[iamzack]

I'd prefer the scanners to friskings easy. I don't see how a woman feeling me up is any better than a dude.

[NGTM-1R]

I don't think so. I get the feeling that there are laws regarding the control of who can look at you naked without your consent.

You're assuming that the presence of a ticket in your hand when you know such scanners are in use will not legally count as consent. That is an extremely large "if".

[Blue Lion]

I don't think so. I get the feeling that there are laws regarding the control of who can look at you naked without your consent.

Is it really considered naked though?

[General Battuta]

I think that's an issue that has yet to be resolved.

I'm not making any assumptions as to how it will be resolved, merely saying that controlling the right to look at someone's image is not a giant step backwards for rights.

I don't think so. I get the feeling that there are laws regarding the control of who can look at you naked without your consent.

Is it really considered naked though?

No idea, I didn't make a single statement about the scanner. Just about laws about looking at people naked without their consent.

[Flipside]

Why has no one mentioned the person viewing the images sitting in a separate room and being unable to see the actual people? I see no mention of that, either that it's done that way in whatever country Flipside is talking about or that it's not done that way, even though that's the #1 detail that comes up every time on the subject of these scanners.

Because in many ways, it's irrelevant, politicians have been repeating this ad nauseum, but it really doesn't make a difference, otherwise it's re-writing the rules on personal privacy, you don't have to be in the same room to invade someone's privacy.

@Blue Lion, exactly, that's why I'm writing to my Politician, to try and get clarification on the rules and regulations these people will have to abide by. Sharon has no problem with the matter if she knows that a female is operating the machine, but would feel like she was being violated (to use her own words) if a man was doing it. Old fashioned, perhaps, but, as I said earlier, mine is only a case of uneasiness, there are also situations out there such as religious sects etc where such a thing is not only embarassing, it's actually considered sinful, what measures are going to be put in place to protect against that? Nothing has been forthcoming yet.

Put another way, you are attempting to control who is allowed to look at you.

No, I am attempting to control who is allowed to look at my wifes naked body, that's not a step backwards at all, it's being a human being, and if security starts to take my humanity, then,quite frankly, what's the point?


It's a thin line being walked between the rights of the individual and national security, whilst the protection of all on the plane is paramount, we have to be very careful not to lose sight of the very freedoms, rights and privacies we are aiming to protect.

[iamzack]

What if the woman working the machine is gay? Then what makes her different from a man?

That's why I don't get it. XP

[Flipside]

Sharon wouldn't be bothered by that to be honest zack, I don't think a gay woman can realistically be defined as 'no different from a man', that's a pretty odd definition.

[NGTM-1R]

I'm not making any assumptions as to how it will be resolved, merely saying that controlling the right to look at someone's image is not a giant step backwards for rights.

But it is, according to numerous court rulings. The paparazzi wouldn't exist without it. 

It's a thin line being walked between the rights of the individual and national security, whilst the protection of all on the plane is paramount, we have to be very careful not to lose sight of the very freedoms, rights and privacies we are aiming to protect.

This is a public setting. Your reasonable expectation of privacy is void. Courts have already ruled such on dozens of other forms of surveillance. Similar surveillance mechanisms that could look through walls were ruled legal years ago.

This argument doesn't have a legal leg to stand on it.

[NGTM-1R]

Sharon wouldn't be bothered by that to be honest zack, I don't think a gay woman can realistically be defined as 'no different from a man', that's a pretty odd definition.

Then why exactly is she upset, if not for the sexual connotations of being looked at by a man, for which purposes a gay woman is more or less the same? Zack's right here.

[Flipside]

Legal leg to stand on? I'm not taking this to court, I'm trying to define some basic level of decency and rights for the people who will be examined by these things. There's considerably more to the world, and to humanity than 'legal legs'.

As for the 'gay woman' thing, go up to a Lesbian and accuse her of being 'just like a man' because of her sexual preferences. I'll speak to you when you get out of hospital.

You seem to be of the opinion thay no loss of personal privacy is too great for the sake of security, that's more than a bit troubling.

