Security Theatre: Full-body scanners begin to be deployed (and how to possibly foil those using them)

Eleven airports - most of them in the Midwest and California but also Charlotte-Douglas International here in North Carolina - will be the first in the country to receive the full-body scanners that create a virtually naked image of the person being examined and leave nothing to the imagination.

The Transportation Security Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security over it, claims that the images created by these machines are not stored in any way.

Does anybody possessing more than the minimum neurons for a working ganglia honestly believe anything that this asshat excuse for a government tells us anymore?

This is simply more "security theatre": measures that make it look like our government is sincerely doing something to deter "the terrists" but in reality is just a multi-billion dollar puppet show.

If the government was serious about both stopping terrorism and serving its people, domestic airports would adopt the tactics of those in Israel. I'm told by many people that the average time between arriving at the terminal at Ben Gurion International Airport and then coming to the gate for departure is around 15 to 25 minutes... with no shoes being removed and certainly no full-body scans! And Israel has a helluva lot fewer problems with airborne terrorism as a result (like, none at all).

What are the Israelis doing that we Americans aren't? From the moment a passenger arrives at the ticket counter onward, he or she is being observed by airport staff. That pretty lady behind the counter who's pleasantly asking you about your trip and your business? She's actually watching how you react to her questions. Israeli airport personnel are fully trained to watch for nervousness, hesitancy, and a lot of other indications that I could only speculate about. If there's enough reason to deem a person to be of interest as a potential threat, that person is discreetly taken aside and questioned without disrupting service to any other passengers.

It's a very simple system and it works brilliantly! And if the United States government had any sense it would adopt a similar plan for our own air travel.

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen though. Nor do I plan on partaking in any air travel if it can at all be avoided.

But in the even that do have to travel by plane, I intend to purchase several packs of these things. Allegedly they're supposed to really work in defeating the peculiar wavelengths of the full-body scanners. So my scheme is to get several of them and assemble some makeshift undergarments that will not only shield me from the radiation of the scanners, but will also display the letters "F U" across what would otherwise be my bare behind.

Don't think that I wouldn't do it, either!

Categories: air travel, department of homeland security, full body scanners, government, security theatre, terrorism, transportation security administration, what the hell were they thinking