TSA comment period open until June 24
 

The TSA has finally acceded to a court order (resulting from a law suit brought by EPIC - http://epic.org ) and opened a comment period on the naked body scan machines (and anything else related to their protocols you want to mention). It has taken years for TSA to do this - the Court of Appeals ruled in July 2011. The TSA has also avoided publicizing the opportunity to comment, first putting up a post about it on its blog, and then taking it down.

To comment you should go to:

http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketD...=TSA-2013-0004

For EPIC's suggestions and background: http://epic.org/TSAcomment/EPICrec.pdf

For an interesting discussion on government oversight of travelers, and on the opportunity to comment:

http://www.cato.org/events/travel-su...eler-intrusion

For ongoing reporting on the TSA see: http://tsanewsblog.com/

I would be more concerned about knives on the plane being a reality than this!!

The policy change on knives has been postponed. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3135491.html

Pilots and cabin staff don't have to go through the scanners, right? Actually, I am less concerned about the scanners than the grope aka pat-downs, but with a 54% false positive rate with the millimeter wave machines, grope-downs become likely even if you don't opt out.

The comment period is still open, and a lot of people are expressing their discontent.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013...-body-scanners

Pilots and cabin crew do go through scanners and sometimes more searches depending on the people conducting it.There is a "known crewmember" ID now but quite a few airports do not include it.
I have had double knee replacements and you cannot believe what I go through every week for work!

dutyfree - sounds awful! I read quite often about people with replacement parts or medical equipment (think insulin pump) having problems. All the more reason to comment...

A blog post from a just-resigned TSA employee with more reasons why you should comment - only 20 days left.

http://tsanewsblog.com/10923/news/an...lls-the-beans/

He says (among other interesting things):

"It was the TSA’s use of the full-body scanners that prompted me to first speak out and voice my opinion that the technology represented a wasteful, reckless, and unnecessary infringement upon people’s privacy, an opinion informed by several years’ experience operating the full body scanners"

And: "we TSA screeners on the floor-level soon learned that the scanners essentially did not work"

On a completely unrelated note - thanks for your insightful comments and for your words of encouragement.

You're welsome, random poster.

Personal message, not random poster. Thanks kja, I thought your posts were really good, even if certain parties seem incapable of understanding.