[General Battuta]

I'm uncomfortable with putting this much pressure on Flipside and Sharon. They aren't under any obligation to explain themselves to anybody.

[headdie]

i think the issue that needs to be clarified here is whether the image on screen is an image of the person, yes i know the image is generated from a scan of the person but what is generated is an image that shows an outline of a person with some outlining of larger areas of the body with some skin penetration in thin areas like the face showing parts of the skull.  

On another angle if you put 3 images generated from this of three people with similar body shape would you be able to tell them apart?

[Flipside]

It's ok GB, I did ask opinions, admittedly, I was hoping to hear more about people's opinions on the scanners themselves than accusations that Sharon and I should 'get used to it', considering I made it clear in my first post, and re-iterated later that my main concern wasn't with the devices, but with the rules regarding operating them, but, I wonder, how many men here would feel comfortable with having their partners nude body examined by someone hidden behind a wall, without knowing anything about what is actually going on back there or about what rules they are adhering to.

@headdie, I understand what you are saying, but I think personal privacy is not really a question of whether you look like someone else, so much as it is about personal space and respect for the individual.

[headdie]

It's ok GB, I did ask opinions, admittedly, I was hoping to hear more about people's opinions on the scanners themselves than accusations that Sharon and I should 'get used to it', considering I made it clear in my first post, and re-iterated later that my main concern wasn't with the devices, but with the rules regarding operating them, but, I wonder, how many men here would feel comfortable with having their partners nude body examined by someone hidden behind a wall, without knowing anything about what is actually going on back there or about what rules they are adhering to.

@headdie, I understand what you are saying, but I think personal privacy is not really a question of whether you look like someone else, so much as it is about personal space and respect for the individual.

* headdie cringes for the slam at how conceptual at what he is saying

but at the same time if you cant identify a person from this system how has a person privacy been invaded? as a society identity has become the representation of privacy.  I know there are some element of privacy that cant be easily (if at all) explained in words and it is somewhere in that soup the key to the answer to of if this is a good thing or not.

[Rian]

Actually, it occurs to me that the group most threatened by these scans is transgendered folks whose gender identification doesn’t match their physical characteristics. This kind of scan could put them at risk for harassment or worse, and I think that we need to respect the fact that some people might be legitimately threatened by such exposure. Through I personally do not feel threatened by the images these scanners produce, I would wholeheartedly support greater protection for people who have a lot more to lose than I do.

[Titan]

When I first read that the first thing that came to my head were of a couple of office workers getting drunk in the copy room, one of the them going unconscious, falling on a scanner, and then woke up in the morning to find the picture being circulated all around the office.

...

In other news,

[Flipside]

Exactly, it all boils down to that mess of emotions known as 'humanity', and that includes protectiveness of our mate, in various forms. Whilst I'm willing to make sacrifices for the greater good, I won't sacrifice things that make me human, otherwise I am losing the very thing I'm supposed to be defending. It doesn't take much compromise to come to a moderately acceptable solution, but the lack of information concerns me greatly.

[General Battuta]

Well, I have to say I'm fine with it if my partner is fine with it, and she is. But I don't ask that everyone else feel that way.

[Blue Lion]

Exactly, it all boils down to that mess of emotions known as 'humanity', and that includes protectiveness of our mate, in various forms. Whilst I'm willing to make sacrifices for the greater good, I won't sacrifice things that make me human, otherwise I am losing the very thing I'm supposed to be defending. It doesn't take much compromise to come to a moderately acceptable solution, but the lack of information concerns me greatly.

Keeping body parts from the eyes of others isn't what makes you human.

[Flipside]

I didn't say it was, I said protectiveness of our partners and compassion towards their concerns is. Empathy, it's a very human trait.

I'm not really asking that everyone have a problem with it, but there still has to be consideration given to those who do have concerns, otherwise we are backtracking on years of progress, an answer along the lines of 'tough luck',to those people, to me, suggests that the feelings and concerns of those who are not 'with us' are losing importance, and if that's the case, we aren't fighting oppressive regimes, we are creating them.