Tinfoil hats too?
Surely all that wearing these is going to achieve is a swift invitation into a back room for an inspection by someone armed with rubber gloves.
US firm Rocky Flats Gear is apparently doing a roaring trade in novel perv scanner-busting underwear - an attractive range of intimate apparel which may protect your naughty bits from radiation and the prying eyes of drooling airport security operatives. According to the blurb, the kit's main aim is "protecting the traveling …
Why not just go all the way and have one shaped like a middle finger pointing upwards? - or maybe that's look like you just had a small penis or a poor-persons' female->male sex change op.
I'd also assume you'd fail at the metal detector also with tungsten.
Anyone know if there is a material that will obscure x-ray backscatter and/or millimetre waves that won't set off a sensitive metal detector?
Maybe x-ray stealth undies are needed here?
They can't do it to everyone though, the ques would be horrendous and it would surely break human rights law.
Everyone should buy some of those pants and present a unified (not uncovered) front.
I would actually prefer the pat down than the small radiation blast, and chance of picture on the net.
At the end of the day, i get a grope and this poor guy who has to do it will most certainly know i'm enjoying it =]
I would expect the amount of tungsten in these to be small -- probably some fibres in the weave, in much the same way as silver is used for deodorising, so it will probably be too small an amount to set of a detector. I know my fairly weighty tungsten signet ring doesn't set off detectors, so I wouldn't expect this to.
If the scan didn't work they would ask you to have a nice friendly "pat down".
Pat down, it's nice that isn't it? Lets all have a nice pat down.
When what they mean is...
You will submit. Adopt a position of sumbission and allow the same sex officer to check every part of your body for bombs and weapons. Compliance is mandatory.
It's either that or a let them see you naked, it's your choice.
Some sports gear is impregnated with silver (washed in a silver salt, I reckon) because it has antiseptic qualities that are useful for countering odours. Would this also form a barrier to the scanners? Should marathoners remember to change before they go to the airport, for fear of getting their junk fondled by a bored TSAer?
Terribly impractical perhaps - but it would be bloody funny if 100+ people turned up to board a plane wearing those old-fashioned deep sea diving suits; with the "Dig Daddy" type helmets and lead soled boots... AND the tungsten underwear of course.
"Oh - I need to undergo a pat-down? (Try and) feel free."
Far as I am aware cant you just 'opt out' of being scanned!?
It was never a law that you HAD to be scanned!
Though from what I've heard, if you dare try to stand up for your rights they make a big fuss about it and makes sures everyone else knows by shouting and making a scene.
- You are free!.. to do as we tell you.
Opting out of a scan/patdown will also get you stuck in a back room waiting for a police interrogation, along with a hefty fine. If you back out of a scan, you are obviously "hiding something."
And no, I'm not joking. You have three choices: get pervy scanned, get a pervy patdown, or get a fine and possible jail time (and also miss your flight).
of Stanstead, I get a gentle grope off a metal-detector operative on average once every week or so. I might have more metal in my body than average, or perhaps they are just picking on me, I don't know. Anyways, it's no big deal, I havent been to the little room with the disposable latex gloves yet, that would be a different matter. Only a matter of time though, I fly a LOT, and at some point I think it's probably bound to happen.
Anyone heard of 'chaff' - developed in the second world war to frustrate radar.
I would assume that clothing with a suitable lining, most likely reflective sheets with very small holes in, would be able to reflect and confuse the scanners.
So not only would the perv scanning be rendered blind, but the perv pat downs would have another person to process.
And who knows, maybe enough back-scatter would break the scanners.
ttfn
Does anyone know just actually how many rads are coming off these devices? I am not saying "gray" cos i think "rads" sounds cooler. Plus i dont know anything about it anyway!!
We should tell the TSAs who are near these devices to walk out on strike as they may damage their health? If u r sitting/standing near these things x hours per day y days per year - surely that could amount to substantial rad ingestion overall? At least they wont be able to have kids - probably a good thing to help clean up the gene pool a bit.
@GrahamT
"Opting out of being scanned means opting out of flying."
No it doesnt! Its just the impression they like to give. There is NO legal base to refuse the service and anyone who does so could end up in court.
There is no law saying they have to be scanned and plenty of laws already in place as to why you shouldnt/couldnt, ranging from privacy laws, health and safety & human rights.
