Blogging

[teddywolf]

Last night at a large dinner out I was chatting with a number of people. The lady across the table from me mentioned recently returning from vacation overseas, in Germany. I has started the opening part of some news about cargo not being well-inspected, asking, "You know how the airlines keep losing checked luggage, so people keep bringing carry-ons? You know how we have to get inspected?"

She shuddered. "I had to get inspected on my way back from Germany. The security person grabbed my genitalia."

To sum up what she had to experience, the person grabbed her breasts and her crotch while performing the fairly invasive fully-clothed personal search. When she protested the rough handling she was receiving she was prevented from setting foot on her return flight.
The next day she got a manager at the airline, who went with her and ensured that she wouldn't be treated so roughly. The second time she wasn't. The security people apparently said that this kind of treatment was required for anybody travelling to the USA.

The airline charged her $200 to reschedule her flight but did give her travel vouchers to cover that cost. They mentioned her rough treatment wasn't their fault (well, it actually wasn't) but they had certain restrictions on what they could do.

To top it all off, the airline lost her luggage.

A couple of months ago there was a link from riba_rambles pointing to some imaging technology that would be a fine substitute for a pat-down. The level of detail it shows is a grayscale nude with no color differentiation. Some people have balked at putting in those scanners because they feel they'd be invasive.

So I have a question for the public: which is more invasive, a grayscale medical-quality picture of your nekkid body being looked at by somebody you don't know or having your crotch grabbed in a way you probably won't like by somebody you don't know?

Comments

false dichotomy.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

No matter what we do, the bad guys will figure out ways to get weapons on airplanes. Whatever security checks we can implement will only "keep honest people honest"--they'll discourage, say, a mentally unbalanced person from bringing a gun onto a plane. The terrorists, the real bad people, are smart and determined. They're going to get a plane full of people once in a while, and we'll just have to deal.

The answer is not to make air travel so damned inconvenient and invasive that no one does it anymore. My mom already talks about how many more out-of-state automobile license plates she sees around her medium-sized town in New Jersey. People are driving rather than flying because they don't want to endure the inconveniences and invasiveness of air travel. In doing so, they're driving the airlines into the ground. Maybe that's the definition of "victory"--if there are no airplanes flying anymore, the terrorists can't hijack them or blow them up.

Hijackings won't work anymore, anyway, now that pax have figured out that the conventional pre-9/11 wisdom about hijackings was very wrong. You can't sit down, shut up, and hope to survive, because odds are fairly decent that you won't. You're better off to formulate a plan, shout "Let's roll!" and ground the airplane in a field. Here's a thought: how about spending some of this "security" money on training airline pax in resistance techniques? You know, improvised weapons, how to make plans without looking like something's going on, etc., etc.....

Re: false dichotomy.

[greendalek.livejournal.com]

My suggestion (admittedly one that never gets too far) has always been: arm the passengers. For a small fee the airline can either 1) provide in-flight personal sidearms, or 2) provide a service whereby you exchange your own ammunition with frangible rounds for the duration of the flight (so as not to risk penetrating the hull of the aircraft), and get your regular ammo back upon arrival.

It will be a very polite flight. Nobody would even think of saying a rude or aggressive word, nevermind attempting a hijacking!

I know, dream on...

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think the security person simply overstepped authority. I can't imagine that's SOP for a search.

AND they charged her for the rescheduled flight? She should take this up with the airline.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

She did. The airline mentioned that it wasn't their responsibility for her getting booted off their flight, it was the responsibility of the security firm. The line of reasoning they used she actually did agree with. Frustrated with, yes, but agreed with.

One example.

[bardling.livejournal.com]

Umm, in my experience, security controls being as invasive/rough as described are not normally the case. Yes, they get pretty intimate, but usually in a practical, businesslike, as non-invasive as possible manner. Don't take one example as the norm.

So - from my experience, I'd find the scan more invasive.

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

That was not SOP for me coming back from London last December. I've heard stories like this even for those flying within the US--thankfully, I have not yet experienced this. I'd be okay with either method as I have experienced them so far.

As for the methods not being effective, I disagree--there are slips, one of which had me travelling with a knife in October 2001 before I took it off my keychain, but it would be difficult to smuggle a weapon on board these days. What surprises me is that no one's used the much-more-obvious method of shutting down air travel through fear, a method that would not require the person to get through security.

[jilesa.livejournal.com]

Embrace the power of 'And'. They're BOTH unacceptably invasive, IMO.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying that either one of them isn't annoyingly invasive - I was wondering which one is less harmful.

[jilesa.livejournal.com]

I think the only answer to that is 'it depends'.

