being sued for objecting to sexually intrusive scans

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Neither is someone who participates in making porn. If that porn then stimulates someone sexually or not is irrelevant; it will do it to someone. Same with the nude scans. There are normal people sitting there, to view the scans - not angels or robots.

well using that logic i think the government should also keep cameras and audio surveillance in every room in your house including your bathroom. I know having a camera in your bathroom is a little invasive but its to keep you safe.

After all someone might break in and harm you or your family. they might have a gun. and dont worry the video of you in the shower wont be viewed by anyone other then the government employees keeping you safe. that's not at all like 1984 is it....


The simple fact is life is dangerous.
Giving up your rights and your freedoms and your privacy does not make you safe. if you give up your freedoms out of fear then you will have none left.

We have allowed the terrorists of 9/11 to succeed. we have allowed them to make us terrified and as a reaction to that we've given up our rights and our freedoms.

This is America! And i am proud to be an American! i did not let the terrorists win! i did not become frightened. and i certainly did not consent to the government doing unlawful search and seizures or me and my private possessions.



if they do go through the xrays all the time they will get cancer from it. is that fair? i dont think harmful xrays are keeping us safe. in fact they are endangering us. especially the frequent flyers.

Thank-you for posting that video. i had heard ron paul was trying to introduce a bill but i had not had a chance to read up on it.
I think ron paul should run for president in 2012 i will most certainly vote for him! he is awesome!! !

Well said.

All this angriness about not wanting to get on a plane so bad that people want to put their hands down my pants bugs the sh** out of me. If they don't want to take risks that bad, then they should get in a car and drive to where they need to go. (Cars are statistically way more likely to cause fatalities than Planes).

I would really like to see my family at some point. They all live thousands of miles away from me. I'd like to see someone I love in Europe too, but I would like to avoid a meltdown at the airport thank you very much.

The "war on terror" is just a pretext for legalized violent crime. Torture, False Imprisonment, and now Sexual Assault. That's all it is.

I have been sexually abused too. It's easy for someone who is not in my shoes to give me advice or orders even to "get over it", but if you do that, and you attach penalties on me for not being able to, then I have just been coerced.

Why don't we strip search all of the Auto Workers in the country to make sure they aren't putting bombs in the cars, vans and trucks that go through tunnels and over bridges every day? I'm actually afraid to write that in public, because it might give somebody an idea.

"A tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny." -Aesop

That is not a healthy sentiment.



Rape or sexual assault requires a specific intent on the part of the perpetrator. You cannot impute intent because of your level of discomfort. Furthermore, a security search is not a "grope." If it becomes one, then it has exceeded your consent and you are free to lay an information against the officer.



Q.E.D? Truly, your intellectual rigour is astounding. [/sarcasm]



Sorry to burst your bubble, but as much as you dislike it, travel is not a right. It has to be bought and paid for, you don't get to roll up to the airport and demand to be taken somewhere. Part of the contract of carriage is that you comply with security checks. Don't like the contract? Then don't buy the service.

Meanwhile don't start mixing your issues. The blockade of Gaza is on an entirely different scale, and if you are going to equate a routine airport security search with the blockade then you have a misguided sense of proportion.



You are always free to make the decision not to travel. No one can force you to get on an airplane. Or a boat or a train, for that matter.



Yet more alarmism. I find it repugnant that you would choose to equate the experience of a routine procedure with the horror of rape. Is the woman who consents to a cervical exam also experiencing rape? Why is a gynecologist's actual penetration less of a threat than a passive scan or pat-down?



You can't possibly know what goes on in the minds of the ones checking the scans. Yet somehow you know what goes on in the minds of many of them. Hypocrite.



Frankly, if you can't separate your assessment from your 'hatred' then you have far more important issues to be worrying about than an airport scan.

Rape is not about sex so much as it is about power. The power to violate a person against his or her wishes. Sticking your hand in someone's crotch against their wishes is a violation no matter how you look at it. It doesn't matter what the intent is. Forcing someone to submit to a violation of their dignity and privacy in exchange for a service would be called something along the lines of extortion if anyone but the government was doing it.



