Full body scan? Isn't it time to lose the 'naughty parts' anxiety?

As a somewhat frequent flyer - in a family of frequent flyers, AKA airline types - I’m rather torn about this brou-haha over the full body scans. I first encountered going through full body scanners a couple years ago, and never gave it a second, or third, thought. Get through and move on. I’ve got a flight to catch.

I figured at the time, if TSA wants to leer at my scar and skin graft laced, mastectomy ravaged body, then have at it. I think it’s a learning opportunity of what breast cancer can do to a person - permanently. Have a really good look - put it on the internet - and think about donating to cancer research.

So with the current hysteria/fear of the day - and I think it’s largely that - I’ve decided to take another look at the whole thing.

Mr. Capt. Maven has made several comments - not printable here -  about this issue from the perspective of a retired airline pilot. This security thing has gotten out of hand when it comes to flight crews. It’s like this - either they have a good solid security clearance or they don’t. If they have the credentials to be in command of an airliner, inside that locked cockpit, then holding them up repeatedly for the scan or grope is absolutely ludicrous. It may also become a safety issue, when you consider how many times over the course of a career, they can be exposed to the radiation. Pilots are already concerned, and rightfully so, about the amount of radiation they are exposed to for hours on end while cruising at 40,000 plus feet in the new generation aircraft.

When it comes to the occasional passenger, then we’re talking about an entirely different matter. The safety concerns regarding radiation become rather silly. Mr. Capt. Maven got an x-ray the other day in the ER, and the tech and I talked about the radiation dosage. He told us that with today’s equipment, you get a higher dose of radiation outdoors at high altitude - think skiing up in the mountains - than from a  modern x-ray machine.

Now let’s talk about the voyeuristic aspects. I’ve heard people remark that they would never want to be seen nekkid in one of the body scanners, and even worse, can’t bear the idea of their children being viewed similarly.

Let me ask you this - take a look at the photo above. Then take a look around at your ‘average’ overweight, or even obese, American today. How would you like to sit there for hours on end staring at that? If you find that image titillating rather than mildly pathetic, then you should seek professional help. On the same theme, imagine having to run your hand up and around the crotches and around the bulging breasts of hundreds of people who are fat, unattractive and perhaps none too clean. Aroused yet?

Have we got to the point where every stranger is presumed to be a child porn collector? When talking about rights pertaining to the Constitution, isn’t it fair to presume innocence from being presupposed a peeping tom just as we would also like to invoke the Fourth Amendment regarding unreasonable search and seizure?

Do I think the TSA should be ‘collecting’ the scanned images? No. Not unless they have damn good reason - reasonable cause.

Now, from what I’m hearing about the ‘pat-downs’ is a different matter. Mr. Capt. Maven has a pacemaker, and can’t go through the scanners. He always has to go through the ‘special’ line. Never has he received a ‘pat down’ that is offensive or intrusive. Silly? Yes. Annoying? Yes. Maybe things have changed. From my own perspective, given the option of scanner vs pat down, I’ll take the scanner every time. If I had a child, I’d have the child use the scanner. It would give us an opportunity to discuss nudity, and when it’s healthy and good vs bad or unsafe. Scanner vs. strip search or cavity search? I’ll opt for the scanner.

I think people concerned about this issue, should consider how quickly they will become nekkid during an explosive decompression of an aircraft - like during an explosion. Human remains, or the scattered parts thereof, when recovered by the search teams are almost always unclothed. The velocity of the fall to earth does the job. I’ll gladly opt for the scanner reveal instead of the morgue reveal every time.

Sorry to be so graphic, but that’s what happens when you’ve actually seen photos and read crash reports.

I think we ought to be profiling. Big time. I support everybody’s right to dress like a certain outlaw Saudi, but they shouldn’t be surprised or offended when they get pulled aside at the airport.

At the end of the day, the only really proven anti-hijacking technique is improved cockpit security, assisted by vigilent passengers. To worry about the individual little old ladies and families on a flight, while letting tons of cargo go into the hold without adaquate screening is also ridiculous.

