I will end up on a no fly list for the following. Sad I even make a joke like that. 30 years ago such a thought would have been very difficult to conceive of, let alone think ...
Dear Big Sister / Brother:
These scanners WILL NOT prevent an attack. These scanners ARE NOT making us safer. Anyone who believes they are is an idiot and a fool. What they will catch are petty little people who are incredibly bigger fools than those twits who think the scanners will save us from anything.
Al Qaida are not stupid. They are actually very bright. The shoe and underwear guy are their throw-away test cases, as were the UPS bombs. They are testing the walls, prodding for weakness, and testing what will and will not be discovered.
And the funny part - DHS, CIA - they know the body scanners will not stop the next wave of successful attacks. Yet they allow this joke to continue because it looks like we are doing something. Mr. Obama, you are so concerned about the rights of killers in Guantanamo and violation of their rights ... yet Americans who have done nothing wrong, are being treated like terrorists - and you are quiet about our privacy and civil rights.
Why will the scanner not stop them .... hmmm .... should I say? Why not - DHS and CIA know, al qaida knows, why is it only we, the people are not supposed to know. Funny this whole protecting thing.
They will consume something, just like they feared in the beginning, only now - it will come to pass. The martyr or cold-blooded killer, will have the weapon inserted into his or her body. This will work best through swallowing the thing and as the acid in the stomach dissolves it, the 2nd part is added, combined with the acidic stomach fluids, ignites whatever they want to ignite. This could not be done on transatlantic flights with any intention of waiting until the plane gets over US territory (9-12 hours for that and nothing will take 9 hours to dissolve in the stomach). Rather, these killers get on in European countries, a plane bound for the US, perhaps just another European capital. The detonation will go off 1 hr later, meanwhile in the US, a dozen franchise members board planes that will all leave about the same time and will explode over US cities all within 1.5 hrs.
How will we combat these murderers with a full body scanner? Won't and can't. So they will resort to non-technological ... no one will be allowed to bring any medicine or pills with them into the cabin - pockets will be checked - by hand. You will also have to be at the airport 2 hrs before and in the waiting area, to ensure you haven't consumed anything that may blow up, they will keep everyone segregated for 1.5-2 hours before every flight plus the pat down for everyone (I can't think of any other way of determining whether you have any pills - although they could sew them into their clothing couldn't they). In the end, I don't know what the answer is, but full-body scanners are not the answer.
The Republicans and Democrats who are responsible for this mess need to face the wrath of the people.
'Naked scanners': Lobbyists join the war on terror
By: Timothy P. Carney
Senior Examiner Columnist
November 12, 2010
The degradations of passing through full-body scanners that provide naked pictures of you to Transportation Security Administration agents may not mean that the terrorists have won -- but they do mark victories for a few politically connected high-tech companies and their revolving-door lobbyists.
Many experts and critics suspect that the full-body "naked scanners" recently deployed at U.S. airports do little to make us more secure, and a lot to make us angry, embarrassed and late. For instance, the scanners can't see through skin, and so weapons or explosives can be hidden safely in body cavities.
But this is government we're talking about. A program or product doesn't need to be effective, it only needs to have a good lobby. And the naked-scanner lobby is small but well-connected.
If you've seen one of these scanners at an airport, there's a good chance it was made by L-3 Communications, a major contractor with the Department of Homeland Security. L-3 employs three different lobbying firms including Park Strategies, where former Sen. Al D'Amato, R-N.Y., plumps on the company's behalf. Back in 1989, President George H.W. Bush appointed D'Amato to the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism following the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Also on Park's L-3 account is former Appropriations staffer Kraig Siracuse.
The scanner contract, issued four days after the Christmas Day bomb attempt last year, is worth $165 million to L-3.
Rapiscan got the other naked-scanner contract from the TSA, worth $173 million. Rapiscan's lobbyists include Susan Carr, a former senior legislative aide to Rep. David Price, D-N.C., chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee. When Defense Daily reported on Price's appropriations bill last winter, the publication noted "Price likes the budget for its emphasis on filling gaps in aviation security, in particular the whole body imaging systems."
An early TSA contractor for full-body scanners was the American Science and Engineering company. AS&E's lobbying team is impressive, including Tom Blank, a former deputy administrator for the TSA. Fellow AS&E lobbyist Chad Wolf was an assistant administrator at TSA and an aide to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who sits on the Transportation and Defense subcommittees of Appropriations. Finally, Democratic former Rep. Bud Cramer is also an AS&E lobbyist -- he sat on the Defense and Transportation subcommittees of the Appropriations Committee.
The full-body scanners have caused an understandable uproar. Even before the devices were rolled out, they sparked predictable mischief: During training on the scanners, a group of TSA workers noted and mocked the genitalia of the guinea-pig employee sent through the scanner. The guy soon beat down one of his mockers and was arrested for assault.
After assurances by contractors and the TSA that the nude images of the scanners' subjects weren't being stored and saved, the U.S. Marshals Service admitted that it had stored thousands of such images.
Homeland Security insists that the "naked scans" are optional, but if you're randomly selected for one and you "opt out," you're subject to a very intimate frisk.
There's good reason to doubt these scanners significantly reduce the chance of a successful terrorist attack on an airplane. Deploying these naked scanners was a reaction to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's failed attempt to blow up a plane on Christmas 2009, but the Government Accountability Office found, "it remains unclear whether [the scanners] would have been able to detect the weapon Mr. Abdulmutallab used."
But there's a deeper question to ask: how far are we willing to go to prevent weapons or bombs from getting on airplanes? In the past decade, terrorists on airplanes have killed just about 3,000 people -- all on one day. Even if the Christmas Day bomber had succeeded, the number would be under 3,500.
Those are horrible deaths. But in that same period, more than 150,000 people have been murdered in the United States. We haven't put the entire U.S. on lockdown -- or even murder capitals like Detroit, New Orleans and Baltimore.
While reducing the murder rate to zero is very desirable, we also understand that the costs, in terms of liberty and resources, are too great. But when it comes to air travel, 9/11 seems to have stripped away our ability to put things in perspective.
Politicians feed into that paranoia with their rhetoric. And lobbyists and government contractors feed on the paranoia.
protecting us at what cost
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