Posted on 11/21/2010 5:03:54 AM PST by DanMiller
The mainstream media ask all the wrong questions. A CBS survey concluded that:
Americans overwhelmingly approve of the use of full-body digital x-ray machines — a new technology in use at some airports in the U.S. Most, meanwhile, do not approve of racial or ethnic profiling — a practice not in place.The following questions apparently were not asked: “Have you or an immediate family member flown on a commercial airliner in the United States since November 1, 2010?” and “Do you or an immediate member of your family intend to fly on a commercial airliner in the United States in the near future? If not, have your plans been changed on account of recent changes in airport security procedures?”
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
I’m leaning towards this that I posted in another thread. Once the government gains ground, it NEVER gives it back completely.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2630849/posts?page=40#40
What concerns me is that this follows a pattern we’ve seen. The government tries to push too hard in some area concerning our freedom. There’s a huge public outcry and they back off some. But they’ve still gained ground because now people are happy that it isn’t as bad as it was, although it’s still worse than we want it or it initially was.
They are desensitizing us this way.
They don’t give us what we want (which is profiling and minimal screening), they give us what we’re willing to settle for (OK, no groping genitals, but patting down extremities ..... for now) because it isn’t as bad as it was.
The problem is, it only delays what they’re working for some, but they’re willing to wait. They’ll get those body scanners and gropes eventually, once people are used to a less invasive search. They can afford to wait.
The only problem with your scenario is that so far only actual Muzzies have planned or executed terrorist acts. And with Arabic Muz names. So far no blonds with names like Trent Hoffstratter from Iowa, or nuns, or little children, or grampas and grandmas on their way to spend Christmas with family, etc have attempted or succeeded at performing terrorist acts.
Only actual Muzzies with Muz names have.
You could be absolutely right.
Also consider this, once they back off, assuming your theory is correct, a successful terrorist strike brings down a plane or multiple planes, I can hear obamao and nappy now..."This disaster has occurred because the people thought they knew better than the experts, they forced us to stop what we knew was the right thing to do".
Therefore we now find ourselves in a position where we must......
I dunno, I have a bad feeling about this, it's just in my gut.
Ron Paul denounces the TSA: The American people are being treated like cattle
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2630005/posts
Introducing the American Traveler Dignity Act
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2629374/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2628914/posts
Ron Paul: Cut out this Soviet-style nonsense
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2629084/posts
The tradition of medical access to the whole body is millennia old and is logically rooted in the deeply personal nature of medical treatment. Whereas giving the state full access to the body of ordinary citizens for security’s sake is a feature of totalitarian regimes alone. Auschwitz, for example.
Furthermore, there is the matter of consent and why we give it. Medical treatment is for the benefit of the patient, and access is a matter of necessity to accomplish that benefit. But even so, consent is not given to any and all doctors. If your dentist began to grope you, you would be just as alarmed as by a TSA grope.
As for gym locker rooms, you have a point. I think there should be more modesty in such situations. Nevertheless, the arrangement is entirely voluntary and becoming a football star is not an expressly protected constitutional right like travel is.
As for rest rooms, you say privacy is a joke, I say speak for yourself. There is more effort at modestly there than you may recognize, and “peeking” is still taboo. I know I seek privacy in those situations, as I think all Christians and people of moral conviction should. Modesty is not optional for Christians, but an obligation of the faith.
The bigger issue is this. Is it conservative or not to seek enforcement of the Constitution? If it is, then getting stuck in a situation where I am coerced to let someone see through my clothes is definitely an unreasonable search of my person, per the Forth Amendment, and is the full moral equivalent of a strip search. And if we cannot protect our own persons from such unwanted intrusions, where do we stop the on slippery slope progression into always naked, all the time, to the brutish eyes of Big Brother? Of course it’s for our own good. It was in “1984,” too. Remember that book? Interesting read. You should try it sometime.
I won't say what I think of people who are so very happy with incomplete and easily circumvented solutions that in the end do nothing but make life difficult for the rest of us.
I understand where you're coming from but in a scheme that has *ALREADY been circumvented*, imposing that "protection" is exactly what Bruce Schneier (look him up) calls "security theater." Utterly worthless.
Question: Do you believe the laws preventing ex-convicts from owning guns actually prevent ex-cons bent on committing more crimes from acquiring the guns they need to commit more crimes? Do you think those laws make us safer?
(Hint: only the ex-cons who want to go straight forgo gun ownership. The only folks who suffer from these laws are law-abiding citizens who willingly tie themselves in ever-increasing knots jumping through hoops to make ever more difficult legal purchases.)