What this entire discussion fails to even take into consideration is the the political world we’ve willing created - where a large share of the globe doesn’t like us. A very large portion of the muslim world wishes we would go away and mind our own business. And were it not for our unholy love affair with oil, we probably would. That may not completely solve the problem, but it would sure reduce it to a more minor role.

That’s just one woman’s opinion. Mind you, it’s a woman who - back in the day, when I had two really great looking, perky, healthy boobs - went through airport security in nothing but high heels and a fur coat.

Oh, and my car keys.

-maven

Update on Friday, November 19, 2010 at 09:55 by mavenandmeddler

The following information regarding prosthetics and pacemakers is on the Homeland Security NewsWire:

TSA: Full-body scanner safe for prostheses

Published 22 March 2010

Full-body scanners are safe for passenger with artificial body parts — from replaced hips to augmented breasts; TSA says the scaners uses low-energy X-rays that do not penetrate the skin: prosthetic devices, artificial limbs, and surgically replaced body parts will not show up on the body scan image

One passenger worried that her breast prosthesis might set off an alarm if she went through the new full-body scanner at O’Hare International Airport. Another wondered whether his “fake hip” meant he would automatically be hand-wanded at the security checkpoint instead of receiving the touch-free body scan. A third was concerned about two medical issues: She has a heart pacemaker and she uses a wheelchair much of the time. “I didn’t see any handrails in the photo of the scanner I saw in the Chicago Tribune,” she said. “I wouldn’t be able to stand very long without support.”

Jon Hilkevitch writes that these and other passengers with artificial body parts should not fear full-body scanner because these scanners are safe for all passengers, according to Jim Fotenos, spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Travelers with pacemakers, who have long been advised to stay away from the traditional metal-detector doorways, can undergo a body scan, or a pat-down and wanding instead.

The imaging technology in the body scan uses low-energy X-rays that do not penetrate the skin, Fotenos said.

This is bad for the TSA in terms of being able to detect weapons or explosives hidden inside the body cavity of a criminal or terrorist, but it means that prosthetic devices, artificial limbs, and surgically replaced body parts will not show up on the body scan image, and are therefore unlikely to cause the passengers to be flagged, he said.

The body scanners are being rolled out at airports across the United States in the next four years — 450 scanners will be deployed at U.S. airports by the end of 2010, 950 by the end of 2011; and 1,800 by the end of 2014. Passengers may decline a body scan and receive alternative screening designed to provide the same level of security, including those who feel they may not be able to stand for the scan, Fotenos said.

###

Maven has also put in a call to cardiac surgeon, Frank Carrea, M.D. at Sierra Nevada Cardiology, for some insights into this issue. I’ll post about it when I hear more. Dr. Carrea placed Mr. Capt. Maven’s pacer.

You might want to read an article/blog post on Travel Babel which is also pretty informative.

Of course there will still be idiots out there, and if they don’t want to fly because of this terrible risk to their fragile body image, then fine. That will leave an open seat for this non-revenue passenger here at Rancho Maven.

Read this from today’s RGJ:

The TSA has loaded the final straw upon the back of the ultimate demise of the U.S. airline industry.

The pretentious and overtly voyeuristic “security screening” at airports has got to stop! Parents with children, grandparents and non-deeply-colored people are not among the suicide bombers who they portend to stop from boarding. Only through racial profiling will these buffoons ever eliminate would-be terrorists.

Political correctness be damned!

The latest “security upgrades” from Janet Napolitano are not only unnecessary, but border on pornographic in nature.

I’ll not submit myself nor my family (mixed race, lest the reader believe this author and his family to be lily white) to the intrusive groping, under-the-clothes viewing, or X-rays that these perverts have reverted to - period.

To assume that these “new technolgies” are anything other than overtly intrusive is a smack to civil liberties of peace-loving travelers.

I’ll not fly anymore aboard a U.S. based airline.

Kim Kollman, Reno

Well, there you are. Somebody who knows sorta kinda something about airlines and security - AKA what they’ve heard on Fox News. Have you ever noticed that folks who use a lot of big words and 19th century writing styles often don’t know what they’re talking about? I’ve used the underline to show where the writers’ words were italicized in the original.

Well, huff, puff and bluster! I’ll not quit LOL!

-maven!