Has common sense gone out of the window?

[paul]

A guy was stopped from boarding a flight at Heathrow T5 because he was wearing a T-shirt that had a Transformers robot on it, according to the BBC.

What's your take on this? Personally, I don't see how this poses a threat. Are things just going a little too far?

Paul
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[Dawn Patrol]

We don't have that problem at LAX.

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A sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life--W.A. Ward

[Thedidgeridude]

I have very strong views on this as I have had first hand experience of what I see as airport bullying. About a year and a half ago I was travelling on my own from Gatwick 'cattle ranch' to Holland. The queue was massive and as I waited in line to go through customs I noticed how certain people from each queue were being approached by a 'customs officer' and then taken somewhere out of sight. I continued to watch this closely, intrigued at just where these people were disappearing to. I can only guess that my 'interest in what was going on' lead me to look 'suspicious' because as I reached the front of the queue a guy came over to me and asked if I could follow him. He lead me into a closed off area and asked me to stand with my feet apart and my hands in the air. I was told to hold that position for a few seconds and then change position or pose. Basically, he was asking me to do Superman poses and I, in return, asked what the hell was going on. He replied that pictures were being taken of me from behind a screen and these were like X-rays that could look under my clothing to see if I had any dangerous objects on me.

Now, I felt pretty weird about all this and asked him who was checking the pictures. He told me there were trained officers nearby who did that job. I said I would like to take a look at these images too. He agreed to this and lead me off next door. He pulled back a curtain, told me to go through, and to my horror the first thing I saw was a monitor screen with three images of my naked body on them. Two guys were there staring at the screen. This machine can basically take a picture of a person as if he/she isn't wearing any clothing. There, in plain view, for all to see, were my ! I was shocked but the man assured me that the pics were deleted as new ones were taken. I asked for a copy but he said no.

Now, not only is this totally wrong in my eyes but it's a complete disregard for our civil liberties. Things are, indeed, going too far nowadays.....

[Dawn Patrol]

Yes we have the "whole body imaging" machine here at LAX too. If you're "randomly selected" you are given the option of the machine or the pat-down.
I for one, will take the pat-down. I agree with you DDDude, there are definate privacy issues and I don't trust TSA when they say the face is pixilated and the image is not stored. In fact, I fully expect to see an x-ray of some young sexy movie star on u-tube any day.
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A sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life--W.A. Ward