WorldCons and Air Travel
Nov. 18th, 2010 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stickmakerI have attended every US WorldCon since IguanaCon. However, if the TSA isn't reined in I will skip next year's despite already having an attending membership. I had enough trouble flying to the NASFiC this year (and Denvention two years ago). I have repeatedly been singled-out, most likely because I'm a male traveling alone with lots of camera gear and a computer. (People have actually been arrested in the US for this, so I guess I'm lucky.)
It's not just that the TSA's methodologies are flawed and intrusive. The worst part is that they have that "we're feds; you're nothing" attitude. Any complaints are dismissed out of hand, no matter from whom. In an interview on NPR recently, when the head of the TSA was told that world-class experts on the medical effects of radiation had warned against using the new scanners in peer-reviewed reports, he sniffed and said, approximately, "*I'm* not aware of them."
I wonder if _he_ goes through those scanners? Even airline pilots are protesting them.
What happened to the plan, several years ago, to have people pre-approved and given special cards which let them skip the worst of airport security?
It's not just that the TSA's methodologies are flawed and intrusive. The worst part is that they have that "we're feds; you're nothing" attitude. Any complaints are dismissed out of hand, no matter from whom. In an interview on NPR recently, when the head of the TSA was told that world-class experts on the medical effects of radiation had warned against using the new scanners in peer-reviewed reports, he sniffed and said, approximately, "*I'm* not aware of them."
I wonder if _he_ goes through those scanners? Even airline pilots are protesting them.
What happened to the plan, several years ago, to have people pre-approved and given special cards which let them skip the worst of airport security?
no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 07:02 pm (UTC)Trans folks have been up in arms ever since the scanners surfaced. The (non)consensual groping is even worse from their point of view.
We can but hope this will be the straw that breaks the back of the argument that the stuff that goes on an airports (and increasingly on Amtrak and the like) is *not* an "unreasonable search".
I *really* hope someone can get the public aware of the relative risks between flying and other modes of transportation. And get the public to *internalize* it.
Life is inherently risky. And *none* of the screenings at the gate make flying significantly safer.
The ID checks *before* you get to the gate are of *some* (very limited) usefulness.
ETA: *every* single "safeguard" they've claimed for the scanners has been shown to be false. That you can't see that much detail (you can), that the images aren't saved (they aren't *supposed* to be, but the capability to save them exists as well as the ability to send them elsewhere). The rather new claim that the folks running the scanner are in another room and can't see the person being scanned are likely less than accurate.