The Federalist Papers were not anecdotes. They were philosophy. Anecdotes must be true to be of any consequence, so the identity of the author helps to verify the anecdote. Philosophy just has to be correct, which makes the identity of the writer unimportant.
Journalism has a long history of using anonymous sources so knowing the source is not a necessary item. In a lot of ways, I don't see as much distinction as you do between anecdotes and philosophy particularly with the writings of people who were talking about governing people.
I think in aggregate, it helps. And it's hard to not be anonymous when you can be put on a black list.
It's not like you're converting anecdotes to data in the typical sense. It's more that it illustrates the kind of abuse that can happen, and why people are so concerned.
In some ways, it beats harping on ideals of privacy when you're dealing with organizations who are concerned with nothing but pure pragmatism. You can draw connections from these incidents to the ideals to show that these aren't isolated incidents, but a pattern that emerges when we ignore some ideals to pursue others.
It's similar to the "bad apples" excuse applied to other disciplines -- yeah, you can say that a majority of police officers or investment bankers aren't total douchebags, but enough are that you have to look into why and what you should do about the problem. And the only way that happens is by pointing out particular incidents as they happen, over and over and over again.
Wait... why are we having people do this anyway? Backscatter scans would be perfect if it wasn't for the privacy problem, so why aren't we using image processing software to look for objectionable objects etc instead of people?
Reading it firmly shifted my objection from one based on privacy to one based on safety. Therac-25 wasn't that long ago, after all. And, of course, let's not forget shoe fitting fluoroscopes.
Let's follow this line of reasoning. Suppose your image recognition software noticed something it thought was suspicious. What are you going to do about it? Have a human look at the backscatter picture? Do a pat-down? Either way, you're cutting down on the privacy invasion, but not eliminating it.
That's probably worthwhile, but I doubt it'll make people feel much better about the machines, and it'll piss off the people who will see it as backing down on airport security.
Do it, prove that it works, get a political or corporate sponsor for your product to roll it out, and help to solve this growing war between personal liberty and government security.
People distrust technology. Even in cases where it's more reliable than a human (and I'm not sure this would be one), there's an inherent mistrust of machines making decisions.
Even if this anonymous post is completely fictional, I am certain this exact scenario plays out every single day at various US airports. Why would it not?
A simple improvement would be to have separate scanning machines for males and females with a same sex screener.
Also, a collection of x-ray scanner pictures of passengers of all ages and genders should be posted by the security line so everyone in line can make up their own mind if they want to be scanned or would prefer to opt out for manual screening.
All the hoopla about "same-sex screeners" is so 1950s. The real solution is to dispense with screening procedures which are so invasive that sexualization becomes an issue.
The other solution is to lose the irrational fear of others seeing one's body. It would make me uncomfortable too, but that doesn't mean it's rational. The backscatter machines seem like less of an inconvenience than taking off your shoes and putting them back on every time you walk into an airport. If they actually do make things safer and don't cause any health issues, I don't see a problem with them.
No, you are missing the point. I have absolutely no problem with nudity. Really: I go to hot springs and cavort naked with random strangers all the time.
There is a much more profound philosophical issue here, and that is that the government should not have the freedom to conduct invasive searches with impunity. This is fundamentally engrained in the constitution, but as is its wont, technology has raced past our existing legal framework. We need to fundamentally re-examine the sort of society in which we wish to live in an age where almost any conceivable sort of search is made trivial.
Where does it end? I contend that, if we simply acquiesce to these scanners and allow them to be installed in every airport, that will be but the tip of the iceberg. You will wake up some day in the near future and find these installed in every courthouse, train station, bus terminal, Federal building in the land. From there it's but a short leap to see them popping up at retail establishments, sporting events, movie theaters, and every other facet of your day-to-day life. Just like that, a privacy which nobody even thought to care about--the ability to conceal things on your person--has vanished into thin air.
Where does it end? By your very logic, if the government had a machine that could read minds, you would be for it. Yet something tells me you would find that completely abhorrent.
