now, not tomention a few years down the road with wave scanners replacing CCTV and privacy rights hollowed out even more than they already are – tell me: where exactly is it I should seek exile if I don’t like it?

By: Katherine

Katherine — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:05:06 +0000

If these scans are brought in to US airports, expect even more people from outside the US to fly there. There are already a lot of people who have stopped any plans to visit the US for holidays, say, because they don’t want their fingerprints taken as if they are criminals, myself included. You think a ful body scan like this will improve the situation?

By: hysperia

hysperia — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:53:24 +0000

These scanners are getting their first try-out in Canada at the airport in Kelowna, B.C. The scanned results are creepy. Not only that, when you’re standing in the scanner, you have to raise your arms above your head in what I call “the mammogram position”. I wouldn’t want to stand in an airport in that position, never mind getting my picture taken while I’m doing it. Thus far, you can choose not to have the scanner used and go through the regular metal detector thing. And Kelowna isn’t exactly the centre of the universe, though it’s a big tourist town, so my guess is they’re checking this out in a place where there’s not likely to be much danger if people refuse to use the thing. But when it gets used in other places, I bet that people who won’t do it will get patted down as a matter of course. As in, you must be a terrorist if you’re scared of the security device. They’re not in use much now and it’s still a choice. What do you want to bet it’s going to stay that way?

By: ouyangdan

ouyangdan — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 03:50:04 +0000

Those of us with medical devices or implants apparently no longer have a right to keep them private.

thank-you b/c i totally forgot about that. I have a copper IUD…it shows up brightly in X-rays. I do not need that showing up in the airport for all the nice people to see. I don’t always get the nicest response from a new doctor about it, I certainly don’t need to explain that to a TSA.

By: Emily

Emily — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:54:04 +0000

Please keep in mind that there are now signs that say that once you enter the screening process, you are NOT PERMITTED to choose to leave.

This means that if I don’t like my doctor, I can leave. If I don’t like the TSA agent who is screening me, I have no choice in the matter. I am not permitted to tell him or her that I don’t want to continue and choose to skip my flight.