What would you do? A hypothetical question about airport scanners: security vs. privacy

I've got a question for all you folks freaking out about these scanners. Take the following hypothetical situation into full account and please think both decisions through before you answer.

Let's suppose, hypothetically, travellers were given a choice at the airport of which airplane they would like to travel.

On the left is an airplane requiring you to pass through a full body scanner and all sorts of other secure devices. There is a bit of a wait to get through because it takes time to check each passenger, but the plane doesn't leave for another 2 hours (time isn't the issue here). A sign above the security area reads: "Your security is our first concern". Let's call this plane 1.

On the right is an airplane requiring no security checks at all, not even a metal detector. Only a check-in desk sits against the wall. Again, you have 2 hours before the flight leaves. People can go into the waiting area and sit down, un-hindered by lines. A sign above the check-in desk reads "Your right to privacy is our first concern". Let's call this plane 2.

Which plane are you going to travel, plane 1 or plane 2 and why? What influenced your decision?

Which plane are you going to travel, plane 1 or plane 2 and why? What influenced your decision?

I would fly plane 1 becuse security is important to me. So a plane without a security check would be a risk for me

At the same time Plane 1 would be expensive than Plane 2 so you would find people ready to fly on Plane 2

Great question OP but I personally feel "when your time is up..its up!!!"

I would rather die with my diginity and privacy intact.

THESE MACHINES WILL NOT MAKE A DIFFERENCE and let no one be fooled that they will.

The chances of you being on the wrong plane at the wrong time is so slim ..it really doesnt deserve any consideration.

I have more chance of being killed driving a car that being a victim of a random terroist attack.

Fear suffocates a free mind.

So my answer is get on the plane that will get you there the fastest!!!

Excellent post! i would be on plane 1 for sure.

I like the idea of airport body scanners. Until Islamic terrorism stops there should be more measures to deter and find IEDs.

reply to post by sos37

Which plane are you going to travel

Limiting myself to the choices you've proposed, I'd choose take the flight without any security checks.

why?

A few reasons:

Ultimately I would prefer to live in a society without silly fears and hangups over trivial things. I would prefer to live in a society without bureaucracy and red tape. A society where people don't live in fear and don't feel obligated to be processed like cattle.

The risk of air travel is very small. There are roughly 18,000 flights every week. According to netca.org there are roughly 28,000 flights every single day. Even if terrorists were succesfully hijacking and crashing planes every single week, your odds of being on the flight they chose would be significantly less than your chances of being struck by lightning.


[edit on 2-2-2010 by LordBucket]

I think that with very little capital a select group of experts could sit down and come up with how it could be done. Some proper quantitative data supported by standards established by the group or committee to devise not just any system but a system that will work.

Most recent attempts at the TSA look like someone slinging mud on the wall and hoping something will stick. Well, that kind of incompetent behavior is what we are getting from our government and worse of all, we are paying for in with our tax dollars.

Anyway, there are those in America and elsewhere with PHD and Masters degrees that should be able to figure this out and make some money while doing the nation and the flying public a favor.

We don't need stupid ideas we need meaningful, analytical, logical and common sensibilities to a problem that as most will agree has gone to the house of madness. What we have right now is a three ring circus with way too many clowns and as long as they can charge by the day for our entertainment they are not going away.

They will continue to bleed America with stupid ideas and will waste more tax payer money on projects that never should have been allowed in the first place. What it also says to me it that the lights on but no ones home.

Originally posted by LordBucket

The risk of air travel is very small. There are roughly 18,000 flights every week. According to netca.org there are roughly 28,000 flights every single day. Even if terrorists were succesfully hijacking and crashing planes every single week, your odds of being on the flight they chose would be significantly less than your chances of being struck by lightning.

[edit on 2-2-2010 by LordBucket]

^ For some reason people are having a hard time getting this into their heads.

Why subject yourself to a ridiculous invasion of privacy for something that has almost no chance of happening? Why do people have the notion that terrorism is so likely to happen to them (only on a plane though)??? If you look at all the ways you could possibly die, terrorism is at the very bottom of the list! Why be so fearful? I guess the media is doing a bang-up job of selling the official story. That you should be fearful. Especially on planes. And most of you are falling for it.

