A little groping might save your life?
I was pleasantly surprised to see Isaac Z. Schlueter’s account of opting out of the new x-ray machines, because he did pretty much exactly what I plan on doing next week: bring a printout of the UCSF letter and politely opt-out in “favor” of the groping; groping happens once, cancer is forever.
Like Isaac, I expect ahead of time that I’ll just give in and put up with it. It’s amazing what kind of crap we’ll put up with to avoid minor embarrassments. Hopefully, my courage won’t come from a 5 hour delay.
I’m also looking forward to making the same trip next summer by way of a nice leisurely drive across the United States in a very comfortable sedan. If I can’t fly with dignity, I can definitely drive in style.
- Fly With Dignity
- “Stop the TSA. Protect our rights.”
- TSA Success Story: Isaac Z. Schlueter at blog at izs.me
- “They grope children. They touch your junk. The procedures are ludicrously ineffective and harmful from a security point of view. And the naked-picture xray machines are most likely unsafe.” (Hat tip to John Gruber at Daring Fireball)
- TSO saying “heads up, got a cutie for you”
- “Last week, one of my flying partners (Captain with Skywest) was going through security at DEN with his 18 year daughter. As his daughter approached the detector, the TSO working the NoS said on his headset, ‘heads up, got a cutie for you.’ He then confronted the TSA clerk with what he said and that neither of us are going through the NoS. The TSA clerk said you must have misunderstood me.” (Hat tip to Fly With Dignity)
- UCSF letter to Holdren concerning health risks of full body scanner TSA screenings: John Sedat, David Agard, Marc Shuman, and Robert Stroud
- “The physics of these X-rays is very telling: the X-rays are Compton-Scattering off outer molecule bonding electrons and thus inelastic (likely breaking bonds). Unlike other scanners, these new devices operate at relatively low beam energies. The majority of their energy is delivered to the skin and the underlying tissue. Thus, while the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high.”
More TSA
- How many businesses want fewer customers?
- Homeland security trolls highlight one of the biggest problems with government services. Alienating customers doesn’t mean going out of business.