Agreed, it's not about the nudity, it's about the nonconsent. Just like there are unconscionable contracts, there are certain rights that shouldn't be subject to forfeiture solely so I can travel. My right to choose who sees/touches my body falls under that.
Comparing the costs of allowing the government to see me naked and the supposed benefit of allowing the government to see everyone naked before getting on a plane, I think the benefits come out on top. The mind-reading scenario doesn't fare as well. I'd rather let planes occasionally get blown up than require the government to read everyone's mind before getting on planes. However, if the government seeing everyone naked can save a lot of lives, I think it's worth it.
The potential damage from unauthorized weapons or explosives being brought into a courthouse, bus terminal or federal building isn't very high and might not be worth the cost of reduced privacy. Train stations, perhaps, depending on the capacity of the trains and how many people one terrorist could take out. Retail establishments have competition, so even if they thought it would be a good idea (which I'd disagree with), they'd go out of business.
Where does it end? When the costs no longer justify the benefits.
If you do the math out, starting from the FDA's own numbers (1/80,000,000 likelihood of deadly cancer per screening) and working it out for the 800,000,000 person-flights taken every year, the "lives saved" benefit doesn't seem to exist, and this is even /before/ I bring up that even if cancer doesn't kill you, it can still be devastating, costing large sums of money an years of your life to only half recover from.
Seriously: hardly anyone is killed by terrorism in this country, and it isn't because of backscatter x-ray machines (obviously, as they didn't exist before). All of the plots that the TSA talks about as success stories were handled by intelligence before they even got to the airport, and most cases of airline-related terrorism in the last 35 years really come down to "reinforced cockpit doors", which we now have.
However, I want to directly address the nudity question, as a lot of people try to separate these concerns: even if there are no health issues, and even though people like you and me may be comfortable in this situation, some people have serious issues from having been violated in the past.
I have never been raped (and I doubt I ever will be: I'm giant, male, and reasonably unattractive), but I can still /try/ to empathize with the idea that some people are going to have been through situations where they had their freedoms and sexual independence stripped away from them by a stranger. The thought of going through that again makes many people freeze up (as opposed to scream), possibly putting them in a situation where they "let" the TSA screeners (who don't wait for an explicit "yes" and often don't even explain what is about to happen) push them to the point of having horrible flashbacks of what happened to them.
I'm going to go farther though: a world where people even can exist in the set "rape victims" (or "terrorist") is a world in which not everyone has pure intentions, and that has to be taken into consideration when analyzing whether we should allow "the government", and by which we all really mean "people who got a job as a TSA screener", to see other people naked. We have to ask the question: what if the screeners don't share the same enlightened view of naked bodies that you and I do?
That someone may be getting off on the idea of screening my (currently very young, but soon only somewhat young) half-niece (half-sister's daughter) because he either gets to a) see her naked (the scans are not limited to same-sex scanners) or b) do an enhanced pat down on her (while they claim same-sex pat downs, the screeners often seem to try to goad travelers into the uncomfortable situation of either thinking they will miss their flight or accept a mismatched screener) sickens me.
(I will point out here that it isn't like "just take the naked picture" is even an option, so it is kind of a strawman argument to begin with: if you are selected for more screening or the AIT "can't get a clear picture" it becomes "enhanced patdown" time, which we have to consider in this situation. When people could easily and issue-lessly opt-out of AIT I was a lot less bothered by the whole thing. It still bothered me due to the risk/reward tradeoff not working out, but the idea that these TSA screeners are now in a situation to do rather invasive "patdown" of people changes the game entirely.)
Once you accept that some people don't share your belief, the incentives are simply broken: if you are the kind of person who gets off in this situation, this is the job you will apply for. As you aren't a terrorist or an obvious "criminal", you will easily clear the background check. Once in this sort of job, manipulating the system so more attractive people, younger people, or maybe people wearing interesting clothing (a skirt you will be able to stick your hands up or someone obviously not wearing a full complement of underwear)--whatever floats their particular boat--is something you can easily make happen.