"A rat, in a cage, on antibiotics" - this is what most of you desire to become.

I choose plane 2.

[edit on 2-2-2010 by kalakdrin]

[edit on 2-2-2010 by kalakdrin]

[edit on 2-2-2010 by kalakdrin]

Can we smoke on the non-secure plane? That would be my deciding factor

Originally posted by kalakdrin
Why subject yourself to a ridiculous invasion of privacy for something that has almost no chance of happening?

Not a ridiculous invasion of privacy unless you have something to hide.
The chances of nothing happening isn't a statistic you are aware of.

I'd pick plane #2, because at least on that plane I would be allowed to take my own protection since there are no restrictions.

Also the plane #1 people are lying to you. All that "security" is B.S. It is what's called "security theater". It's designed to make it appear more secure, but it has NOTHING to do with security, as the underwear bomber case has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. It's all about conditioning masses into surrendering their privacy and calming them into a false sense of security.


[edit on 2-2-2010 by harrytuttle]

Originally posted by harrytuttle
Also the plane #1 people are lying to you. All that "security" is B.S. It is what's called "security theater". It's designed to make it appear more secure, but it has NOTHING to do with security, as the underwear bomber case has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
[edit on 2-2-2010 by harrytuttle]

You don't know that for sure

Now then...plane 1...

I have nothing to hide...plain and simple. Metal detectors detect metal which most guns are made of. Scanners see through clothes and find the nasties that people are trying to carry on with them

Meanwhile we get plane 2 folks all carrying guns. Suddenly someone looks the wrong way and BAM...gunshot misses and takes out a window causing decompression, fear, panic and possibly mortal harm. It is indeed easy to make assumptions. The point is it is indeed possible.

OMG!!! someone saw a vague representation of my genitalia!!! I am gonna die!

Yeah plane one for me thanks

-Kyo

[edit on 2-2-2010 by KyoZero]

reply to post by KyoZero

So you are cool with someone seeing a crude representation of your business, fine, but....

• How do you feel when your car insurance company raises your rates because your 3D body scan shows you to be in an obesity bracket positively correlated with higher expectancies of car crashes?
  
  
• Or how do you feel about when your health insurance company denies you coverage for back/neck problems because your 3D body scan from 10 years prior clearly shows you had pre-existing bad posture?
  

"But wait," you say, "they said they wouldn't save or share or match identities to the body scans!"

To which the government replies, "Well, in order to pay for these expensive body scanners that protect you (which by the way, you have said is your number 1 priority), we had to subsidize their costs by selling your biometric information on the open market. By selling this information, we have kept you safe!"

You would probably believe and accept that explanation too, and be completely oblivious to the fact that the selling of the information was their PRIMARY GOAL for putting in the scanners in the first place. Security? Pfff, you think they give a @#$! about your safety? Every attack results in bigger budgets for them to put in place equipment/procedures that better position corporations to make more profits. Wake up.

And if you think for 1 second they aren't going to store/match/share your data and everyone else's to increase corporate profits at your expense, then that makes you a good little sheeple.

[edit on 2-2-2010 by harrytuttle]

Plane Number 1, please.

As a security professional, I know very well that even the illusion of heavy security is enough to deter bad or borderline people from making bad decisions. Those averted decisions are real, however hard to quantify. The seccess of any security program is almost impossible to measure because a basic fact of good security is that it is nearly impossible to measure prevented or averted security incidents. It's kinda like trying to measure how many times you didn't get cancer because you quit smoking and exercised.

Plane 2? Sounds like a ride on a NYC subway line where the cops are forbidden to patrol. No thank you.

I wonder if those people who consider it an invasion of their privacy to be examined by a full body scanner feel the same way during their annual physical? Does a doctor and nurse peering at your exposed flesh threaten you way of life, diminish your freedom, and amount to an undignified invasion of your privacy? Of course not! They are there to keep you alive, happy, and healthy so you can live a long, fruitful life! Why is a security checkpoint designed to detect and neutralize mass murderers any different? It's more likely that people who oppose these checkpoints have internal problems with authority, more than anything else.

