As of today I will travel only by Rail or Auto

[Steve4031]

Jis. It's no hassle to travel from emy to chi by train. It's an escape from reality! Lol

 

[tp49]

The radiation exposure from the scanner is less than the exposure of two minutes of flight at altitude. It is less than the added exposure on the California Zephyr crossing the Rockies. It is the same as you get from natural background radiation in 30 minutes anywhere. In technical terms: big deal.
As for privacy: some newer scanners only show a stylized, cartoon-like image. Suspect materials are highlighted on the screen. Plus, any passenger can refuse the scan. In that case they will pass through the conventional metal detector, and may be subject to secondary screening. Then, there is always Amtrak.

You mean to tell us that you believe during a flight or train journey, natural background radiation is as much as the dose that you'll get from the scanner? Tell you what, I'll put X-Ray film on my body and I'll go the places that you claim have the same radiation. $1000 says that the film won't show anything. Will you take that bet?

This is propaganda that I would expect to hear from a government bureaucrat, someone in the security industry or someone who doesn't care about more losses of personal freedom. As for some facts

1. Yes there are scanners available that can blur the picture of your private anatomy, but the type of scanners that they are installing will show you. your spouse and children completely naked. I guess if one is a nudist one would not mind but as a Christian I must take exception to this intrusion due to my moral, ethical and religious beliefs.

2. Even if I was not religious; as a social libertarian and a law abiding citizen, I object to being forceably x-rayed. At one time smoking was considered healthy, mercury was put in "beneficial" medicines, microwave exposure was safe, as was lead paint and big brother was even telling us that Agent Orange was safe. Go back a few years and you will discover that many people got cancer from the shoe xray machines of the 40's and 50's and it was hardly safe. . X-Rays are a health hazard and to see body parts it must be strong enough to take a picture. They are also scanning every inch of your body!!!. I get enough from my occasional medical and dental X-Rays and don't need additional dangerous exposure. .

You can trust governemnt if you wish but I don't believe propaganda spread by dishonest and corrupt government bureaucrats that are helping to slowly destroy our constitutional rights. This one clearly violates the 4th amendment.

For the comment made by the forum member "if you don't like it don't fly" I'm not and actually feeling quite good about it.

One could also view your posts/rants in this thread as nothing more than (to borrow the word from ALC) histrionics.

Second, clear violation of the 4th Amendment? I think you need to reexamine the 4th Amendment and the jurisprudence surrounding it. Especially in the light of consent. Passing through one of these scanners would be construed as consent as you can refuse the scan entirely. A search that is consented to does not violate the 4th Amendment.

Third, you can refuse the scan and go through the traditional magnetometer and additional secondary screening via the traditional pat down. I did this earlier this week and did not get patted down and for the record I am not a fan of these machines. I do not believe they will improve airline security at all.

 

[Guest]

1. Yes there are scanners available that can blur the picture of your private anatomy, but the type of scanners that they are installing will show you. your spouse and children completely naked. I guess if one is a nudist one would not mind but as a Christian I must take exception to this intrusion due to my moral, ethical and religious beliefs.

The desire to cover oneself came from Adam and Eve eating the apple and having shame, not from a directive from God. This is not a Christian value, but a value of the world.

 

[Guest]

And other superstious medevil nonsense dreamed up by medicine men,gurus and so called royal rulers and their priiests! What a joke that someone with a brain believes crap like that! No wonder Europeans laugh @ we colonists over here in the new world!

 

[Bob Dylan]

...and

This one's perfect! TSA= Thousands Standing Around! (And we pay for it!!) :angry:

 

[dlagrua]

I don't know who these anonymous posters are but consider:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin

The government is best which governs least." -

-- Thomas Jefferson

I can't believe that as more and more of our rights are taken away by the government, people just shrug it off like sheep and say "I guess government knows best". Government is the not the solution but the problem. They've already run Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Post Office and the education system into near bankruptsy. Now they want to give everyone a dose of X-Ray and invade your privacy so you can get on an airline flight.

If people want to be strip searched , X-Rayed, have their toothpaste seized, deprived of all of their civil rights and treated as a criminal just to fly, then let them enjoy the depravation of liberty. They deserve it. My answer is NO THANKS.

Kudos to the Green Lion for joining me in protest of this evil destruction of our constitutional rights. As a Patriot I am privilidged to read your post and have you posting here and for those that disagree, that is your first amendment right to do so.

 

[jis]

Jis. It's no hassle to travel from emy to chi by train. It's an escape from reality! Lol

For me it can be a hassle, since I don't have the time to escape from reality at present lol.

