Virtual Strip Search

I think the joke is on the TSA screeners that will be doing the viewing. Depending on their gender and orientation, I say that the majority of travelers that a screener would view in a day would not be a pleasurable experience! All jokes aside, I do believe this to be excessive, yet another step in the wrong direction for personal privacy in the US.

Should I bend over and grab my ankles while I'm at it? I think this is carrying things a bit far. I'd like my privacy back, please. Yet another reason to vote for Bob Barr - the privacy advocating Libertarian candidate. http://www.BobBarr2008.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a18zXWV6Cxw

This is another pebble in the shoe of the traveler. The discussion it generated is a beautiful piece of satire.

whats next? are they gonna have them at schools and hospitals? Just another way the govt. treats us like animals!

so, is this the booth that shoots little blasts of air on you? then I was asked to go through it as dallas fortworth. Still us ladies always have the "natural safe". I'm waiting for the complimentry pap-smear!!

I would rather that than be searched which is never nice

Yea this could help airport security i guess, but honestly, this is more of the government and media focusing on the wrong issues. Terrorism is terrible, but it's not that big of a problem in the scheme of things when compared with poverty, world-wide health crises, healthcare, global warming and the energy crises. Waste of money and a distraction from our real problems.

I think thats just nasty...

if they wanna see me naked, i'm open to it ;)

With all the $$$ spent on machines such as this one, you'd think the TSA and airlines would pay more attention to the upkeep and upgrading of the airplanes. That'll help make air travel safer too...

9/11 brought many changes. If you are going to fly, there are restrictions. This isn't a government office, this is private enterprise and it is part of the price we pay for the convenience and carbon emissions of flying.

As long as they call me the next morning, if not I'll feel used and abused.

I would buy the Scan from Paris Hilton.

I've personally experienced this before and it's really not that bad. I didn't feel invaded at all whatsoever. I didn't even know what was going on. I just stood there, followed the directions and was on my way. I never saw the person who got to see me 'naked' and they didn't see me either. And it's not likely that someone is going to take a picture of a half assed black and white naked picture on a computer of someone you can't even recognize. And God forbid someone did, what the hell would they do with it?

Personally, I'd rather go through that machine than have someone pat me down. If that's what it takes to keep our planes safe, then so be it.

This is outrageous. Flying is already incredibly safe and theses machines are unlikely to make it any safer. Between this out-of-hand security nonsense, the skyrocketing prices, and the ever-growing list of a la carte charges, I think I'm done with air travel.

As a mother of two who spends hours in the airport twice every month, I have serious concerns about this new technology. How old does a person have to be to avoid this technology being used on them? My daughter is seven and flies unaccompanied - they will scan her like this over my dead body, I don't care who they think they're saving!
I would love to be able to thumb my nose at the TSA and avoid air travel, but then my child would never see her father. For some of us there is no choice, but I'll be damned if I allow strangers to look at my daughter this way.

honestly i think this is one step closer from us being sodimized by our government. they can just say its for our safety, which would give them all power to then violate of our constitutional amendments.

Hooray for making people the lab rats of new technology,

a) "Is it harmful ?"
b) "I don't know lets test it on humans at the airport."
a) "Word."

That's fine. It really doesn't matter to me. I can choose to fly or not to fly. It's not like I am forced to walk through the machine every day to get to work or school. That would be a different story.

i don't really travel enough to care, but aren't those who do travel often find themselves surrendering their privacy everyday....and at a price? perhaps one may think about the other end and consider the fact that this is a "calculated precaution" intended for our own good.

They say the images are protected, but not from a user with a cell phone camera. it's just another invasion of privacy. Since its needed i don't mind.

I would rather sail across the ocean then let the government scan my body just so I can fly overseas. It starts here and slides down to a much scary police state.

I don't understand what they are supposedly "protecting" us from. Terrorists? Because that is not the real threat. Us letting the government step in and take more control over our freedom after every major disaster is the problem. Go to YouTube and watch Zeitgeist the Movie: World Trade Center parts 1-4.

Oh no! I'll be leaving a trail of airport security guys with penis envy everywhere I go.

"1984" was never meant to be a manual.

Those who sleep in a democracy will wake up in a dictatorship.

i feel the same way about the airport seeing me naked as i do seeing myself naked. i don't really care. i don't have anything to hide, be it weapons or body parts. i just think they're pushing it a little when they could have developed the machine to locate metals on the body rather than create an actual 3d physical map of your body.

I want to know what those that protest really have to hide. Or perhaps it's what they DON'T have that's causing the issue.

Personally, I love the idea of total strangers being required by the terms of their employment to gaze at my junk. Maybe I'll pack a hard salami down my trousers just to mess with em...

I am not an exhibitionist and it is kind of awkward, but as long as the new machine helps to ensure the safety of passengers, who cares. I seriously doubt anyone is going to get any pleasure out of this, so it really is nothing more than a job.

Let me know when they have this in a portable version integrated into a set of glasses...

this was posted months ago. its not harmful. and you can refuse. get over it people.

Have any of you who like the idea of this virtual strip search ever read any of the personal stories of those who work FOR TSA?????

I wouldn't trust ANY of those people for ANY REASON. You are telling me that they can be trusted to be professional? You telling me that they can be trusted to not inappropriately take photos??? You telling me that some schmoe off the street can be hired to do something that most doctors do not even do??? Sure, the imager doesn't save photos...but cell phones sure do.

