My wife travels as often as I do; I'm sure she'll get groped sooner or later :/

Is there no way around that, then? (i.e., no option for just going through the rad zone?)

If you want a way around it, you drive.
Though it sounds like there are a number of unreasonable search lawsuits coming up, particularly from airline personnel who would have to go through this every day on their way to work-- so it remains to be seen if it survives.

How, pray tell, do you drive from the US to Germany? And what if you are in New York and need to get to LA for business? Multi-day road trip?

Kats - you can get scanned, groped, or both, but once you're on line you don't get to opt out - they're talking about fining the 'don't touch my junk' guy $10k

I'm highly amused that they're scanning pilots - they don't *need* to smuggle crap onboard to gain control of the aircraft!

Are these for everyone, or just part of the "random" searches?

@stratagos: Can you choose one or the other? My understanding was you were by default subject to super-x-ray, and if you said no to that you got your junk touched.

And I've actually heard the fee has gone up (in the books, not just for his case) to $11,000, but I can't remember where I heard that from so I can't get it corroborated here.

I wonder what will happen the first time the super X-ray causes some poor guy to keel over with a heartattack.

I don't think x-rays can do that.

First off, the super X ray has a minimal effect, radiationwise. if you don't like radiation, you sure as hell shouldn't be flying - you get more rads from one flight than most nuke plant workers get in a year.

Theoretically, you can opt for the groping instead of the scanner, but I have an insulin pump, so I *always* get groped even if I get scanned - it's an 'anomaly', after all.

"How, pray tell, do you drive from the US to Germany?"
Er...
That is...
You drive a hovercraft?

Or a duck boat

While they may not, in fact, cause heart conditions, ionizing radiation in the X-ray spectrum (what a back-scatter X-ray uses) damages and mutates both chromosomal DNA and structural proteins in human cells.

Yeah, but how much radiation, comparatively?

@groza - I guess it could work, but you could have just as easily said "bribe the captain to let you drive the cruise ship". :-)

@abge - They sink on the river, what makes you think the docks couldbe sea going?

@strat - Different radiations do different things.

*ducks, not docks

You could also build a dock, then drive across.

Or a "bridge/tunnel" across the Atlantic?

probably not a bridge, but a tunnel could work

I suppose you could build a very large asymmetrical cable stay bridge...

You do realize the ocean reaches depths that would crush a pressurized nuclear submarine, right? Trying to cross the mid-Atlantic ridge would be next to impossible.

@abge - I think the threshold is supposed to be the equivalent of four minutes of flight at 30k feet

@Draug - I'm aware of that, but if someone is *that* edgy about radiation they should refrain from flying. You get a crapload more from living downwind of a coal burning powerplant.

Not that I'm thrilled by my nads being ionized, but I'd prefer to focus on concerns that can't be dismissed by quoting statistics.

I can *deal* with the groping, and I don't blame (most) of the screeners, but, seriously, is this really enhancing security in a useful way? I'm not thinking it is

@Draug

Tunnel Bridge

I don't think either really enhances security. That's what I'm getting at. The needs for "security" has gotten out of hand. I can ship a package with two inert chemicals separated by a wall of glass and a simple glass breaking mechanism via UPS into the US and it would never get caught. But try to carry a pair of nail clippers on a plane...

@stratagos: Sorry, didn't know about the insulin pump. I wonder if my dad (who has a sleep-apnia machine whenever he travels that always results in his bags getting searched) will also always get groped? You know, since clearly the machine is the bomb and he has the detonator in his nads, or something.

And I have to agree, I don't believe it's enhancing security in a useful way at all.

@abge - we need to develop magnetic tube tech and a flexible tube system we could suspend at a fixed depth maintained with automated systems and zip people across as quick as airtravel, or even quicker.

@Draugnar: It's fueled by perceived hysteria... and a perceived need to just throw money at the problem, instead of brainpower. The machine developers have taken advantage of government contracts that come from people who don't really think-- or rather, their thinking is stamped out of them by the other party calling them out for being unpatriotic.