Originally posted by JJay55
Not a ridiculous invasion of privacy unless you have something to hide.

Complete fallacy. You are missing the point of what an invasion of privacy is. Don't make me spell it out for you.

Originally posted by JJay55
The chances of nothing happening isn't a statistic you are aware of.

According to reason.com...

"Even if terrorists were able to pull off one attack per year on the scale of the 9/11 atrocity, that would mean your one-year risk would be one in 100,000 and your lifetime risk would be about one in 1300. (300,000,000 ÷ 3,000 = 100,000 ÷ 78 years = 1282) In other words, your risk of dying in a plausible terrorist attack is much lower than your risk of dying in a car accident, by walking across the street, by drowning, in a fire, by falling, or by being murdered."

This explanation sounds reasonable to me.


[edit on 2-2-2010 by kalakdrin]

reply to post by harrytuttle



or maybe...just maybe you are reading too much into things off of a couple lines of words. What do I really have to hide? I sincerely doubt my health insurance is going up because my gut shows on a scanner

But hey don't worry about it right? I'm a sheple (man that word is so worn out) and of course there is no possible way your holyness could be wrong about anything

Like I said...plane 1 for me...and I bet you my rates or anything else never changes.

See you safe folks on plane 1 with the rest of us sheeple who refuse to read to deep into everything

-Kyo

reply to post by KyoZero


It's amazing to me how eager some people are to create a new child porn industry.

OMG!!! someone saw a vague representation of my genitalia!!!

Take a look a what you're calling a vague representation. The pictures you're used to seeing that you're calling "vague" have been color inverted to obscure things. Two or three mouseclicks in photoshop will undo that, and every airport security guard in the world with a camera phone is going to be able to take these home.

Like I said...plane 1 for me

Ok. No problem. Just mail me some nude pictures of you, your family and your children. Especially the children. They eat that stuff up on 4chan.



[edit on 2-2-2010 by LordBucket]

Originally posted by kalakdrin

Originally posted by JJay55
Not a ridiculous invasion of privacy unless you have something to hide.

Complete fallacy. You are missing the point of what an invasion of privacy is. Don't make me spell it out for you.

Originally posted by JJay55
The chances of nothing happening isn't a statistic you are aware of.

According to reason.com...

"Even if terrorists were able to pull off one attack per year on the scale of the 9/11 atrocity, that would mean your one-year risk would be one in 100,000 and your lifetime risk would be about one in 1300. (300,000,000 ÷ 3,000 = 100,000 ÷ 78 years = 1282) In other words, your risk of dying in a plausible terrorist attack is much lower than your risk of dying in a car accident, by walking across the street, by drowning, in a fire, by falling, or by being murdered."

This explanation sounds reasonable to me.


[edit on 2-2-2010 by kalakdrin]

There is no such thing as privacy. What do you think you have that is private?
There was no plan for terrorists to attack until 2010. Your math means nothing.

reply to post by sos37


Hi!

Plane 2 every time.

a) I am pissed off with incompetent secuity rules that seem to change from day to day.....and achieve SFA
b) I am pissed off having to be herded as an animal (which I guess I am)
c) I have ahd to travel by Ryaniar so it makes little difference.....

Peace1

reply to post by LordBucket


dude if you wanna see me naked good luck to you...I am no prize

Frankly I have seen the pictures and no I don't condone child porn so don't you dare point that finger at me. I am a real easy going guy but when someone tells me I am advocating child porn due to a scanner I get real upset. If you weren't meaning me then I apologize but if you were then I find you and your accusation reprehensible.

Now...with a cooler head I ask you this...Let's say I take my child willingly through a scanner when I am asked. The someone takes the photos and does their magic (PS I am a bit of a photoshop guru myself). Who is the perv? Me? The scanner technician? or perhaps maybe the guy doing the actual 'shopping.'

-Kyo