Posted on 11/25/2010 1:49:22 PM PST by Clint Williams
Yesterday was a big travel day for Americans, and the organizers of National Opt-Out Day hoped to use it to highlight widespread, though not universal, dissatisfaction with stepped-up screening measures in US airports, by encouraging people selected for body screening to insist instead on the pat-down alternative. Reader Willtor writes with a story in the New York Times on the effect of the protest:
"'39 people had opted out of the body scans in Atlanta by 5 p.m. In Los Angeles, 113 had. One had opted out in Charlotte, N.C. Boston seemed to have something of a mini-spike, with 300.' This is a tiny fraction of passengers, of course. But when I flew out of Boston this afternoon, they had opened a line that led to a traditional metal detector. When I flew out in June all lines went to the nudie scanners. Is it safe to be optimistic that we have been heard and policies have changed? I am not particularly concerned whether we get credit or whether it is reported that the protest fizzled. But it would be nice to know that some of the more invasive theatrics have become optional."
According to its organizers, meanwhile, the opt-out protest was a "rousing success." If you traveled yesterday by air, what was your impression?
I suspect those that have the most skin (no pun intended) in the game are frequent fliers, aka road warriors, who were at home yesterday. The day before Thanksgiving is known, in Frequent Flier Circles, as amateur day.
Most of these folks probably don’t care, just because they don’t fly enough to realize what a colossal pain this is. Plus most sheeple will do anything for the illusion of airline safety, even if it means participating in the Kabuki Theater of airport screening.
What everyone seems to miss is that the Opt Out was for the scanners.
Very few airports are making everyone go through the scanners as of now. The scanners are a second check when the metal detector alerts.
Since most people go through the metal detector with no problem, there was nothing to “opt out” of.
Now when they require everyone to go through the porn-o-vision, like they do in Richmond, VA, that is when it is going to hit the fan.
in order to head off controversy and the ensuing bad press, the tsa didn’t use a lot of the body scanners
Yup. I wonder if they'll be using them when I fly out Monday (last trip of the year -- hooray!!).
I volunteer at a large international airport several days a month. I was on the floor there yesterday for about 10 hours. During that time well over 150,000 passengers transited. It was a total non-event. There were several folks (restrained and well-behaved for the most part) handing out copies of the Constitution up until the late afternoon.
The surprising thing was that TSA employees all said they were repeatedly complemented by passengers throughout the day. My guess is that this might be the result of TSA management telling them to smile, be nice, and interact with the traveling public (which, BTW, they did). There is a certain comfort to someone in authority interacting with you and sending “I’m checking you out (for deception/defiance) and you seem like an OK dude to me” signals. I’ve flown into Israel 5 times over the years; been through lotsa checkpoints there, conclusion:
Profiling = :o),
Digging through bags for nail clippers and 3.2 oz containers = stupid.
My last trip is 6 June-11 June, JFK-SAN via LAX.
I understand they are particularly nasty there in San Diego.
I would imagine the real protest will reveal itself in a few months when the airlines realize how many of us are “Opting” to drive instead of flying.
>> turns out they weren’t scanning most people.
True - didn’t see too many pat-downs, either.
TSA shut down most of the scanners and reverted back to the old pat-down procedures to preempt “Opt Out Day.”
If the TSA didn’t use the nudie scanners, then how can they claim any victory because people didn’t opt out?
—
Another question: Has anyone seen figures of whether or now air travel was reduced, stayed the same, or increased — versus an increase in travel that AAA reports of 12%. Did that 12% increase come at a cost to the air traveling public? Just curious.
All the pictures we saw of concourses looked like ghost towns. Where were the travelers on the busiest traveling day of the year? Maybe they opted out of the TSA scanners by driving to their destination.
In addition, I would like to know if their numbers were down for people flying.
I also thought it interesting that Fox, who was all over the TSA story, suddenly (the past couple of days) now seems to have reversed course and sounds like they thinks TSA is find and dandy and wonderful. The few interviews I’ve seem them do (King of NY and the TSA guy Pistole) were softballs and the King one even let him say that if anything happened the blood would be on the hands of the people who didn’t want the scanners. And the interviewer (one of the blonds, I don’t recall which one, I get them all confused) never blinked and certainly didn’t argue with him. Seems almost like they have gotten word from the top to stop pushing this story from the angle that the scanners and gropes are a bad thing. Maybe I’m just getting jaded.
“Maybe I’m just getting jaded”.
Well, if you are getting jaded then so am I. I noticed the same thing. Fox supports the invasive procedures as part of “security” and the interview with Pistole seemed like it was written to make him look good. Not one difficult question or repeating the question when he “circled” around the question. Interesting?!
Well, and one of them yesterday or the day before said they were going to ask him about the Muslim women issue, and when they got him on air, didn’t even ask. They seem to have made a big 180. What gives? Did someone tell them to tone it down? Did they get info that something is going on and we need to be doing it and if they keep riling up the sheeple and we have an incident it will be their fault? Did advertising threaten them? What happened?
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