I'm a little disheartened about the whole thing, myself.

Kat +1 - It's just another flavor of the old Cold War. Only now the industry making the cash is the security tech industry, not the weapons, spy, and space tech industries.

Frankly, I'm a little disheartened that it's taken full body scanners for public outrage to come out of the woodwork. Seriously, the security concerns at airports were extreme and completely ineffective way before they brought the whole naked scan or grope thing along. I mean seriously, what was all that bull with the liquids thing? We're so much safer now that we have to carry smaller tubes of toothpaste and shampoo... You can take just as much so long as they're all in smaller containers... But then, it's ok for you to bring lighters on board planes, because god forbid you can't light up a cigarette after you land. I mean shit, you scan the pilots and stewardesses, but they don't give a crap about the caterer or the cabin cleaning crew... there's just no real logic involved. It's a charade, but it's only when people find out that the scanners can see how big their dicks are that people get into an uproar about injustice and inefficacy. =P

@Chrisp - I've been less than thrilled with the whole thing once I couldn't bring a goddam bottle of water through security - but I also travel for business, and don't really have a choice but to suck it up.

Of course, I also drive to DC instead of taking a plane when the need arises (4+ hrs), because it's such a pain in the ass to fly. At least I can drink some flipping soda in my car

@Chrisp - The one that really worries me is that despite all this talk about security, no-one thought to ask about the large sealed packages going into the hold!

Crispaminis is correct. Why scan the pilots? There flying the damn planes, all they have to do is put their plane in a nose dive.

Maybe they enjoy being groped. Like strat does.

The pilots (plural) fly the plane, so if just one of them wants to hijack it, he'll need something to overpower the other pilot and potentially a navigator too. That's why they scan the pilots.

What's to stop the pilot from suckerpunching his colleague? A roll of quarters will make a dandy set of brass knuckles...

A roll of quarters would be detected and probably get questioned. Likewise, most lang distance flights have three people on them in the cockpit. But the stupidity does come in when you consider most cockpits (until Obama's end to the program takes effect) have handguns in them.

Draugnar You should know that one does not need a roll of quarters to take someone out when you take them by surprise, or if you wait till they take a nap. Also at 600mph it's a very short trip into the ground just getting countrol for a minute is all it would take. Than you know every pilot has already had background checks.

The EgyptAir 990 flight was allegedly crashed into the Atlantic by one of the pilots while the other one went to the restroom. I never believed that story, but it's obviously been thought of before.

About a year after 9/11 I was in Venezuala getting a flight from Caracas to Frankfurt. There was pretty intense security with the usual scans and good old excessive groping. A few minutes later, whilst sat bored sick in the departure lounge, Lu (who was seeing me off) wandered over to me and gave me the souvenir that I'd accidently left with her. How did she get through Venezuela's major airport's security, I hear you ask? She walked around it...

Here's a interesting idea. Whatcha think?

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/airport-security-solution-tsa-profile-travelers-prevent-terrorist/story?id=9476997

Couldn't read the story T"unavailable") but there are more and more tales of TSA agent incompetency and such coming out every day. Agents breaking seals on ostomy bags such that the wearere gets urine on themselves and can't clean up until they arte in the air. Breast cancer survivors and others forced to remove their prosthetics in public view or risk being detained until someone can get them a private room and they miss their flight. Callous TSA agents telling them they donKt have to fly as if the Agent was inconvenienced that they had to do their jobs.

Something needs to be done.

basically, it recommends screening everybody by questioning them thoroughly multiple times. They do so at El Al in Isreal, but it does not slow down things anymore than our security and works well. No physical contact.

not recommends, I should say, but discusses

"The best way to protect airplanes isn't with improved technology such as full-body scanners but by profiling and questioning passengers, some aviation security experts say." - according to the opening paragraph of baum's linked article... and yes it works fine.

of course cutting down on carbon emissions is actually the motive behind making air travel more difficult, any conspiracy nut can see that...