I would bet money that if this actually goes live across the US that within the 18 months, there will be a number of outrageous actions by TSA screeners and/or misuse by them.

The way I see it...

The screener who sees the body scan at their station never sees "you", you're walled off, obfuscated, and their hi-tech job shows them body scan after body scan for an entire shift, with the occasional hitting a button and clicking a location to have the face-to-face screeners investigate you with sticks, chemicals, rubber gloves, and other weird things you're thankful their not touching you with if you pass the body scan.

Awww... They're taking all the fun out of strip searches. Strip searches are the closest thing that I get to sex.

guys guys guys.... calm down..... look at the pictures... they are in GRAYSCALE... you cant exactly jack off on that.. plus how you SEEN America 2day? most people are fat or ugly .. (sorry).. you may think ur the next jessica alba but most likely you're not... so after being exposed to thousands of fatty pictures.. i dont think tsa security are going to enjoy most of the experience... and so what if your insecure about less-than-normal penis size or i just mentioned it up there ..ur fat ass or whatever....they're not going to remember who you were... your not going to be walking down the street and have an-ex agent come up to you and say...
""u were guy with a 2 mm penis.... good job man u set a record!!!"

plus i rather have the 30-second scan than a guy come up to ans start rubbing himself against me all over for more than 2 min.......

i'd like to see michelle's pix after she went though. oh yea..

I wanna say that United Airlines has something like this. It actually looks like the clear and blue American Express card, and you just step into this big white step thing.
I don't know if this is the technology they used, but I imagine it to be.

If you wanna see my nuts, you're gonna have to buy me dinner first!!! haha

Isnt this the real reason of high ticket prices?

Next in airport security - we are going to taze you until you fall unconscious then we will pile you up like cattle and get you to wherever the heck you need to go.

Safer is a joke. All that sh!t is is an illusion of safety. I can still think of a million ways to get illegal things and things that make things go boom onto a plane.
Next week I'm so getting a letter from the rcmp about that.

soon we are going to have to fly naked.

This is scarey, invasive and down right rude....they won't be satisfied untill we are all traveling stark naked with our destinations and vital statistics tatooed to our ass.
Enough to make you sick....they are terrorizing our entire traveling population for some threat that they should have been able to prevent in the first place. Maybe that 490 billion should have been spent teaching the administration to listen to the intelligence which would have thwarted the 911 attacks, instead of ignoring it. This is a huge waste of taxpayers money....bet we can all guess which good buddies are making a killing off of the secutity devices they terrorize us with.

Highway fatalities account for more than 94% of all transportation deaths.

Lets spend money bringing that number down rather than this bull shit. 99.99% of people who go through security don't have anything more dangerous than liquid soap or nail files.

I'd venture to guess that the stress inflicted by all this crap is worse for people's health than any terrorist attack.

The drive to the airport and the crappy fast food are the real threats to most of us.

Plus screeners are just going to snap photo's of people with their cell phones and post them on the internet anyways.

If the image cant be transmitted in anyway, how can we have seen the examples shown to us?

This is probably a relatively crude beginning with this kind of technology, and as the future rolls around there'll be more sophisticated machines that only scan for the information necessary. It may be uncomfortable for to some, but we have to start somewhere, especially when it means saving hundreds or even thousands of inocent lives.

so the terrorists stick the weapon/ explosive/ drugs up their ass and you still can't catch them. BTW I think the reporter would have been a better choice for the scan than the fat old lady ; )

I have traveled many times each year within the USA since 9-11, and I don't feel any safer than I had before. The only thing that I do feel is more annoyed, impatient, and taxed for the wonderful conveniences of Homeland Security. This is a complete waste of resources.

flying used to be classy.

I don't know how I really feel about this. The idea of this scanner does seem to be less intrusive because instead of standing behind glass in the middle of the airport and removing your sweater, belt, shoes, etc and being patted down (which has happened to me and it was not fun), you're essentially standing for a few moments in a telephone booth.

How are you safer if it's random?

They can knock their fool selves out if I don't have to wait to get on a safer plane. I really don't see how anyone has a problem with this. It's a much prettier picture than the one of them picking up pieces of you on the evening news.

X-raped, you can see my body but not my face. How violating, not only are you seen naked but in the name of "safety" you are only viewed as a body without any of the conditions(emotions, rights to privacy) born through humanity. I believe that airport security has reached a new low. This is infuriating. This seems enough to motivate people not to fly.

I think the terrorists already won.....

So we're sacrificing our right to privacy for saftey...
Pretty sure they can monitor in a less intrusive manner.

that gray scale sure is sexy...

They should pay us for the peep show.

I hope they get a real good picture of my ass, cause they can lick it!

I've seen it @ SFO & JFK.
I guess they make it fair with making the bodies somewhat anonymous, but the machine alone is a little tanning booth freaky..

note to self: hide explosives in hair

Just one more abuse on your liberty.

At least they give you the right to refuse it, but otherwise it's totally invasive and stupid.

I can't stand to fly anymore, those people disgust me and they don't make anything safer.

So how do I become the security guard who works the computers? I’m already really good at looking at naked people on a computer now I can get paid for it! I love home land security

That’s crazy! As long as it is clearly displayed what is happening to you, then there is really nothing wrong if you don’t like then don’t o to places where they have this form of security.

I am sure that they would be disgusted, viewing me on the machine. Otherwise, I don't care what they see! Of course their individual screens should be posted daily for public review!

hmm. How much do these machines cost, I wonder.

This could help with drug trafficking as well!