Don't Touch My Junk
Because no one asked if the TSA should be touching us there.
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Parsing the TSA’s numbers for how many passengers choose pat-downs vs. full-body scanners.
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This is unrelated to the backscatter screeners and pat-downs, but is relevant to the security theater and what’s-with-the-TSA discussion.
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Interesting insight into the backscatter scanners’ safety.
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Israeli personnel do single out small numbers of passengers for extensive searches and screening, based on profiling methods that have so far been rejected in the United States, subjecting Arabs and, in some cases, other foreign nationals to an extensive screening that comes with a steep civil liberties price.Another look at why the Israeli security approach wouldn’t work in the U.S. without some tweaks.
(Source: Washington Post)
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This matter deserves more than a ping-pong match. Instead, the National Academy of Sciences or another independent body ought to convene the inquiry the UCSF scientists requested.David Corn makes a sensible suggestion for testing the safety of backscatter scanners.
(Source: politicsdaily.com)
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http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/fda-sidesteps-safety-concerns-over-tsa-body-scanners.ars
Four UC-San Francisco professors say the differences between typical medical X-ray machines and the TSA backscatter machines warrant further testing to make sure the latter are safe.
The FDA responded, but
gave the issues little more than a data-driven brush off. They cite five studies in response to the professors’ request for independent verification of the safety of these X-rays; however, three are more than a decade old, and none of them deal specifically with the low-energy X-rays the professors are concerned about. The letter also doesn’t mention the FDA’s own classification of X-rays as carcinogens in 2005.
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The TSA backlash has itself inspired a backlash, in articles like these from The Daily Beast, Time, and Politico. But in trying to be all mature and non-hyperbolic, these pieces largely ignore the heart of the issue.
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The most invasive part in my opinion was not actually the groin and inner thigh search but the waist search, in which Officer Daniels ran his blue-latex-glove-clad fingers, the front of them, all around my body inside of my pants waistband.A calm, non-hyperbolic description of what it’s like to be pat-down.
(Source: futureofcapitalism.com)
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The New York Post discovers Rocky Flats Gear, a line of underwear that includes this leaf patch made from “lead-free radiation shielding material.”
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WIlliam Saletan makes fair points about why Opt-Out Day is silly. (But that doesn’t mean the scanners and pat-downs make sense in general.)
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As it turns out, the security methods employed by Israel’s famous Shin Bet security service at Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv are frequently stricter and more intrusive than the full-body scanners and pat-downs American officials put into place Nov. 1, said security analysts and the travelers who regularly show up at Ben-Gurion four hours before their flights for screening.The New York Times suggests that the recommendation to Israelify U.S. airport security wouldn’t be so easy to implement.
(Source: The New York Times)
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That case was really instructive. Nobody was injured, and the plane landed safely. It was a success! And it was pre 9-11 security that made it a success. Because we screen for superficial guns and bombs, he had to resort to a syringe and 90 minutes in the bathroom with a bomb that didn’t work.Bruce “Security Theater” Schneier on the underwear bomber, in an interview about the TSA pat-downs and ensuing hullabaloo.
