The ridiculous security theater that our government puts on at airports has recently taken on a new, more ball-grabbing, yet no more effective tack.

Seems people were opting out of the TSA’s fancy new back-scattter x-ray machines too often—concluding they’d rather not have the feds taking pictures of their genitals and bombarding them with radiation. The feds, of course, are going on and on about how this is perfectly safe (they’ve been testing it for weeks!) and they really super swear they’re not keeping the pictures of your boobs.

Since those x-ray machines are really expensive, and the companies who have the contracts for them have more powerful lobbies than you, the TSA is discouraging opt-outs by making the alternative terribly embarrassing: They’ll touch you “down there.”

More important than any of the privacy implications is the fact that these machines don’t increase security.

Israel’s airports have some of the tightest security in the world, for good reason, and by all accounts it’s incredibly effective. And yet the security service at Ben-Gurion airport has a goal of getting passengers from the parking lot to the gate in a maximum of 25 minutes. Israelis are accustomed to a climate of potential terrorism, and they won’t put up with inconvenience in the name of fake security. They demand real security.

“Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don’t take s—- from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for — not for hours — but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, ‘We’re not going to do this. You’re going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport.”

This whole article on Israel’s airport security is very illuminating.

Personally, they can feel my balls all they want, I’m not going through that stupid machine. I’m not paranoid, I’m just sick of this stupid crap.

Anthony Hecht is The Stranger's Chief Technology Officer. He owns no monkeys.

74 replies on “The TSA vs Your Junk, Sanity”

  1. Our own Maria Cantwell sits on the Senate’s Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee. They’re holding a TSA oversight meeting this Wednesday the 17th.

    If you’re concerned about this, perhaps a quick call or email wouldn’t go amiss?

  4. As long as they don’t have an extra charge for touching me “down there” I’m fine with it. I just hate those extra charges you face with every little service they used to offer for free.

  6. @37 – We have several choices.

    1. Stop initiating illegal wars.
    2. Stop occupying other countries with a massive military presence.
    3. Stop killing innocent civilians.
    4. Stop giving “no-bid” contracts to major corporations who just happen to be our (then-standing) VP’s previous employer.
    5. Stop torturing people in illegal prisons.
    6. Stop forcing abusive “neoliberal” economic agendas down other countries throats…

    In short, stop giving small, politically motivated groups the reasons to recruit and engage in global guerilla warfare against the U.S.

    Seems pretty simple to me.

    To say otherwise is to argue that the US should keep on abusing other countries.

  9. My husband is lactose intolerant. I think he’d find it hilarious if he had a giant glass of milk before going through security and let out a huge fart mid-frisk. Would that count as bio-terrorism?

  10. My husband is lactose intolerant. I think he’d find it hilarious if he had a giant glass of milk before going through security and let out a huge fart mid-frisk. Would that count as bio-terrorism

  11. My husband is lactose intolerant. I think he’d find it hilarious if he had a giant glass of milk before going through security and let out a huge fart mid-frisk. Would that count as bio-terrorism?

  14. Interesting idea, Geni – I wonder if it would work. (I know of at least two instances where Southwest has refused to board male passengers for wearing a skirt.)

  16. I’m all for the opt-out day…it will make the normal line fast. I feel like I’m reading paranoid rantings from some Alex Jones type site…body scanner radiation is the new fluoride, apparently.

  18. Just wear a swimsuit and when you get to the “optional” scan line take all your clothes off, throw them in a bin and say “No, perv.”

    “Touch my junk and I’ll sue you. I’m an American citizen, not a Sheep.”

  20. @67 – While flouride has little if any science backing it’s “fiendishness”, and plenty supporting it’s ability to re-mineralize teeth, these “back-scatter” x-ray scanners have a beyond-reasonable-doubt that they have cancer-causing negative health effects.

    Aside from that, they are disgustingly invasive. The scanners AND the “aggressive frisk” pat down should not be tolerated by non-criminal people.

    If you have committed a violent act, then sure, you lose some of your rights and get patted down when the police have you in custody. If you have NOT committed some crime, then why should you be subjected to someone touching your genitals?

    Look at it this way, just because a few people walking around our city have –or are about to– commit a violent crime on someones (rob a bank, shoot a bus driver, mug a person, rape a person)… does that give the police the right to “aggressively frisk” every or any random person walking down the street? Do we “aggressively frisk” or subject people to harmful x-rays whenever they want to rent a U-haul or Penske truck? (Or equivalently, put fertilizer detectors in rental trucks?)

    To treat an entire class of people –millions of humans– as criminals, based on the actions of …what?… two people? is an affront to the alleged liberty the US claims to uphold.

    If this is allowed to stand, then the terrorists have truly won a key battle already.
    We are scared of them.

  21. “I don’t know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747. That’s why we haven’t put them in our airport,”
    –Rafi Sela said, referring to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, which has some of the toughest security in the world.

    WeWontFly.com

  24. I am seriously considering wearing my Feeldoe when I opt out of the x-ray. Just imagine:

    Thecheesegirl: I’m pregnant; I don’t want to subject my baby to that kind of radiation. Can I get a pat-down instead?
    TSA goon: *pat pat pat grope grope* Um… ma’am?
    Thecheesegirl: Oh, right! *pulls Feeldoe out, plops it into goon’s hand* Sorry about that, forgot it was there! Anyway, continue!

    Then again, $100 is a lot to spend on something just to all but purposely have it confiscated by the government.

Comments are closed.