Ron Paul Responds to TSA: Introduces 'American Traveler Dignity Act'

Cosmic radiation, terrestrial radiation plus radon gas are not manipulated by the TSA, but the body scanners are. Do you have anything to add to the subject let us know.

 

read the 4th amendment.

pretty much.

i will not stop whining or stop pointing out that scared cowards like you are destroying america.

perhaps u should move to saudi arabia if the principles of this country are so distasteful to u? i think you would enjoy it there.

 

http://newsblaze.com/story/20090221100148tsop.nb/topstory.html

NSC Study Shows You are More Likely to Killed By a Cop Than a Terrorist

After 9/11, the fear of another attack on U.S. soil cleanly supplanted the fear of having one`s penis chopped off by a vengeful lover in the pantheon of irrational American fears.

While we`re constantly being told that another attack is imminent and that radical Islamic fundamentalists are two steps away from establishing a caliphate in Branson, Missouri, just how close are they? How do the odds of dying in a terrorist attack stack up against the odds of dying in other unfortunate situations?

The following ratios were compiled using data from 2004 National Safety Council Estimates, a report based on data from The National Center for Health Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau. In addition, 2003 mortality data from the Center for Disease Control was used.

-- You are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack

-- You are 12,571 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist attack

-- You are 11,000 times more likely to die in an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane

-- You are 1048 times more likely to die from a car accident than from a terrorist attack

--You are 404 times more likely to die in a fall than from a terrorist attack

-- You are 87 times more likely to drown than die in a terrorist attack

-- You are 13 times more likely to die in a railway accident than from a terrorist attack

--You are 12 times more likely to die from accidental suffocation in bed than from a terrorist attack

--You are 9 times more likely to choke to death on your own vomit than die in a terrorist attack

--You are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist

--You are 8 times more likely to die from accidental electrocution than from a terrorist attack

-- You are 6 times more likely to die from hot weather than from a terrorist attack

 

maybe so - my government has been scaring the crap out of me for quite awhile now.

 

the tools were in place to stop the 9/11 hijackers and the underwear bomber before they even got to the airport. how about the government actually do its job and utilize what they already have to stop this stuff rather than unnecessarily naked body scanning and groping everyone?

as i already pointed out, the underwear bomber came to the airport, paid cash for a one way ticket, didnt even have a passport, his father had reported to the u.s. embassy that he was possibly going to do something like this...and he still got on - none of these things raised a red flag w/ security that they might want to check him out? but if i try to fly w/ a small can of shaving cream or my contact lens solution the sirens go off. or i can have two TSA goons take my digital camera and spend over 5 minutes looking through all my vacation photos (that did actually happen to me).

so rather than ensuring that they follow through on procedures already in place, the government response is to naked body scan and grope women and little kids...and u love it.

 

These are images from your link - can you identify anything in them?





But beyond that, this part - the storing of images - is illegal. They should certainly ensure the machines can't store the images.

 

I didn't say I don't have a problem - I just don't have a privacy problem with it. I think the whole system should be revamped because I think it's terribly inefficient. I also think grocery lines should be revamped to be a single snaking line that would dramatically improve efficiency - but again, it's not an ethical type problem.

We do disagree, but I'm not sure the Constitution agrees with you; or at least, certainly not as of yet. The Constitution is specifically left vague and defines the courts as the place to determine the proper interpretation of a given law or procedure. Unless the courts declare these things unconstitutional, they simply aren't. That doesn't mean it's not unethical, but its not unconstitutional unless the courts decide that based on the procedure it establishes.




^^^^This.


As for your argument ad absurdum that I must be against all searches or security to maintain some sort of consistent purview - nonsense.

Doing cursory searches that are cost and time effective is a rational thing to do. Excessive searches with no benefit that cost a great deal and provide for very easy abuse are not rational.

At the end of the day, your point of view is basically "so far I have not been inconvenienced by this equipment and procedure: therefore I have no issue with it, despite obvious and easily-proven ethical/rational issues." This is surprising, because even when you have posted some of your more outlandish rationalizations you at least generally show the ability to think critically and long-term (e.g. Obama's refusal to prosecute war criminals).[/QUOTE]

 

can you ID anything in these?



here is the same image reversed...

NSFW

Spoiler

well they arent. our government lied to us when they said the images were not being stored. so why trust them when they say the radiation is safe? remember that this is the same government which just admitted to giving syphilis to thousands of people all over the world for decades and whose last president just admitted to war crimes and gets away with it.

 

Sorry - I hit reply too soon...

I didn't say that. I asked for the critical Constitutional difference that makes one legal and one not.

Certainly true. So if it could be demonstrated that the scanners do detect some bomb threats, you'd be OK with it? At that point, they don't cost all that much going forward and have a benefit. If they don't store images, they are difficult to abuse as well.

No - I have asked, multiple times, for those rationales. All anyone has posted is things like "read the 4th amendment" or "its clearly different" or "its an invasion of privacy". If these rationales are easily proven, why has everyone avoided the question the many times it has been asked by different people here?

 

Well then go after them on that topic. To me, that's a completely valid criticism.

This is true - but you can apply that to anything. Do you eat food? Why trust our food safety laws? Do you walk through metal detectors? Why trust that they don't inject you with radiation? Do you drive a car? Why trust that the government paved roads properly and safely?