Personally, I'd refuse to fly if I knew the imaging machines were in place and would be used to scan every passenger as a routine part of security, which is how most of the descriptions of it that I've heard have presented it. I won't refuse to fly because there's a *chance* I'll be pulled aside for a special search, and a *chance* that a security person will grope me inappropriately during that search. I have a chance to follow up on the inappropriate groping, and to have the issue addressed by the company responsible. There would be no such chance if the imagine machines were used as a routine part of security checkpoints. If the imaging machines were used ONLY in cases where the metal detectors had pinged, then I probably wouldn't refuse to fly either, though I'd find the imaging of my nude body more invasive than a *properly conducted* patdown of my clothed body.

All of this is, of course, intensely personal, and based on my own set of foibles about privacy, etc.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Just as a heads up, I haven't heard that everybody in the US gets personhandled that way getting on any old plane. However, the person who was coming back from Germany said quite definitely that everybody getting on the plane heading to the US from Germany *was* touch-searched.

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

Out of curiousity, do you have another suggestion to screen passengers who set off the metal detector, or do you think the second layer unnecessary?

[angelovernh.livejournal.com]

yick! Either one is invasive. I think I'd prefer the scan to the manhandling, though.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I'd certainly prefer the scan, myself.

[greendalek.livejournal.com]

As long as we (meaning Americans) passively sit by and allow this kind of bullying in the name of flimsy "security," the indignities and horror stories will continue. I know this isn't practical for a lot of people, but a very simple solution is to STOP DOING BUSINESS with these airlines. Let 'em go under.

Sooner or later some airline is going to realize that it's time to defy the goddamned TSA Gestapo and stop humiliating/threatening its paying customers. First airline to do so will make a freakin' fortune.

[redbird]

It's not just up to the airline, though, because aviation security affects people who don't fly.

You the passenger may be prepared to say "I'll risk dying in a hijacking--or having a shootout between a hijacker and another passenger--rather than be searched." That doesn't entitle you, and your fellow passengers, to take that risk for everyone on the ground, who isn't flying and had no chance to make that decision.

Yes, many of the new rules are ineffective and/or obnoxious. The solution is to figure out what actually will work, and do that consistently, not to have different rules on different airlines that are all in the same transport system. (Once someone is through security, they're in the system and unlikely to be searched again, no matter how many airports they go through.)

[greendalek.livejournal.com]

*nod* My gripe is a broader one: I thought the airlines were private companies and the planes they provide are considered private property. If that's true, then where's the federal government get off barging in, setting policy, and laying security mandates on these organizations? The airlines are either a totally Federal operation (like AmTrak and the Postal Service), or they're private --you can't have it both ways. I just wish the a-holes in Washington would pick one and be done with it.

Sorry 'bout that, my Free-Market Beast is bestirred. Lemme go calm him down with some Irish Coffee... *grin*

[nsingman.livejournal.com]

I consider the imaging less invasive.

How about the Heinlein solution, as alluded to in Puppet Masters? Everyone fly naked. :-)

[greendalek.livejournal.com]

It's been done:

http://www.naked-air.com/

For some reason the squick factor is raised in me (even noting the policy about towels).

[onthewind.livejournal.com]

Insofar as me nekkid is invasive to other people's delicate sensibilities, I guess the grayscale medical-quality picture would be less invasive for me personally. (I would personally incapacitate anyone who groped me like your friend was treated. SQUICK!) Martial arts training is a lovely, lovely thing. *G*

[acrobatty.livejournal.com]

I'd be fine w/ greyscale -- actors and dancers lose all body modesty VERY early in the game. Besides, having once worked for a week in a pseudo-stripjoint (odd story, that, tell you about it some day if you're curious), I can assure you that it stops being interesting real soon. As in Yaaaawn.

But the way this lady got treated is not what I have ever heard of as normal for a stripsearch. Bleh! Probably the firm in question had a bunch of new hires, some of whom were living out adolescent fantasies. Feh.

Re: Liked your horns, peeked at your journal

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked the horns :-)

My journal is mostly locked except for news of public interest or ponderings of public interest. The locked stuff all involves my personal life to lesser or greater degrees.

I consider a lot of the "security measures" currently being used to be dumb. Not all, mind you, just a lot. I will note that if somebody who was a passenger had been allowed on board with a licensed gun with replacement (rubber) bullets (ones with minimal risk of damaging the aircraft) that said passenger may have been able to retake a plane. The only plane that did not hit its target was the one retaken by the law-abiding citizens on board; a lot of the current measures are designed to tie the hands of the law abiding citizens *even further*.

It's an odd dichotomy. I am not a fan of the gun but I do admit it can be useful in certain circumstances.

Re: Liked your horns, peeked at your journal

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Oh agreed.

I personally feel that if they were truly concerned about security, they could have a permit that citizens could apply (and possibly pay) for. It would not be necessarily easy to get, nor would it exempt people from searches, but it would allow those people with the permits to be able to carry certain items from the verboten list. They can have a national registry for it even.

Would an idea like that ever get approved? *snort* Most Dems hate guns and most GOPpies don't trust the proles they praise for selfless acts of bravery.

Re: Liked your horns, peeked at your journal

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Bush will keep lying and people will keep dying. Sad but true.