Remember: there are no statistics kept, no records written, and all decisions seem to be up to the screener in question. We /do not/ allow this sort of unwatched behavior among police officers (a profession that involves a lot more hurdles to enter and has much more risk when you get there): for decades we have required this kind of oversight among their ranks to make certain that they weren't abusing their position of power.
While it makes life really simple to think of governments and companies as large entities that have simple goals and beliefs, the reality of the situation is that we live in a world full of all kinds of people, and some people simply suck. We really need to be careful as we set up the rules of the world in which we live to not /encourage/ these people to suck more, to suck harder, and to suck in ways that get in our way.
Note: I'm not saying everyone sucks, and I'm not saying /most/ people suck, but only that there exist people who do, in fact, suck, and they are going to be the people who are willing to take a seemingly sad/painful job with a low salary whose only perk seems to be getting to have a form of sexual control over an unwilling constituency.
And, before you even go there, we cannot just filter these people well: we've already found a TSA agent who was apparently so bad he is now a convicted child molester). That guy didn't just suck, he was /stupid/: most people taking advantage of this system will stick to what they can get away with inside of the bureaucracy rather than also messing with children at home.
Maybe you still don't care... maybe you think I and anyone in this discussion are still just being uptight: that we should not care that the screener is enjoying it, that we are turning someone else's flaw into our own issue. To that I say: these broken incentives also undermine the benefit. Even if you believe a system is capable of working, if that very system is wasting time getting off it is not protecting the people. Again, /you/ may be enlightened, but it is equally important that the other people in the situation are. These people are now easy targets for terrorists: find one of them, and then use a confident ugly person (maybe me) to smuggle what you need into the airport.
Think about it... even if only one out of a hundred people in the TSA suck, or one in a thousand, maybe just a handful that suck really bad, that is a serious issue: to our freedoms, and even our safety. It isn't the government seeing us (all of us: you, your spouse, and your children) naked, it is "Craig the TSA screener", and it will still just be Craig when he tells you to prepare for your family to prepare for their "enhanced putdowns".
(This was all seriously typed on my iPhone in a coffee shop, and was partially motivated by a question to the OperationGrabAss subreddit regarding "how to respond to someone who thinks nudity should be ok", which is why I went into the number of argument levels that I did).
Woah, multiple typos in the last line. :( (I wish HN worked better on an iPhone: the text box is tiny and small. I am going to be writing future comments in Notes and then copy/pasting them over.)
...when he tells your family to prepare for their "enhanced patdowns".
Did anyone else read further into the thread where a fellow has been monitoring the TSA agents using a yeasu vx6r HT and recording the conversations with a digital audio recorder?
He would then burn the inappropriate conversations to CD and send them to the TSA's office.
I think the thing that bothers me the most about this situation is not the backscatter machine, but the punitive "enhanced pat-down". There has to be more reasonable ways to both ensure flight safety, without resorting to touching genitals.
> There has to be more reasonable ways to both ensure flight safety, without resorting to touching genitals.
Maybe there are not. If the plot were executed correctly, the crotch bomber would have blown up the plane, and it doesn't sound like anything in the X-ray / metal detector system was set up to handle that.
The point is, there is no such thing as "ensuring" flight safety. Along with the benefit of increased flight safety, to each added screening procedure is associated a cost of loss of personal freedom and privacy. The traditional debate has vastly overstated the former, and completely ignored the latter.
People who are up in arms about the groping are calling for a fairer accounting. Terrorism is a very concentrated, visual form of evil, so the knee jerk reaction is that it must be stopped at all costs. Loss of freedom is, by contrast, diffuse and widespread, and people are less apt to become emotional over it. It's inherently difficult to balance the two, and yet it must be done.
There are many objections; the nature of the images is only one. These procedures are also objectionable philosophically, medically, and ethically. Better tech isn't going to solve any of those problems.