If you live in the US, at some point, you have made the decision to trust the government a million different times. If you truly don't think government should ever be trusted, you really won't be able to function as a member of society. That doesn't mean reasonable skepticism is unwarranted, but the blanket "don't trust them" rationale doesn't really work because you choose to trust them in all sorts of things all the time.

 

I don't need the courts to verify what is plainly obvious. I'm not even sure I would trust the courts to get it right; they have a long history of failures.

 

Those are from the previous generation of scanners. Do you think higher quality photos of boobs are more or less likely to make people willfully violate the rules about deleting photos?

 

Donate already!

"unreasonable".

No, because there are a multitude of other ways to still smuggle weapons or whatever on to a plane.

Are we reading the same thread? It has been aptly and quite effectively shown in posts and links that this technology is not effective and is unreasonably burdensome/degrading to innocent passengers. From the women being undressed, the images being stored, the 3yr old being molested, the mother who had her freakin labia touched (!!!!), what else do you need to hear? Perhaps what you neglected to read earlier is that reporters and citizens can still get knives on the plane (put them in your boots), that nobody seems to want to address laptop batteries, anthrax or other airborne diseases in a recirculating airplane cabin, or that giant lines in an airport make for an easy target without any security opportunities? Should we bust out the rubber gloves to check for anally-hidden bombs?

As usual, you are incapable of drawing any sort of principled line in the sand. Rationalize away, Major - some of us have convictions and the ethical courage to understand how to apply them logically and rationally.

 

That may be true, but then the Constitution doesn't agree with you - because it defines things to Unconstitutional if the courts say they are.

For example, we can all agree separate but equal was wrong. But until the courts decided it, it simply wasn't unconstitutional. You can't point to something being Unconstitutional, but then refuse to use the what's in the Constitution to determine that. At that point, everyone just has their own "clearly Unconstitutional". I could say the Constitution guarantees I shouldn't have to go through a metal detector because I think it's unreasonable, but I don't trust the courts, so I'm right and they are wrong.

 

Eh...

I don't like the argument you are making here.

The Constitution is what it is and says what it says. When a law is violating the Constitution it doesn't require a court to hear the case to be a violation. The court hearing the case may be the only way to get the issue corrected, but infringement on the bill of rights is still unconstitutional whether a court has ruled on it or not.

 

I'm not refusing to let the courts decide it, I simply stated that I have cause to not rely on them for accurate decisions.

I think it's unconstitutional. Whether or not the courts agree is moot, honestly; I don't rely on the constitution to define my entire code of ethics or rationality - that would be foolish. I mean, if we extend the idea you juxtaposed above Major, you have no right to criticize anything the government does until the courts decide it, and if they decide it adverse to your own opinion, you would be inconsistent to complain about it.

 

So your position is that if we can't stop ALL weapons, the search is unreasonable? What if it could stop 80% of weapons? 99%? 99.9999%? Is there some trigger here where it becomes reasonable, or is it all-or-nothing?

It's not particularly effective at tracking certain bomb materials like the shoebomber or underwear bomber; it is effective at other things, though I agree it's not particularly efficient. In terms of the examples, images being stored can easily be fixed. The other 3 examples can easily be avoided by going through the scanner. Next example?

Again, this argument is a tangent unless you believe that if you can't stop everything, you shouldn't try to stop anything. And if that's the case, why support any security at all, since nothing is 100% effective?

There are lines everywhere. You can wander into any airport and there are people all over the place, whether they are in a line at security or a line at the counter. Or just go to a mall or restaurant - even easier. By this standard, we shouldn't even try to protect planes at all, since terrorists can already blow up other things anyway.

My principle is that it's better to help 40 million get health care rather than chase prosecutions that don't help anyone. My principle here is that I'm not going to waste a lot of effort on something that I don't consider remotely harmful.

 

You're confusing two issues. Whether something is unethical or wrong (slavery, separate but equal) is completely different from whether something is Constitutional or not. You're trying to link the two and have decided that if it's wrong, it's unconstitutional. It doesn't work like that.

You can complain about something. You can say it should illegal. You can say it's wrong. You can say it's unethical. You can think it should be unconstitutional. But it's not actually unconstitutional unless the courts say so - because the document defines the procedure to determine what is and isn't constitutional.

 

This whole Constitutionality argument is a sidebar though. It was in response to your claim that "the constitution agrees with you". As of right now, it's certainly does not - or these things would not be in airports. As of now, the constitutionality has not been determined, and no court has issued an injunction against them. Presumably, someone has challenged these things, so we'll see whether that goes.

 

Sure, that would be defined based on the burden placed on the passengers. To a certain extent, the uproar over these new procedures is that idea in action.

You really are not reading this thread, or you are being intentionally ignorant. You can be chosen for enhanced fondling whether you go through the scanner or not. The woman sexually assaulted, for example, had that precise condition occur. Next bull**** rationalization?

No, it's an argument that we do what we can within the boundaries of treating travelers humanely and recognition that there is no "magic bullet". We've already discussed this, argument ad absurdum in this case is a waste of time, please stop it already.

Possibly. Or we could recognize what I've stated many times already. You do the best you can to maintain safety without resorting to excessive and ineffective policies.

Then my original statement stands. You know it's ineffective and wasteful (and you probably know, deep down somewhere inside your rationalizing heart, that it's degrading, unfair, and unconstitutional), but you don't care because it has not effected you personally... yet.