The Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport isn’t interested in seeing you naked or fondling you, Brandon Shulleeta writes in the Progress. They don’t have the full-body scanning devices that permit TSA agents to see you naked—just a standard metal detector. If the metal detectors gets to beeping, and after a few tries it keeps going off, they’ll perform a pat-down search, but it’s a reasonable one, not one that’s liable to bring about a panic attack in a survivor of sexual assault. CHO hasn’t been told by the TSA that they’re going to have to install the strip-search technology, and the airport’s director points out that it’d be tough to fit the equipment into the small airport, anyhow.
So I’m still willing to fly out of CHO—the trick is finding a similar airport to fly back from, one where they’re not going to molest me. Easier? Drive or take Amtrak.
“take Amtrak.”
But for how long?
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/130549-next-step-for-body-scanners-could-be-trains-boats-and-the-metro-
“I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime.” -JNap
Yeah, I saw that this morning. My hope is that such a move will not be funded. There having not been a September 11th scale attack on trains, maritime, or mass transit in the U.S. in recent history, I suspect (hope) that there won’t be enough support for that funding.
i don’t understand why anyone cares about this.
It’s people who can’t understand what’s wrong with government taking away personal liberty and privacy that poses the biggest treat to the rest of us, and to themselves.
So long as they can get away with it, they keep taking until they have it all.
Famously put by the WW II era German Pastor Marty Niemoller, noted for this:
They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Too busy with ipads, ipods, and all things -I-, the newer generations have no interest in history. And we are ALL threatened by that, since those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.
What is ignorance? A sword hanging over all our heads. Koba knows whereof he speaks.
Just as you want to avoid the full-body scans and patdowns, so do the bad guys. If it is easier to get through security at a small airport than a large one, why would a would-be terrorist fly out of Dulles or O’Hare? He wouldn’t.
And the 9/11 hijackers passed through security at small regional airports. Because what is true today was true then.
So if the post-9/11 procedures would stop box cutters from getting through a small airport like CHO, that’s good news. That is progress.
But CHO can’t detect an underwear bomber. So for all intents and purposes, very little has changed since 9/11. The techniques known to be used by would-be terrorists today cannot be detected at CHO. Just as the 2001 techniques couldn’t have been detected at CHO back in 2001.
Of course, I could be wrong, I’m not an aviation safety expert. Maybe CHO would detect an underwear bomb?
Maybe I’m going out on a limb here, but I think it has something to do with being photographed naked and having strangers fondle our genitalia while other strangers watch. If you’re down with that—and aren’t aware that most people are not—then I can appreciate how this would be puzzling to you.
Seen on Twitter:
Wait! There is pictures of naked people at the airport?
Were you hoping to see some? ;)
Thinking those Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders gotta get to the game somehow.
Me, I wear flip flops, shorts and a t-shirt and make sure to look really white when I fly.
I fly every week and I am a big fat man. You really think T SA is ogling over x Ray images of people? Give me a break. I’m disgusted with the narcissism ofnthe unconcerned traveler.
As for fondling genitals: your description discredits whatever legitimacy your argument may have had.
(waits for anecdote from NY post or drudge report to refute above statement)
Who knows? There are no real qualifications to work for the TSA. (Just last week a TSA employee abducted and raped a woman before attempting suicide.) Thousands of people work for the TSA, and I’d say that there are probably a fair number of them who enjoy looking at pictures of (some) naked people. But, really, what sort of pleasure that they get out of this is irrelevant. My concern is that I can’t support a government program that tells me that I need to get naked for the greater good. You presumably are not a supporter of limited government, while I am. Those are philosophical differences. You are apparently OK with being photographed naked. I am not. Another philosophical difference.
From the Christian Science Monitor:
(Emphasis is mine.)
From the New York Times:
From ABC News:
New York Post? Drudge? Hardly.
As a reminder, CHO has every right to eject the TSA and use a private security contractor.