At this point in my life. I am having too much fun fully attached to reality. And when I do travel by train even then I do so to experience the reality rather than escaping from it. As I said earlier, I immensely enjoy traveling by train when I can find the time or can fit it in my schedule nicely. This is the reason that I never miss an opportunity to do so when it works out. But I also equally enjoy traveling by air. So to travel from New York to Calcutta I take a non-stop flight from new York to Delhi and then take the overnight Rajdhani Express to Calcutta. I'd have to spend the night in Delhi anyhow to get a connection the next day, so why not make good use of it? Later this month I have a business meeting in Jacksonville FL, and guess how I am traveling there from NJ? By Amtrak Silver Service sleeper. The timings work out well, so of course that's the way to go.

In days past the charm the trains held of taking you to far away places is the same charm that goes with air travel, specially of the international kind. Just like a train lets one depart Chicago one evening and be in Denver and climbing the Front Range the next morning, and be descending the Wasatch Front into Provo and into Salt Lake City in the evening, a trip by air lets you leave New York one evening and be flying over the North Pole early next morning, then fly across the vast stretches of Siberia, and be flying over Irkutsk and Lake Baikal later in the day, across Mongolia over Ulan Bataar, make a slight left jog to avoid the high altitude plateaus of Tibet over Chengdu and then down across Thailand and Malaysia, into Singapore 19 hours after you left New York. Similar charm and fascination, only the scales of distance and remoteness of territory passed are different. It is actually quite amazing how much you can see even from 37,000' if you maintain good situational awareness. Not the same as trains, but fascinating nonetheless. At least I'd never give up on that just because of some silly security circus.

For me travel to distant places and interesting experiences in seeing places and meeting people are the main motivator. That is what brought me to this country in the first place 30 something years back. Rail or Air are just means to an end. I know this may be anathema to some core rail aficionados around here, but that is my reality.

Coming to think of it, perhaps the problem in this country as far as its relationship with trains goes is the fact that rail travel is not grounded in reality for many. Hmm

 

[PetalumaLoco]

The government is best which governs least." - -- Thomas Jefferson

Minor point; first appeared in "Civil Disobedience", 1849 by HD Thoreau, long after Jefferson.

Long as it's a quote, may as well be correctly attributed.

 

[Chris J.]

Third, you can refuse the scan and go through the traditional magnetometer and additional secondary screening via the traditional pat down. I did this earlier this week and did not get patted down and for the record I am not a fan of these machines. I do not believe they will improve airline security at all.

At least you still have that option. I've heard that at Manchester (UK) if you refuse the new screening you're denied boarding.

My issue isn't so much that people will be looking at these ghostly naked pics, but that the (UK) government will no doubt store them away somewhere.

 

[JayPea]

Why do I put up with it at airports????Most of my flying involves visiting relatives 2/3 of the way across the country. I have limited vacation time. I want to spend as much quality time visiting my relatives as possible. I can hop on a plane in Spokane in the morning and be at my relatives' home in the early evening. Were I to take Amtrak, it would take the better part of two days. I'd rather spend that extra time there visiting. I know on an Amtrak forum that's blasphemy :lol: but it's the way it is. Now, I love Amtrak. I'm glad for AGR and Traveler's knack for finding loopholes. :lol: If I had unlimited free time, I'd probably never fly either. But I don't have that time, so I fly. As for full body scans, the only thing I fear is that the TSA agents will point and go into convulsive fits of laughter. :lol:

 

[jis]

As for full body scans, the only thing I fear is that the TSA agents will point and go into convulsive fits of laughter. :lol:

Exactly my thoughts. Maybe they will all die laughing.

 

[sunchaser]

I don't know who these anonymous posters are but consider:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin

The government is best which governs least." -

-- Thomas Jefferson

I can't believe that as more and more of our rights are taken away by the government, people just shrug it off like sheep and say "I guess government knows best". Government is the not the solution but the problem. They've already run Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Post Office and the education system into near bankruptcy. Now they want to give everyone a dose of X-Ray and invade your privacy so you can get on an airline flight.

If people want to be strip searched , X-Rayed, have their toothpaste seized, deprived of all of their civil rights and treated as a criminal just to fly, then let them enjoy the deprivation of liberty. They deserve it. My answer is NO THANKS.

Kudos to the Green Lion for joining me in protest of this evil destruction of our constitutional rights. As a Patriot I am privileged to read your post and have you posting here and for those that disagree, that is your first amendment right to do so.

I agree with both of you. There's a fine line between safety, security, & individual rights. While I do think it's important to all of us to be safe while traveling, I also think that a full body scan is over the top. If you say that by choosing to fly that you are also consenting to various types of search, it's a stretch to me. Where is the balance between security & privacy? Should we strip down to our underoos or speedos to prove we are harmless?

As for full body scans, the only thing I fear is that the TSA agents will point and go into convulsive fits of laughter. :lol:

Exactly my thoughts. Maybe they will all die laughing.

