That inversion thing is complete nonsense. Another reason to despair at humanity, when such things are spread.
In the end, this comes down to- tough. Security concerns trump privacy in this area. If you don't like it, don't use air travel. This isn't your own home, it is a service that is at reasonable risk for such measures to be needed. It is ridiculous for such prudishness to put lives at risk. I don't want to be blown up because someone else didn't like an absuirdly abstracted image of them appearing for a couple of seconds on a monitor.
The legal thing can easily be got around; exemptions already exist to that law for dealing with crime. It is patently absurd for necessary security laws (and if anoyine starts yelling out Big Bother comparisons at this point, they need mental help) to be blocked by privacy issues and you will always see such issues bypassed.
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Last edited by Ushgarak on Feb 2nd, 2010 at 02:17 PM
Gender: Male Location: Welfare Kingdom of California
If I'm not mistaken in England it's the law. You don't get scan....you don't get on the plane. We should do the same. Safety over privacy...take the former if you want terrorist out.
I really fail to see why this scanner is even necessary.
In fact, it would encourage explosives to be put into the butthole.
How many people have smuggled porcelain guns on a plane and then shot up the place? None. Not saying it couldn't happen.
But, that's not really what this is about. It's about catching terrorists. They would need to be looking for explosives...which would also catch things like bullets. They already have "sniffer" machines that can detect explosives. They should have developed that technology more and used that.
But what do I know? I'm only approaching this as logically as possible. Most likely what happened here: the company lobbied the shit out of a some politicians and really sold their product as good. If anyone doesn't believe that, they are fools. That's exactly how these products get pushed out: lobbying and selling a politician on it.
Metal detectors? Check.
Ballistic compound "sniffers"? Check.
X-Ray machines that look through your stuff? Check.
Nothing else is needed...cept a larger number of definitions for the ballistics compound sniffer. Sticking it in your butthole shouldn't get past the sniffer, but it would easily get passed the "I see your junk" scanner.
I'm all for additional security. My personal comfort be damned. If it means my wife and kids and the dude next to me is much safer because of a little loss of privacy, so be it. However, I'm not for impracticality or wasted money.
That's $1 billion wasted on something lobbied to a politician, again. ****in' America.
Oh, the old porcelain gun thing- would this be a porcelain gun that also has a porcelain trigger mechanism, porcelain springs and porcelain bullets? Honestly, these things just take a bit of common sense. Metal detectors find porcelain guns because they all have metal components.
But the point is simply that this kind of thing WOULD catch the methods that terrorists use. SImple as that. It is genuine and worthwhile security being added on the advice of experts in the area and it is being done in far more places than just America. This is useful and the general opinion is that it works. The ONLY objection has been this bullshit privacy/children thing. Assiigning all this to corporate lobbying is about as far from being a logical assessment as it is possible to be.
And btw- no, the 'indecent images of children' thing is just crap. No more indecent than an x-ray. Again, security concerns trump privacy, and as I said, the loophole in that law for fighting crime is already there. It is already in law that there is no indecent image violation committed if the process is necessary for detecting or preventing crime. It just needs tweaking.
__________________
"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
"You've never had any TINY bit of sex, have you?"
BtVS
Last edited by Ushgarak on Feb 2nd, 2010 at 03:28 PM
Chemicals like that are very hard to get past sniffers in a practiclaly usable form- liquid ones work better, hence the modern days security issues with bringing any liquid on board.
And as I just noted, the porcelain guns thing is garbage that people just didn't think enough about.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
Gender: Male Location: Welfare Kingdom of California
Yeah, the porcelain thingy just doesn't add up. All that money to make one when all you need is to break a porcelain dish and voila! A sharp edge object that could be use as a weapon.
I'm no expert but in the case of Anthrax powder or some sort of dangerous chemical the goal would be to spread it..so most likely release it inside the airport would be more successful.
Morbid as this is, the thing is that that type of thing doesn't provide enough of a body count. Even that sarin attack on the Tokyo underground- about as good a ground as you can get with a truly lethal substance- 'only' killed a dozen.
Terrorists (of this ilk) think in terms of body count. That is why a plane is a good target- if you can do the small amount needed to bring the plane down, you have the count you want.
__________________
"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
"You've never had any TINY bit of sex, have you?"
BtVS
Last edited by Ushgarak on Feb 2nd, 2010 at 03:35 PM
They already have an extensive bio-warfare detection system in the US postal system. Anthrax's days are pretty much done in the USPS.
The body scanner wouldn't do jack to detect anthrax in your ass...which only furthers my point of the almost complete uselessness of the body scanner. And, someone said that a "porcelain" gun wouldn't exist. Yet, we have knives made of ceramics harder than steel (but chip when used wrong.) They have some ceremics that are even resistant to shear stress. A quick trip to a university library would result in all the knowledge needed to manufacture a weapn WITHOUT metal in it.
We need things like compound detection with false-positive reduction.
A ceremic/porcelain gun can easily be made without metal springs. Plastic springs can work just fine...a "no spring" hammer system would work just fine, as well.
I agree with the other two ponts, though.
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Last edited by dadudemon on Feb 2nd, 2010 at 03:43 PM
Nope...I just don't care who sees it. No point in being ashamed...Someone's always gonna have a bigger one and someone's always gonna have a smaller one...Big deal.
Gender: Male Location: Welfare Kingdom of California
Body count for a terrorist isn't always the agenda...to prove they can be a threat is a more an agenda.
Going back to the porcelain gun theory...that may not be so far fetch now that I think of it...in the film (yes, I'm aware it's only film) eXistenZ the main character made a gun (no gunpowder) that shoots teeth and could penetrate very easily....now this isn't to imply some clever terrorist will plot such a plan...but the chances of a non-metal ballistics objects as weapons that can kill are out there. So increasing AND improving security is always essential.
[Edit Note] Last minute edit for this post. I didn't notice your editing prior to my post....disregard.
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Last edited by WanderingDroid on Feb 2nd, 2010 at 03:58 PM
I really don't care about my schlong being seen due to the need of security. I don't want money and time wasted, however, on something that does little to nothing to increase real security.
That's my theory, as well. With enough time and research, one could redesign the entire gun setup and use materials that would get past the scanner. We aren't talking about impossible chemistry, either. Some of these materials can be made by undergrad chem students.
Still, there's the whole "stick it in the butt or swallow" problem.
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Feb 2nd, 2010 01:36 PM