The airline doesn't have to sell you a ticket. However, if they choose to, the condition should not be that they are free to violate you in any way they choose in the name of safety simply because they sold you a ticket.

I would also argue that travel actually probably is a basic right (whether it's officially recognized or not) unless you are a criminal who has been convicted of something substantial in a court of law. You may not have the right to force the airlines to accommodate you but the average American has not done a thing wrong and does not deserve to be treated like a criminal.



It is not routine at all and everyone knows it will spread to every aspect of our society eventually. You may think it's just routine at the airport (it isn't). How would you feel if you were getting in your car and a cop came out of nowhere to feel you up and ask you some questions for no reason? This IS where we are headed. A small plant can grow into a large tree. Similarly, things like this can spread everywhere if left unchecked. Talk of scale and proportion is meaningless when we are dealing with a fledgling police state. And that is exactly what we're dealing with.



No one can force you to do anything. However, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness means something. They weren't empty words. When this spreads all over the country and intrudes into every aspect of life (and it will) it will not be enough to say no one is forcing you to have a job or walk down the sidewalk or ride a bike on Main Street at 2 PM or drive your car. These are things that it is assumed a free individual is allowed to do without being harassed by the authorities unless they are doing something patently illegal or have done something to meet the probable cause requirement. Just being in an airport is not suspicious behavior. Nevertheless, just being in an airport can cause you to be subjected to this kind of an intrusion.



Alarmism? Call it what you will. Somebody needs to sound the alarm because all the eggheads are sitting around with their thumbs up their backsides pretending everything is just fine. But of course, eggheads are always tools of the police state. Whether they are willing participants or just complacent optimists telling everyone there's nothing to worry about. The fact that this is happening IS alarming.



Feigning repugnance is another typical response when someone makes a comparison that's right on the money.



The woman usually goes to the gynecologist and asks for a cervical exam. People do not generally buy an airline ticket because they want to be groped by a security gorilla.



I don't care what goes on in their minds. The fact that the people making the decisions don't see why this is creepy is all I need to know about what goes on in their minds. Isn't it convenient for them that they have the issue of airline terrorism to justify what they're doing?

I agree. And as a woman who has paid for many gynecology exams over the decades, I want to point out some other differences that make this a faulty analogy.

1)the gynecology exam is done in private, having other people watch adds another layer of humiliation, although this is mitigated by how everybod does it

2)the gynecology exam actually does contribute to my safety. I don't know if I have cervical cancer. That's is the only way to find out. But this pat-down/scan is just security theater: a way to give the illusion of safety while also making a big show of being egalitarian and not profiling.

3)the most important point of all: I choose my gynecologist. I am not assigned one.


All these points also apply to men getting prostate exams in private to detect cancer they otherwise wouldn't know about from doctors they chose.

solution: staff the tsa with doctors so i can get a free checkup while i'm getting groped.


i think there will be some great pranks pulled on these poor gropers. that's gotta be a crappy job. even a pervert would get overloaded and disgusted after having to grope so many genitals. to say nothing about those of us who find viagra to be a hilarious pre-flight medication.

This is the bill ron paul introduced. please call your congressman and ask them to cosponsor the bill H.R.6416 -- American Traveller Dignity Act of 2010. if this passes then they wont be able to do this stuff anymore.

american traveler dignity act of 2010

" No law of the United States shall be construed to confer any immunity for a Federal employee or agency or any individual or entity that receives Federal funds, who subjects an individual to any physical contact (including contact with any clothing the individual is wearing), x-rays, or millimeter waves, or aids in the creation of or views a representation of any part of a individual's body covered by clothing as a condition for such individual to be in an airport or to fly in an aircraft. The preceding sentence shall apply even if the individual or the individual's parent, guardian, or any other individual gives consent."

Absent mens rea it's still not rape or sexual assault. The person's consent to be search is perfected by the person's decision to fly. It can be withdrawn at any moment by foregoing the privilege of travelling. It is only where the search goes beyond what is reasonably required of all travellers that the offence can be made out.