Yah I read your subsequent post, thou-who-likest-to-call-names. I am not impressed, neither with your position on this issue or on treatment of fellow FReepers (though on the Muslim issue -- accepted: I saw that later; my bad).
But I ask you: a technology that is invasive and easily bypassed... why are we using it? We could be forced to fly completely nude and would still not be one bit the safer for it; the technology is there. Would you still "feel" safer? Would you "be" safer?
I think not.
Dear Nazis,
Please, please, PLEASE DO NOT go around the end of our Maginot Line! We put it there for a purpose and that is to keep you out. If you must invade, please tackle it head-on where we have the advantage.
(s) The French
Not every FReeper agrees about the scanners, OK?
Agreed. The weakness of your Maginot Line is known to all parties, and has already been exploited. Do retain your loud support for it so we can identify you when it inevitably fails.
You raise interesting points about the radiation itself. If what you say is true — and I’m going to read more about that — then you win this argument.
>>>You wrote:>>> No one is nude. Not even close. The hollerers routinely go to medical clinics for safety’s sake and go actually nude, not “nude.” Or they go into a damn gym locker room, for pete’s sake. Or a men’s urinal, where privacy is a joke and where many other people can watch a person perform a bodily function.>>>>>> The only way to stop this, is to stop using the airlines or raise a stink with the congress and threaten to throw them out of office if this isn't stopped by next election...
Have fun with your peeping...and enjoy herding your neighbors onto the cattle cars....
Oh, by the way, when taking X rays of you, you have this little covering on and its not done in the hall ways. It shows what is going on inside, not how you look on the outside, with one exception << Xray's show bones and organs not nuddy pictures like the scanners...get real and informed before posting, it will go a long way to looking less stupid..
The bastards who did this ARE WATCHING.
They are WATCHING to see what silly sheep the American Public are.
People should BOYCOTT all plane rides until these monsters revise their policies and PROFILE MUSLIMS - the ONLY people blowing up airplanes or trying to!!!
***************************
The scanners can see everything. Haven't you seen the photos? If not, you're not educated, if so, you're deliberately spreading misinformation.
I don't go to gym locker rooms or men's urinals. You may not care who sees your naked body or its "functions", but not everyone is immodest.
Wow. That is frightening.
The representations that the so-called “nudie” scanners provide have been fairly described as being somewhere between cartoons and watching “Avatar” on an old TV.
The scanner output is nowhere near photographic realism. Not even close. If a studio used the techology for your family portrait, you would want to sue for incompetence.
No amount of caterwauling is going to change the reality.
You may want to check out post #62 and some of the other links above. Otherwise, you’re uneducated.
What a good little useful idiot for the left you are.
You go right ahead to the front of the line for the new showers they’re installing at the reeducation center you inhabit. Don’t worry. It’s only water that comes out.
Honest.
The government promised and they wouldn’t lie to you.
You trust them.
Right?
There is no “uneducated” involved. Post #62 shows exactly what I posted. The photo on the left is true representation of reality, and the other ones have varying degrees of realism. Some of them are so vague that relatives would not be able to recognize the subject, while the one on the far right isn’t as good as the computer generated figures in “Avatar.” No one would ever confuse them with a good photograph that one would use for any traditional purpose, including porn.
These machines are for preventive measures. In the right hands, they are not as obtrusive as other preventive measures that American adults undergo routinely. Millions of people every year go for cancer screening, even though they do not have cancer; some have genetics that don’t even make them candidates for cancer. Yet those people often disrobe - or are scantily gowned - in front of the person looking, touching, or even probing internally. All for the goal of prevention. This scanner is a far cry from any of that.
I am a hard core conservative. I am being completely consistent in my small-goverment, vigorous-security philosophy. It doesn’t change, regardless of the occupants of various federal offices. I am not a RINO, nor a libertarian. And I’ll put my IQ against those so-called conservatives who insult here.
I’ll even go so far as to accomodate those with modesty standards that are tighter than the average American’s. Remove the persons who are reviewing the scans to an office distant from the machine, so that the TSA official can’t connect the scan to a real face. So that there can’t be any humiliation generated by immediacy. And if there is still titillation generated over that distance, then there is a completely different problem than the one being howled about.
You’re clueless and no “hard core conservative”.
Read my post #77. Then find out what they are saying on DU. In complete disagreement with what you just said, you will find yourself in solidarity with most of their posters on this topic, while I'll be in conflict with everything that they say. Black is white. Up is down.
Any cursory perusal over my non-scanner posts would reveal a conservative well right of Ronald Reagan on 98% of the topics.
I believe in muscular security. 2001. 2004. 2010. 2015.
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