There's not a legal base for them to feel you up, either; while they may not be able to arrest you for refusing to get scanned and/or felt up (though it's happened), they can delay you long enough you miss your flight; they could also flag you as suspicious for any other flights, and generally make themselves annoying.
What regulatory body oversees the TSA, anyway - or, more specifically, if there is a complaint, can it be taken to someone outside TSA?
>>No it doesnt! Its just the impression they like to give. There is NO legal base to refuse the service and anyone who does so could end up in court.
I don't know if this has changed since the early 90s, but back then I was thrown off a flight at the discretion of the pilot. It was explained to me that the pilot had the right to refuse any passenger without giving any reason and without accountability, and that in these circumstances the passenger had no recourse in law to recover the cost of the flight, and the airline had no legal obligation to carry the passenger on another flight. (I understand this can also happen with overbooking, though perhaps someone with more knowledge can confirm?)
So I believe that in the UK at least, an airline has no fundamental legal obligation to provide the service at all, or to refund any money you've paid for it. That is one of many reasons why I fly as little as possible.
"...working to reveal the truth behind the events of September 11th, as well as the lies of the government and corporate elite who remain suspect in this crime..."
Well, perhaps if the Government of the day had bothered to do something when they got an August 2001 briefing titled
"Al Qaeda determined to attack the Mainland USA"
we wouldn't have this and countless other discussions.
Doh!
Nice work if you can get it Condi.
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....in San Diego, yesterday. He got arrested when he refused to put his clothes on. I'm not sure what he was arrested for -- he's not exposing himself indecently or anything like that (and there's no regulation against travelling in 'light' clothing). I'd guess he got arrested for "trying to make a fool of the security services" -- you know what these people are like, they're absolute b******s, anyone who doesn't "Respect Mah Athoritah" needs putting down, and putting down good.
The policeman mindset is transnational. I am beginning to really dislike organizations like the TSA. Obama needs to watch this because this kind of universal like has a nasty habit of blowing back on the government -- a bit like Carter's well meaning universal 55mph speed limit ("to save fuel"), a subject of universal hate and derision.
with a non-silicone-based "toy" deeply imbedded? It might be a great way to turn the tables on what they define as 'non-offensive". If the TSA agents become offended at scanning a "pleasure device" inserted into a flyer, then becomes offended (off-ended?), then it stands to reason that the other flying public has grounds to deny exposure of his/her genetalia to a scanner and possibly to the Internet(s).
What the TSA SHOULD DO is go back to the boneheads who designed the software interface and say, "Redesign the software to black out sex organs and breasts and ONLY expose them if the scanner detects anomalies, and expose them ONLY after offering the passenger a hand-check option or a digital scan option so as to prevent image capture of the sexual organs. All other body parts can be exposed to the display."
I'd put just enough of this thread (concealed in the lining of a jacket of course) to show the outline of, say, a handgun under the armpit. It would take the TSA ages to work it out as they tried searching for what the scanner showed them was there.
Now if I owned a clothing factory, somewhere like China, I could introduce this surreptiously into mass produced clothing for a totally random effect. Travel chaos!
Random other shapes could also be used, dynamite sticks, daggers etc
Myself, I'd try one with a big comedy "bomb" on my vest, filled in with the word as a cutout.
Actually my boss is off travelling shortly. Can you get something that shows up on the scanner as a spray? I've some stencils somewhere.....
Using foils of different types of metal (with different densities) it's quite easy to design a "waffer thin" insert that will easily fit in the binding of a hardcover book. Hopefully no one who has picked up any of the books so modified have had the misfortune of having them show up during a luggage scan. Different materials would need to be used for such a construct to display "properly" on the soft-Xray body scan, but I'm sure it can be done.
Please don't misconstrue my comments to suggest folks should actually *do* any of this, of course.
I've challenged TSA at least 3 or 4 times in the past couple years. As a result, I've been put on *a secret list* and have been taken out of line and given a mild interrogation *every* time I've flown since, even domestic flights within the US. On returning from the UK on one trip, I was "kindly asked" to sit in an interrogation room for over two hours, with no actual interrogation other than a gruff "I don't know what you're trying to pull, but you sure as hell aren't going to get away with it" even though I said nothing. As a result I missed my connecting flight, which caused me to miss a business meeting, which lost a very large contract, and because of THAT, I no longer have a job. Nor apparently do I have any legal recourse.