Queereaders discussion

"Federal officials claim radiation risks from the U.S. Transportation Security Administration's new full-body scanners are low, but several scientists are calling on the administration to rethink whether the numbers really add up.

The TSA says the radiation from its security scans amounts to about a thousandth of the amount a patient receives from a standard chest X-ray, or an amount "equivalent to two minutes of flying on an airplane."

But a physics professor at Arizona State University in Tempe not only conducted his own study, finding the radiation exposure 10 times what the TSA estimates, but also argues that the health risks aren't mathematically worth taking."

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE....


Nude scanner or groping? Both should be against the law. It really sucks that I have to fly next month.

I find the whole thing suspect on the basis of "unreasonable search and seizure." Just because it's a scanner doesn't mean it's not searching you. Same as they can't just pat you down without probable cause.

And probable cause does not include "because you wouldn't let yourself get scanned."

I know one thing, I'm not flying anywhere. The scanning doesn't make me feel safe, it makes me feel like the terrorists have done what they set out to do.

Clancy wrote: "I find the whole thing suspect on the basis of "unreasonable search and seizure." Just because it's a scanner doesn't mean it's not searching you. Same as they can't just pat you down without proba..."

Yeah, I agree totally. If I didn't have a father-in-law with Alzheimer's living in Poland I wouldn't be flying either. A lot of these security measures are reactionary. Terrorists will always figure out ways to get around them and in the meantime, law-abiding people will suffer. They certainly don't make me feel any safer.

Mike, I'll submit to the grope only if I get to choose the groper.

particularly shitty for trans folks

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.c...

What bothers me is the obviously inadequate training these TSA agents receive. They know nothing about travelers' medical conditions and show no consideration when they've made an error. I don't expect that trans folks will be treated well either.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010...

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin

"We recognize, however dimly, that greater efficiency, ease, and security may come at a substantial price in freedom, that law and order can be a doublethink version of oppression, that individual liberties surrendered, for whatever good reason, are freedoms lost." - Walter Cronkite, preface to the 1984 edition of George Orwell's '1984'."

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed- and hence clamorous to be led to safety- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." —HL Mencken

Better the illusion that supports, than 10,000 truths.—Aleksandr Pushkin

War is a violent form of business.

Big winds come from empty caves.

I'm not going to fly anywhere any time soon if I can help it. It's not worth the hassle any more, nor is it even cheaper to fly any more.

I really feel for people who must travel and can't avoid these policies. But I also think that the more people who vote with their dollars by not traveling by plane if they have that option will make a bigger statement to the airlines than any protest will.

I dislike flying already - but my trips during the month of December were no fuss through security. I love traveling by train b/c you just show up, get on the train, throw your bags above you and kick back. You are free to roam around and don't get prodded. I wish trains were a more relevant (and reliable) means of travel in the US.

I am excited that Megabus has made DC their newest hubs - I have never traveled on the new generation of buses, but DC has gotten a lot of options in the past five years.

I don't feel comfortable flying anymore with these new scanners and increased pat down...forget comfortable, I don't feel safe. I am out about being trans...but I don't need to be out to security guards who may not be supportive of me....I don't need people watching who may be transphobic or homophobic to know that I'm transgendered.

I love traveling by train too, Scott, and have done it a few times in Europe. Though I've heard stories about robbers riding trains to steal from passengers while they are sleeping or their bags left unattended, I've never had a bad experience.

I don't do airports any more. They seem to me the greatest symbol the 'Terrorists' have already won the 'war'.

If it comes to common, random roadblocks, I guess I'll become a hermit.

Nancy:
Yes, I get paranoid about the ability of someone to simply take my luggage since it is sitting above me (I don't trust the morals of others after living in the city). Unless I am riding with friends, I don't leave my seat.

I always travel with a lock on my luggage (if not "checking" the bag at the airport) so people can't open it and take things. Also, I have thought about it and I am taking my bike lock with me on the train next time to attach the bag itself and the bar that runs along the top so I can latch it down and not worry.

Kernos:
NY has random searches to ride the underground. DC proposed such "random" searches - but I would join a protest to that...also, people are allowed to walk away and enter the system at other points.

I just cant understand why we can't have smarter (and less intrusive) methods to stop terrorism. All the money spent on screening everyone, when the focus can be on counter-terrorism measures. How often have we heard a terrorist caught at the airport screening process - NOT ONCE! The methods and requirements are so well published that a smart individual will work outside the requirements.

It is always an intelligent, directed effort by authorities or something that was prevented/didn't work when terrorists are actually on the plane.

I agree Scott. It all just gives the appearance of the government's doing something, while giving them more power. It's really no different from propaganda.

In fact I have become more afraid of my governments and law enforcement than of any 'terrorist'. Read about all this in 1984 and Little Brother

I need to read 1984 - never forced in high school and it is at the back of my mind...if just for all the pop culture references.

If you do, Scott, be sure to read Little Brother too. It's pushed as 1984's sequel and is one of the best 5 books I have read from this century. I usually read 1984 and Animal Farm back to back.

Then I start wondering how to be a social liberal without having too many laws, rules and regulations, aka 'big government'.

I think we should amend the constitution to force governments and agencies to repeal 2 laws and regulations for every new one created!

Scott wrote: "I need to read 1984 - never forced in high school and it is at the back of my mind...if just for all the pop culture references."

late reply, but 1984 is a riveting novel (at least for me). it really made me think, and just confirms what many people have known by now about war and governments. actually, it even made me rethink how "democracy" has evolved into its present state.

Go NH!

New Hampshire Moves to Criminalize TSA Grope-down Procedures