That's a contractual argument. You are free to try to change the conditions of carriage in negotiating your contract. See how far that gets you though.



I would agree that mobility is a basic right--but not the means by which that mobility is effected. There are options available to you: fly on a private aircraft, for one.



Ah, the, "floodgates," argument. Police already have the power to stop and question you. If a police car flashes its lights, you are compelled to pull over. The proper place for your arugment arises if the state seeks to expand the power of police to detain, search and question you--not in the context of the exercise of right that you have conferred voluntarily under contract.



I agree that it means something. But it does not mean the right to board an aircraft without complying with the contract of carriage.

The intrusion of the state into private individuals' liberties is tolerated based on scrutiny that takes into account the right that is being infringed, and the public interest in the infringement.

There is a fundamental difference between engaging in free activity in public space (like walking on a sidewalk); engaging in a restricted activity in public space (like driving on a public road); and exercising a contractual privilege in private space (like boarding an aircraft). It is fallacious to equate one with the other.



Well, instead of drawing false parallels, perhaps you should turn your effort to a far more productive question:

"Do these practices do anything to enhance the safety and the security of the travelling public?"

I think that there is a valid agument against full body scans and patdowns and that is that they only create the illusion of safety without actually doing anything to substantively enhance the safety of passengers, crew and equipment.



My repugnance is not feigned--it is real. The experience of a traveller in an airport is nothing compared to that of a victim of sexual assult. Your pretence otherwise is not sufficient to persuade me.



Buying an airline ticket is an all-or-nothing proposition. You don't like the fine print, then choose a different option.



Fair enough. These issues are better examined without the filter of imputing intention, anyway. But that doesn't make your point for you.

As I recall, at least two explosive devices passed through international airspace towards America recently, having never passed through either the Total Recall x-ray machine OR a crafty fumble by a rent-a-cop who was probably under-qualified to join the real police. Because its STILL a piece of piss to get explosive devices on or near planes and no doubt even easier if you bypass the public route.

Of course it rather depends on what you want to achieve. An explosive device at ANY POINT in transit is by definition deadly, dangerous, and liable to create a dent in something. Even if it never gets ON the plane, and goes off in the baggage handlers area, its STILL going to utterly disrupt flights for ages. All this scanning and fingering old ladies in their crevices for baby milk and nail clippers is purest media-fodder. Like the oxygen masks on the plane itself, they are only there to give the illusion of safety.

And it also requires the security monkeys to be "clean". Thing is, over here at least, the problem with even a DEEP CRB (criminal Records Bureau) check, you have to have BEEN CAUGHT doing something CRIMINAL for it to flag up anything. I'll wager there are a LOT of people who would gladly see another plane going down in flames who have never been arrested or charged for anything.

To whoever said the whole thing about "you can't know what's going on inside the minds of the people doing the searches", you may be right, but we can get pretty darn close to knowing. Every day a new story comes out along the lines of "Man caught masturbating to nude pictures at airport" or "100 nude pictures from security scanners leaked to internet". These are not isolated occurrences. I can definitely say that I would prefer the scanner, because it's not my problem if someone wants to use me as an excuse for porn, but it is my problem if someone wants to grope me. But still, this is a disgusting invasion of privacy that something should be done about.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-N5adYM7Kw[/youtube]

www.dailysquib.co.uk/?a=2389&c=124

Countless others, I'm sure.

...I hate this world so much. :/

Again: THEY DON'T WORK. Its irrelevant if they are invasive or an invasion of privacy, they don't help. One could easily kill hundreds in the concourse before one got anywhere NEAR the scanners. Why go for an airport? Train stations, bus stations, transport interchanges (yeah, put all the eggs in one big basket). All have been and will be viable targets and NONE of them could have been prevented by nudie scans and groping guards. Unless its a FULL NUDE INTERNAL you can still get things past them. And that would effectively kill air travel, and I suspect that society might have difficulty with that. Not to mention Mother Nature screws air travel better than terrorists ever did. I would have thought a sensible terrorist would by now be studying vulcanology for a way to cause eruptions.