Backscatter

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by Andrea

Who didn't see this coming?

Pat down to ride Greyhound test

This is specifically about classism and racism.

I've taken a lot of Greyhound. As someone who does not own a car and who cannot afford to fly, any time that I want to go somewhere that is within 12 hours of my home - I go there on Greyhound.

Any time that I have crossed the border from Canada to the US via Greyhound I was treated like a criminal - in ways that I was NEVER treated like a criminal when driving across the border or flying over the border. I'm not going to lie - any time I've been on a Greyhound bus 90% or more of the other passengers have been POC. I would guess that 100% of the people on the bus with me (myself included) make under 24k a year, some of us WELL under that.

To be poor or POC and ESPECIALLY to be both poor and POC is to immediately be suspect when dealing with homeland security goons.

[Glenn]

My cousin trained bomb-sniffing dogs and he told me it says a hell of a lot if soldiers in Iraq and the FBI ditched the $100,000 xray scanners in favor of the $8,000 dogs. F*** these scanners. They are unconstitutional and unnecessary, and plain do not work!

[Waldo]

*scratching head*

How is this about classism and racism?

If the exact same things are happening in the airports - where, based on your logic, the white and economically well off are frisked, how does putting the same efforts at bus terminals translate to class and race targeting?

As for being suspect? I'm your average every day non POC appearing, economically privileged masculine appearing woman.

And, as of last night my roll of EVERY. Single. TIME I have flown during the month of November... whether the backscatter machines are in use or not, I have been pulled aside for additional screening. I expect that tomorrow morning at this time I'll be standing with my arms outstretched and having a stranger get friendly with me again.

The latest analysis of the greyhound traveler is 20 years old, so I'm going to guess there's a good chance that the demographic has shifted further toward your numbers, but in 1989 it was 70% of their travelers who earned less than $25k. I seem to recall someone on another site pointing out that there were routes on which airfare was often comparable, if not cheaper, than taking Greyhound. Or perhaps it was Amtrak that I'm thinking of?

Sorry, this particular outrage just doesn't pass the sniff test to me. It's still about money. It's being "tested" to see how much blowback they get. If the blowback is not strong you'll start seeing more and more equipment like the backscatter machines there.

Originally Posted by betenoire

This is specifically about classism and racism.

I've taken a lot of Greyhound. As someone who does not own a car and who cannot afford to fly, any time that I want to go somewhere that is within 12 hours of my home - I go there on Greyhound.

Any time that I have crossed the border from Canada to the US via Greyhound I was treated like a criminal - in ways that I was NEVER treated like a criminal when driving across the border or flying over the border. I'm not going to lie - any time I've been on a Greyhound bus 90% or more of the other passengers have been POC. I would guess that 100% of the people on the bus with me (myself included) make under 24k a year, some of us WELL under that.

To be poor or POC and ESPECIALLY to be both poor and POC is to immediately be suspect when dealing with homeland security goons.

[Glenn]

Testing what? Who chooses the radiation lane or the molestation lane?

[EnderD_503]

It's more about control over the population than passenger safety, and an example of how terrorist threats and western governments benefit each other. The more afraid of "the enemy" a government renders its population, the more the general population is willing to overlook the boots stomping all over their rights. The more western governments invade foreign nations and propagate discrimination, the easier it is for religious extremists to recruit people to their cause.

Right now in Canada these are only in place for flights destined for the United States as far as I know, and not to the EU...which I'm personally thankful for. Just hope it stays that way into next summer, because I would be ready to give up my ticket in order to avoid these things.

[Linus]

It's interesting. I've had to go through the backscatter twice in the past four weeks as part of travels and they were pretty quick and non-invasive. TSA is generally professional.

That said, however, because my plane ticket was still under my previous name I had to bring my name change document with me along with my new passport. It wasn't an issue for TSA until I was leaving IAD (Dulles in DC) to go to LAX. I got pulled out of line and queried on this.

IAD has to have the WORST setup for security screening I've ever seen. Everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) goes through a single TSA screening point (rather than having different ones for different terminals). I didn't have to go through the backscatter but to be pulled aside, asked why my name change was done in 2009 and the ticket reflective of now, blah blah, was humiliating and completely uncalled for. Basically, it nearly outed me and I swear, if I had been asked why I did the name change I would have filed a suit shortly afterwards.

I did notice when I was leaving LAX a few weeks ago they had changed their patdown procedure and were randomly (truly randomly) checking people and describing better what they were doing. I think they did listen and heard what people have said. Not every flight and not everyone will be backscattered. And I have seen that the room is separate (and it is an enclosed room with no windows -- they communicate via radio to the person in the room).

I wish they would do a proper external audit of the security behind them and the procedure of how images are stored but all-in-all, they are not that bad.

[Waldo]

Friends and neighbors... this is why it's "Security Theatre" and not security:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/loaded...qkw=&tqshow=WN

[Corkey]

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qdb6wC0Iz4"]YouTube - Grandma Got Molested At The Airport[/nomedia]

Speaking of political theater, Happy Holidays!