I do not much like excessive X-rays myself,so I would be opting for the
alternative method, Bur I would much rather the idiots perfect a sniffer
setup.
They are not using X-rays on people!
At least not in the civilised world! The scanners are at microwave or
terahertz wavelength and are pretty impressive in terms of seeing small
concealed items. They saw my credit card in a pocket with no trouble.
The guy running the scanner is in a control room away from the machine
and unless he gets off on cylindrical projections of people he isn't
really looking at a recognisable nude image. The guy at the gate is
connected by earphone to the remote viewer and very accurately asks to
see whatever is being concealed. The kit is very expensive.
Then, you could put 25 people in a room and sniff it, and if it is OK,
they go thru standard security. If the sniffer goes off, Houston has a
problem.
The main explosive threat has far too low a vapour pressure for this to
work. The terrorists are ahead of us on this one - that is why they have
closed potential loopholes for carry-on as far as possible.
The X-ray thing is too invasive. Not so much the hardware being used,
but the piggery behind it. The problem is with the 'baseline' pig model.
The what? US airport security has always been staffed by a bunch of ill
educated thugs and morons - that was what made 9/11 so easy. You had
most of the right gear but didn't bother to train them how to use it.
Immediately post 9/11 the contrast between US airport "security" which
was all bluff and bluster and competent UK security was very evident.
Part of the theatre in US airport "security" is completely bogus and is
just inconvenience without any substantial benefit. But it was done to
placate a paranoid public that was running scared and not flying at all
post 9/11. TSA is crap, but then so were the myopic drudges working for
private contractors that they replaced or supplemented.
Threat objects getting through has increased slightly in the USA even
though civility is much worse. And if you think it is bad as a US
citizen try travelling there with a foreign passport.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/26/airport_security_failures/
They need to go back to baseline peace officer, which hasn't been seen
in over half a century.
It is called policing by consent. We still have it in the UK and it
works pretty well. Airport security at Heathrow pulls Merkins with
rounds of live ammo in their jacket pocket and knives in carryon bags.
Our police are polite and the scanners do their job very well. It
doesn't even make the news any more. Here's one from a while back:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Sky-News-Archive/Article/20080641119227
The answer is to get rid of the pigs that declare themselves so
honorable, and smart, when it is quite clear that they are not. Their
mindset has been off for decades. Stop buying new pig cars every other
year and buy some damned sniffer technology!
Hell, put a dog in front of the sampler hose. Do a room full at a time.
No smell, no worry.
Unfortunately that is not true. The terrorists explosive of choice has a
very low vapour pressure so you have to do a swab test. And it looks
like the toner cartridge bomb was clean room work hermetically sealed -
the first test of the UK one did not detect any trace of explosives.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11664412
Back to the metal detector for the rest. Don't fail that.
They are a bit of a joke too. Taking belts off is another bogus
requirement most scanners will ignore a few tens of grams of metal.
This is not the case at gold refineries where the scanners and your path
through them are designed to measure the weight of mercury amalgam
fillings in your teeth to a fraction of a gram going in and coming out.
Regards,
Martin Brown