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Home Front: WoT
Next step for body scanners could be trains, boats, metro
2010-11-24
Yellow comments from KBK, who submitted this post about when I did.
The next step in tightened security could be on U.S. public transportation, trains and boats. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists will continue to look for U.S. vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary.
Unless we, you know, kill the terrorists ...
"[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through," Napolitano said in an interview that aired Monday night on "Charlie Rose."

"I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime. So, what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?"

Napolitano's comments, made a day before one of the nation's busiest travel days, come in the wake of a public outcry over newly implemented airport screening measures that have been criticized for being too invasive.
The secretary has defended the new screening methods, which include advanced imaging systems and pat-downs, as necessary to stopping terrorists. During the interview with Rose, Napolitano said her agency is now looking into ways to make other popular means of travel safer for passengers and commuters.
Why not just close all public transportation? That would make it safe ...
Napolitano's comments were in response to the question: "What will they [terrorists] be thinking in the future?" She gave no details about how soon the public could see changes in security or about what additional safety measures the DHS was entertaining.

Napolitano said she hoped the U.S. could get to a place in the future where Americans would not have to be as guarded against terrorist attacks as they are and that she was actively promoting research into the psychology of how a terrorist becomes radicalized.
You might just ask the Israelis; they seem to know a thing or two about this ...
"The long-term [question] is, how do we get out of this having to have an ever-increasing security apparatus because of terrorists and a terrorist attack?" she said. "I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful."
If you don't know, you are way out of your depth. Let me spell it out: 99.9% are Muslims who have been indoctrinated by al Qaeda. 0.1% it's a guy named Timothy McVeigh, and he's dead. How about focusing on the 99.9% and lay off grandma, the kids, and stop groping American's "crotchural areas" with your filthy gloves?

I will say, that since you asked that initial question, that you may be waking up to the fact that there's a better way.

DHS and intelligence officials are not as far along in understanding that process as they would like, Napolitano said, adding that until that goal is reached, steps need to be put in place to ensure the public's safety.

"We don't know much," she said. "If you were to try and devise a template about what connects this terrorist to this terrorist and how they were raised and what schools they went to and their socioeconomic status, or this or that, it's all over the map.
No, it's not. The template is al Qaeda, the connection is Islamic jihad, and the map is primarily the Mid-East. Any honest person admits this. Only politically correct people such as yourself claim ignorance and confusion. The rest of us know you people for what you are, liars and fools, since we know all the information you claim you lack is readily available inside the US government.
"I think there's some important work that's being done on that but ... the Secretary of Homeland Security cannot wait for that."
Posted by:Steve White

#17  I suspect the scanners are Tetrahertz scanners.
I could be wrong.
However, I remember my dad - the reverend - burying far too many from the above ground nuclear tests. Nasty cancers without the Soviets firing a shot.
Posted by: Water Modem   2010-11-24 22:35  

#16  A valid protest might be to wrap one's jewels in tinfoil.

God help you if the beam gets stuck there, though.
Posted by: gorb   2010-11-24 22:23  

#15  I would like to know the precise spectrum of the x-rays used in the backscatter systems.

The testicles of a six year old are perhaps half an inch long and very close to the surface.

While most of the energy is dumped in the skin, the rest is deposited at shallow depth.

It's unreasonable to have Compton electrons rattling around the dna in the kid's testes. It's the worst time of life for that.

I would like to know exactly how these machines have been assured to be safe against that risk.
Posted by: KBK   2010-11-24 22:09  

#14  As a fair skinned Australian I have had a lifetime quota of skin damaging radiation and then some. Two skin cancers surgically removed , and in my last three visits to the skin cancer clinic in Sydney I have had 45 pre-cancerous thingys burnt off. No way in the world will I allow a full body x-ray.
Posted by: Grunter   2010-11-24 17:17  

#13  The template is al Qaeda, the connection is Islamic jihad, and the map is primarily the Mid-East. Any honest person admits this. Only politically correct people such as yourself claim ignorance and confusion. The rest of us know you people for what you are, liars and fools
This bears repeating because it summarizes the issues perfectly. I'd just leave out "Islamic" since all Jihad is Islamic by definition.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2010-11-24 15:27  

#12  Let the terrorist get on, they'll never get off again, except in body bags.
Look, the would-be terrorists of late obviously don't expect to get off the plane alive, whether or not they succeed. They have all been trying to blow themselves up and the plane with it.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2010-11-24 15:22  

#11  For 9 years after 9/11 this groping of Americans was not a part of Homeland Security. No hi-jackings or attacks in regards to airlines. Proof beyond doubt that this is not about security.

Therefore, this has everything to do with de-sensitization of the American public to the new regime's grotesque treatment of Americans.
Posted by: Hupath Bucket8583   2010-11-24 14:53  

#10  This is the same Homeland [in]security secretary who thinks that rednecks, veterans, and tea partiers are more of a threat than Al Quaeda.

At present they probably are. Which ain't sayin' much. :-)
Posted by: gorb   2010-11-24 12:33  

#9  You are, of course, assuming their goal is the make it actually safer Redneck.

I don't believe that's the case. This is the same Homeland [in]security secretary who thinks that rednecks, veterans, and tea partiers are more of a threat than Al Quaeda.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2010-11-24 09:36  

#8  OK, far enough, seems to me they;d be a whole lot better off issuing each and every flier a gun, loaded with low velocity had rubber bullets, (Goes through people, but not aircraft skin) and seal the pilots area with titanium bulkheads.
Let the terrorist get on, they'll never get off again, except in body bags.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2010-11-24 09:26  

#7  You know, my feeling is that the Obama Administration isn't just shooting for ending up in jail with nice long jail terms, they're hoping to go out the way of Mussolini.

I kind of like New Jersey's approach of opening these guys up to criminal charges for doing this stuff.
Posted by: Silentbrick - Lost Drill Bit Division - Halliburton   2010-11-24 09:00  

#6  Ol' Man-et forgot the highway on-ramps, taxis and my kid's trike.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie   2010-11-24 08:51  

#5  This must be the Bush fascist police state that I heard about for 8 years, oh wait.....
Posted by: Snark   2010-11-24 08:36  

#4  Yeah right.
And then what? Shopping malls, cinemas, crowded streets?

I have an idea. Let's wait for global warming, then we can all go nekkid
Posted by: European Conservative   2010-11-24 07:52  

#3  Probably not much. A paper whose link was posted here Monday indicated that pretty much the full dose was trapped in the skin, which also suggests that even though the dose was small, the concentration in the skin was higher than you might think. Scientists have concerns over these effects inducing skin and breast cancer, especially in frequent fliers. Of course, the WH is stiff-arming them in order to protect Americans. I guess risk of non-violent death at our own hands is acceptable vs. violent death at foreign hands.

Oh well, at least Chertoff probably already took his cut.
Posted by: gorb   2010-11-24 00:44  

#2  At the frequency those body scanners work at you are risking unzipping DNA...
It sounds like it is potentially more dangerous than the terrorist.
What does it do to a woman's eggs or fetus?
Posted by: Water Modem   2010-11-24 00:29  

#1  Does The Hill get their crap from InfoWars? /sarc

If the new grope-downs and nekkid scanners weren't enough, this development ought to make Private Eye ecstatic.
Posted by: gorb   2010-11-24 00:13  

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