TSA scanners « Tikkunista!

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December 17th, 2010 :: Year 7, Issue 43

Dec-17-2010 | Comments (1)

Followups

* TSA Scanners Two stories this week: the first is that the scanners don’t, in fact, detect plastic explosive. Boingboing cheerily reports that “it is very likely that a large (15-20 cm in diameter), irregularly-shaped, cm-thick pancake with beveled edges, taped to the abdomen, would be invisible to this technology, ironically, because of its large volume, since it is easily confused with normal anatomy. Thus, a third of a kilo of PETN, easily picked up in a competent pat down, would be missed by backscatter ‘high technology’.”

Meanwhile Amazon offers, as an Xmas (Christ would have nothing to do with this!) present for the small child in your life, “The Playmobil Security Check Point: Toys & Games” a mini TSA game. The customer reviews are very, very funny: (5,417 of 5,505 people found the following review helpful) I was a little disappointed when I first bought this item, because the functionality is limited. My 5 year old son pointed out that the passenger’s shoes cannot be removed. Then, we placed a deadly fingernail file underneath the passenger’s scarf, and neither the detector doorway nor the security wand picked it up. My son said “that’s the worst security ever!”. …The best thing about this product is that it teaches kids about the realities of living in a high-surveillance society. My son said he wants the Playmobil Neighborhood Surveillance System set for Christmas. I’ve heard that the CC TV cameras on that thing are pretty worthless in terms of quality and motion detection, so I think I’ll get him the Playmobil Abu-Ghraib Interrogation Set instead (it comes with a cute little memo from George Bush).

* Cancún Talks End with Whimper, Not Bang The NY Times says, speaking clearly out of both sides of its mouth: while the measures adopted here may have scant near-term impact on the warming of the planet, the international process for dealing with the issue got a significant vote of confidence. The agreement fell well short of the broad changes scientists say are needed to avoid dangerous climate change in coming decades. But it lays the groundwork for stronger measures in the future, if nations are able to overcome the emotional arguments that have crippled climate change negotiations in recent years. So nothing happened, but we can talk more. Great. Praise the Lord and pass the sandbags….

3. Those Scanners

Nov-26-2010 | Comments (1)

Bird’s Eye: Last week’s Tikkunista was slightly ahead of the curve in looking at the problems with and reactions to TSA scanners and pat-downs. Lots of followups all over this week (perhaps most importantly some further reasons to doubt the safety of the backscatter x-rays) But the most interesting material looks at the larger implications of the issue, and offers ideas and issues that seemed to go beyond “followup” and warrant a section of their own: Mondoweiss on what the scanners imply about how we look at security and “the other”; Juan Cole looking at the end of cheap accessible air travel; the Philosoraptor looking at how terrorists see us.

* The Israelification of America Mondoweiss

Consider the real outrages of the last decade that, simply because they were done in the name of national security, the majority of Americans found tolerable:

a global war on terrorism that led to massive increases in defense spending, the creation of multiple new intelligence and security agencies, and Washington’s enslavement to fear-based politics — that was OK;
with disregard for international law, the invasion of Iraq on a false pretext — that was OK;
the kidnapping, secret imprisonment and torture of individuals most of whom had nothing to do with 9/11 — that was OK;
the authorization of warrantless wiretaps — that was OK;
the implementation of a remote-controlled assassination program — that was OK;
in short, the normalization of war crimes all of which were deemed justifiable because of 9/11 — that was OK;
but “don’t touch my junk” — there are limits to what Americans will tolerate.

Living inside a fortress and defining ones existence in terms of threats posed by eternal enemies, is a good way of justifying spending more and more on increasingly elaborate fortifications. But those who invest deeply in this mindset and who profit from its perpetuation, have the least interest in exploring what we need to understand most: why our enemies think the way they do. Delve into that question, and the notion of eternal enmity quickly evaporates — thus the perpetuation of the myth that we are under threat not because of what we do but because of who we are.

* Looking for PETN, Scanning Grandma at the Airport, and the Future of Air Travel Juan Cole Informed Comment

I doubt it is possible to outlaw or control PETN. The only alternative to looking for it systematically on air passengers and in cargo would be to just take a chance that no al-Qaeda operatives will be able successfully to detonate a PETN based explosive on an airliner.

And, you have to wonder whether air travel was not anyway a bubble. It depends on inexpensive fuel, which probably won’t be with us for long. It has a very big carbon imprint, which may soon be illegal. And it is vulnerable to low-tech chemical sabotage. Our generation perhaps, and the next one almost certainly, will have the unprecedented experience of having their world become larger and less accessible, after two centuries during which it shrank and seemed conquerable.

* Philosoraptor on TSA (cartoon)