Not only the TSA agents. I don't think you could pay me enough to be visually assaulted like that!

Are we naive enough to not realize that those who would want to harm us are laughing at us as well? For the most part, they believe we are stupid fat & lazy. They enjoy turning our laws inside out in their favor.

 

[jis]

Not only the TSA agents. I don't think you could pay me enough to be visually assaulted like that!Are we naive enough to not realize that those who would want to harm us are laughing at us as well? For the most part, they believe we are stupid fat & lazy. They enjoy turning our laws inside out in their favor.

I agree that they have been having quite a laugh. But it is we that are hell bent on self-destructing driven by our imagined fears of various ghosts. No point in blaming them for what now appears to be our own inherent weaknesses.

On a more serious note.... when does a likeness of something that is produced by applying multiple mathematical transformations to a bunch of disembodied signals received by sensors cease to be a representation of the thing? Afterall a back scatter X=ray scanner is merely detecting X-Ray that is scattered by the body. This pattern is being run through a bunch of mathematical transforms in a computer program to produce an image. Slight tweaks in the transformation could make it look like whatever. At what point would the image cease to be that of the original? Mind you, it can always be arranged that the original pattern is reclaimed from the image pattern if the transforms are lossless.

So the more interesting question to ask is, is the fact that it is being displayed as a particular image the problem, or is it the fact that the information that can be used to transform to an image like that, that is the problem? I'd suggest that in principle at least the latter should be the problem, since the former can always be fudged around.

Since in my professional life I work on mathematical modeling of large systems (with focus on software systems) and creating new systems by applying transforms to such models, these sort of issues are of utmost interest to me from that angle.

What makes the whole idea questionable is that TSA agents routinely fail to identify dangerous material in baggage that is scanned by X-Ray and displayed in multiple colors supposedly to help them do such identification. What is going to change to cause them to suddenly become better at identifying anything in a body scanner is not clear at all.

All in all this should be opposed for reasons of ineffectiveness and lack of justification in terms of ROI (i.e. it is mostly a huge waste of money).

For a well informed discussion of some of these issues and associated legislative and political actions see the page on "Whole Body Imaging Technology and Body Scanners ("Backscatter" X-Ray and Millimeter Wave Screening)".

 

[jis]

You mean to tell us that you believe during a flight or train journey, natural background radiation is as much as the dose that you'll get from the scanner? Tell you what, I'll put X-Ray film on my body and I'll go the places that you claim have the same radiation. $1000 says that the film won't show anything. Will you take that bet?

To prove the point that the scanner exposes you to more X-ray than a train ride however, you should also walk through the body scanner with the same X-ray film on. I'd be curious to know if it shows anything on the film You will be allowed to wear a lead underwear just in case

 

[leemell]

You mean to tell us that you believe during a flight or train journey, natural background radiation is as much as the dose that you'll get from the scanner? Tell you what, I'll put X-Ray film on my body and I'll go the places that you claim have the same radiation. $1000 says that the film won't show anything. Will you take that bet?

To prove the point that the scanner exposes you to more X-ray than a train ride however, you should also walk through the body scanner with the same X-ray film on. I'd be curious to know if it shows anything on the film You will be allowed to wear a lead underwear just in case

Folks, you need to understand that full body scanners at the airport are NOT X-Rays. What they are is millimeter wave radio signals, not ionizing radiation.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

What I want to know is why flyers put up with this ****.

Why? Because we want to travel cheaply and quickly. Isn't that obvious?

Nice answer, wrong question. I'm not asking why they fly. I'm asking why they stood idly by, and continue to do so, as the experience associated with this gets worse and worse. You can complain. You should complain. If a massive outpour of the voting public stood united in a demand that this nonsense gets removed, it would disappear- lest the people ordering it installed lose votes.

I ask not why they fly. I ask why they have so much goshdurned apathy about the crap which they are needlessly put through. Nobody likes the TSA or their methods. Why do people sit there and passively and quietly mumble amongst themselves? Why are they not pushing for change?

 

[D.P. Roberts]

I have the perfect solution to the airport security question:

Free enterprise!

It appears that as security restrictions get more and more severe, fewer and fewer people want to fly - thus hurting the airlines' profits. Let airlines choose whether they want their passengers to go through the extra security or not. Say, for example, that United makes you go through the scanners, Delta does not. Those who are worried about terrorists and want the extra security can fly United, those who aren't concerned and want faster check-ins can fly Delta. Give the flying public a choice as to how safe they want to be.

It works that way with cars. The government defines certain minimum safety standards, & then each individual car maker decides how many more safety features they want to add on.

 

[jmbgeg]

I have the perfect solution to the airport security question:
Free enterprise!

