The uproar over the TSA’s new porno scanners (and the agency’s general fecklessness) is spreading.

Seems that the TSA is facing increasing push-back from passengers, pilots, and others over the new “submit to a privacy-invading full body x-ray scan of questionable usefulness or have your crotch inspected manually” policy.

Nearly a week before the Thanksgiving holiday air travel crush, federal air security officials struggled Monday to reassure rising numbers of fliers and airline workers outraged by new anti-terrorism screening procedures they consider invasive and harmful.

Across the country, passengers simmered over being forced to choose scans by full-body image detectors or probing pat-downs. Top federal security officials said that the procedures were safe and necessary sacrifices to ward off terror attacks.

Jon Tyner, the software engineer in San Diego who refused to be groped and was threatened with a civil lawsuit and a $10,000 fine, is now actually being investigated by the TSA, and they’ve upped the penalty to $11,000.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she “regrets” the resistance to these new procedures, but they are “necessary to deal with emerging terrorist threats such as a Nigerian man’s alleged attempt to blow up a jetliner bound from Amsterdam to Detroit last Christmas Day using hard-to-detect explosives.”

One guy’s failed attempt last year is not an “emerging threat.” It’s one guy’s failed attempt. People who want to blow up planes will use whatever method of concealing their weapons that you’re not checking for. Gaggles of hundreds people waiting to go through security is a bigger security threat than underpants. We’re spending too much time chasing after the last method we saw employed and not enough time using intelligence and common sense.

And groping a screaming 3-year-old? Just ridiculous.

Oh, and those machines that supposedly aren’t even capable of storing the revealing images they take? Bullshit.

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11 replies on “Backscatter Backlash”

  1. When are some brave local law enforcement types going to go down to the airports and arrest the TSA agents for production of child pornography or child abuse or sexual abuse of the adults?

    Imagine if you had your neighbor’s minor age child over to “look for hidden objects” using your “imager” or your hands. What would you say? “Honestly officer, I was not going to keep those images. And when I touched his junk I just wanted to make sure he didn’t have anything illegal hidden there.”

    For instance, in Oregon when you touch someones junk (minor or not) you commit, at minimum, Sexual Abuse III:

    § 163.415 Sexual abuse in the third degree

    (1) A person commits the crime of sexual abuse in the third degree if:

    (a) The person subjects another person to sexual contact and:
    (A) The victim does not consent to the sexual contact; or
    (B) The victim is incapable of consent by reason of being under 18 years of age;

  3. The only people putting glorified firecrackers in their underpants, and in ubiquitous powder in ink cartridges are the stooges run and handled by the FBI.

  4. This guy’s case has (unsurprisingly) triggered another group-think outrage over an issue I think isn’t that grave.

    There’s a great handful of things more inconvenient and awful about flying than the TSA. Like all sensible folk, I realize those agents aren’t the most highly-skilled and that their means aren’t necessarily the most sound.

    But now the next time I fly I fear a massive ruckus from an already near-unbearable populace about briefly getting their inner thighs grazed by the gloved hand of the TSA. All this does is keep me flanked even longer by these over-reacting ‘tards. You know getting rubbed is a possibility. If that isn’t acceptable, don’t fly.

    All I want to do is get through the line and start my crossword marathon in the far corner of my gate. If it gets me there faster, I’ll gladly let some grunt diddle my taint for a few seconds over my pants. If it helps my cause, I’ll even hand out free pre-made copies of my nude X-ray to those interested.

  6. Groupthink outrage? TSW, people have been upset about the TSA’s practices for a long time but have mostly silently submitted to authority for expediency’s sake just as you have, but I wonder how far you would allow the TSA to go before you were outraged. Would you let them insert fingers into your orifices to check for foreign objects? Would you let them do that to your children?

    You make it seem like a fait accompli, a simple fact of life that nobody can change and we all should accept. But this is new, not even Israel does this sort of thing. It’s completely unprecedented and unnecessary.

  9. Ok. I’ll play along.

    There’ s nothing in the sfgate article about this child’ s orifices being probed. In fact, the author doesn’t denounce patting down kids, just the methodology.

    Frankly, the other tale must be offensive to many victims of true sexual assault.

  10. I feel sorry for these TSA people since I get the runny shits when I fly.

    All these new Tea Party House members and strike a blow for smaller government by not funding Homeland or the TSA.

  11. Another example of how the TSA throws taxpayer money and dubious technology at a problem that can only be effectively solved by training. Train agents to relate to children as well as perform behavioral profiling, like Israel does, and not only will we not need the nudie-scope or the gloved grope, we’ll be safer.

    Properly trained agents are able to identify threats regardless of the mode-of-terrorism-du-jour, and we’ll also get where we’re going faster, eliminating those oh-so-tempting clumps of human targets bunched up around the security checkpoints.

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