It appears that as security restrictions get more and more severe, fewer and fewer people want to fly - thus hurting the airlines' profits. Let airlines choose whether they want their passengers to go through the extra security or not. Say, for example, that United makes you go through the scanners, Delta does not. Those who are worried about terrorists and want the extra security can fly United, those who aren't concerned and want faster check-ins can fly Delta. Give the flying public a choice as to how safe they want to be.

It works that way with cars. The government defines certain minimum safety standards, & then each individual car maker decides how many more safety features they want to add on.

That analysis only works if your sole worry is whether you will make it from point A to point B; and does not consider the WTC scenario. There is a broader public interest. That is not to say that I don't think the current systems that bans TSA airport profiling is wrong, but that's a whole other thread.

 

[amtrakwolverine]

when this was on the news some years ago and they were talking about this there was supposed to be some kind of metel plate you can put in your pants etc to block your man hood or women hood from view.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

I have the perfect solution to the airport security question:
Free enterprise!

It appears that as security restrictions get more and more severe, fewer and fewer people want to fly - thus hurting the airlines' profits. Let airlines choose whether they want their passengers to go through the extra security or not. Say, for example, that United makes you go through the scanners, Delta does not. Those who are worried about terrorists and want the extra security can fly United, those who aren't concerned and want faster check-ins can fly Delta. Give the flying public a choice as to how safe they want to be.

It works that way with cars. The government defines certain minimum safety standards, & then each individual car maker decides how many more safety features they want to add on.

I like this idea, but I also wonder if government regulation is the only obstacle to starting an airline that offers scheduled service and doesn't bother with the metal detectors or X-ray machines.

If you can afford a private flight, you can already choose as little ``security'' as you want.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

That analysis only works if your sole worry is whether you will make it from point A to point B; and does not consider the WTC scenario.

But 9/11 changed the rules about non-violently giving in to the demands of hijackers, so this is not necessarily a problem anymore.

Besides, chartering a Boeing Business Jet is perfectly legal, and passengers on board don't need to go through a metal detector or have their baggage screened.

 

[boxcar479]

1. Yes there are scanners available that can blur the picture of your private anatomy, but the type of scanners that they are installing will show you. your spouse and children completely naked. I guess if one is a nudist one would not mind but as a Christian I must take exception to this intrusion due to my moral, ethical and religious beliefs.

The desire to cover oneself came from Adam and Eve eating the apple and having shame, not from a directive from God. This is not a Christian value, but a value of the world.

Even if your children aren't with you?? that is powerful stuff , powerful indeed :lol:

 

[dlagrua]

1. Yes there are scanners available that can blur the picture of your private anatomy, but the type of scanners that they are installing will show you. your spouse and children completely naked. I guess if one is a nudist one would not mind but as a Christian I must take exception to this intrusion due to my moral, ethical and religious beliefs.

The desire to cover oneself came from Adam and Eve eating the apple and having shame, not from a directive from God. This is not a Christian value, but a value of the world.

I don't know where you get your information or what your religion is Mr Guest but modesty is a Christian value. Show up at my parish naked and you will immediately be physically ejected from the church.

If you don't mind strangers seeing you completely naked on an X-Ray machine, that's your right, but in my value system this is an absolute abomination of our constitutional rights to unreasonaable search and seizure. I refuse to fly because of it. If everyone felt this way I guess Amtrak would be a top of the line railroad with modern high speed trains and the like but perhaps its better that Amtrak survives in the sleepy shade and grows slowly. I predict that this will be a good year for passenger rail service largely due to the intolerable depravation of personal freedom and civil liberties that air travel is bringing.

 

[MrFSS]

I don't know where you get your information or what your religion is Mr Guest but modesty is a Christian value.
Show up at my parish naked and you will immediately be physically ejected from the church.

[Forum Manager Hat Off]

Now that's the real Christian attitude.

Better read Matthew 25:

35For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

36Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

37Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

38When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

39Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

This is how Christians are to act when they see someone naked. Not eject them from the church.

[Forum Manager Hat On]

 

[Roadfool]

Why do people sit there and passively and quietly mumble amongst themselves? Why are they not pushing for change?

The simple answer is that most of us have better things to do than spend hours upon hours fighting a government agency that couldn't care less about a bunch of pissed off passengers. You go to the airport, deal with the security circus, get on the plane, and get on with your life, maybe ***** to a few people about the process afterward, but that's about it. Maybe the TSA would care if everyone in the US boycotted the airlines, but that's never going to happen.

And the Fourth Amendment arguments are great if the government was barging into people's homes and requiring them to submit to a scan or be arrested, but it doesn't apply to a consensual activity like flying. It's the same principle that allows drug tests for employees and athletes. You're free to refuse the test, but you won't be allowed to work or play for that organization.

Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with things like this at all, but the solution isn't as easy as just "complain and don't put up with it."