Flying Pasties hide your privates from full body scanners

by Mike Barish on

We’ve covered the issue of full body scanners in airports pretty extensively here at Gadling. More and more airports are implementing the security devices and more people are crying foul as they fear that their right to privacy is being disregarded. Now, a creative company has introduced a product to protect travelers’ privacy, modesty and genitalia. Flying Pasties (some images potentially NSFW) are rubber pads that you place over your nether regions so that anyone reviewing your image on a full body scanner doesn’t see anything that you wouldn’t want to expose without first being taken out for dinner.

Flying Pasties aren’t stickers or paper cut-outs. They’re 2mm thick pieces of rubber that adhere to your skin to cover your breasts and genitalia. According to the manufacturer, when your image appears on the full body scanner monitors, areas of skin covered by the Flying Pasties will not be visible to the security agent.

The pasties come in sets for women including two breast pasties and one bottom and one bottom piece for males. They are emblazoned with text such as “Private” and “Only my husband sees me naked.” The company does offer the option to customize the message your pasties.

Flying Pasties sets for women retail for $24.99, but the company is offering an introductory rate of $16.99. Male bottoms are $9.99 and a set for a man and woman is currently $19.99 instead of $29.99.

Would you wear rubber pasties to hide your naughty bits? Have you been exposed by a full body scanner? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Scientists question safety of airport full body scanners

by Scott Carmichael on

As soon as the underpants bomber was caught, the US department of Homeland Security started a rapid deployment of full body scanning equipment. These new scanners can see under clothes, and are designed to check for bombs or other suspicious items.

The technology is by no means new, and the Transportation Security Administrations has been using similar technology for years, but only on a very limited basis. Since the first of these machines made it to an airport, the TSA has been very vocal about telling the traveling public that they are 100% safe, and that we have nothing to worry about.

Except for the risk of too much exposure to ionizing radiation that is…

Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco are disputing the claims that the machines are safe – and have presented their own research on the effects of the radiation from a trip through a whole body scanner.

According to the researchers, the calculated amount of radiation was based upon an average over the whole body – but the number that actually gets deposited in your skin may be higher – though they don’t know by how much.

Rapiscan, who build the majority of the machines being installed around the nation refused to comment on the findings, but the TSA repeated that travelers would need to go through the machines thousands of times just to reach the radiation levels you receive when you get a chest X-ray.

David Brenner, head of Columbia University’s Center for Radiological Research also aired his concerns – “There really is no other technology around where we’re planning to X-ray such an enormous number of individuals. It’s really unprecedented in the radiation world”.

I’m not sure about you – but those findings don’t sit too well with me. I’m obviously not against technologies that can prevent terrorism, but there are limits to what the traveling public should be subjected to. When the scanners were first tested, their purpose was for secondary scanning procedures, not for mass scans of every passenger.

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(Photo credit: Getty Images)

Small dick joke has TSA worker beaten up after security scanner incident

by Scott Carmichael on

It was only a matter of time till the whole body imaging machines being installed around the country would set off some kind of nastiness. After the “love those gigantic tits” incident in the United Kingdom last month, the United States is finally getting a taste of the problems these machines can create.

During a training session at Miami International Airport, a TSA supervisor joked about the size of the manhood of one of his colleagues who had just stepped into the machine. The supervisor was operating the equipment when he made the remark – so his joke could have been based on facts.

Rolando Negrin couldn’t appreciate the jokes about his genitalia, so at the end of his shift, he used a police baton to beat up the supervisor in an airport parking garage. The police report states “victim stated he was in fear and complied with [Negron].” after being told to get down on his knees and apologize.

Negron was arrested the next day where he told police he had been made fun of by his co-workers. He has been arrested and booked into the local jail.

As usual – the first thing that comes to mind is that we yet again get evidence of the professionalism of the TSA – the people hired to protect our skies apparently think it is OK to assault someone in a parking garage. That said – I can totally understand why someone would get a little upset over a bunch of “small dick” jokes, especially if said colleagues have actually seen naked images of you.

Of course, this is the worst kind of PR you can possible get when trying to convince the public about the effectiveness of whole body imagers. We’ve all been told that our privacy is safe, and that images will never be stored – but the good folks at the TSA managed to screw that up in just one afternoon, all thanks to their juvenile pranks.

For all the details on the incident, head on over to The Smoking Gun for the police affidavit.

Update: The TSA blog has issued a statement about the incident. As usual, they are “taking it seriously” and are “looking into it”.

Israeli airport security specialist – full body scanners are a waste of money

by Scott Carmichael on

For years – supporters of strict airport security have pointed to the effective systems in place in Israel, and claimed that those systems would finally make the TSA a more effective organization.

Unfortunately for the government, one of the men that helped design the security programs at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport has spoken out against the implementation of full body imaging machines.

Rafi Sela told the Canadian Parliament that the machines are useless, and that he could pass through them undetected with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747.

Of course, he did not specify how to do this, but he did point out that there is a reason Israel has not invested in the machines.

The news probably won’t change the direction the TSA is taking, but it does once again make clear that the mass implementation of these very expensive scanners will not be as effective as they are hoped to be.

Mr. Sela published a very insightful article about U.S. airport security back in 2004 – and sadly, it does not appear that much has changed since then.

(Image: Getty Images)

“Love those gigantic tits” remark lands airport scanner operator in hot water

by Scott Carmichael on

Well, that didn’t take long did it? A mere month after London Heathrow introduced full body scanners, the first harassment case is already being investigated by the authorities.

When 29 year old Jo Margetson accidentally walked through the scanner, an airport security guard thought it would be hilarious to mention how he “loved those gigantic tits”. This was of course the situation everyone feared – I’m just surprised it took this long to happen.

The security guard has been issued a warning for sexual harassment, which will no doubt be the first of many to be issued to people that have access to the scanner images.

Miss Margetson is furious about the incident – ‘I can’t bear to think about the body scanner thing,’ she said. ‘I’m totally traumatised by it.”. She spoke to the police after the incident, and they in turn reported the case to BAA, the airport operator.

In the United States, the full body imagers are monitored by staff in a remote location, and we have been assured that images will never be shared – even though the purchase requests made by the government requested scanners that have storage and sending capabilities. In other words – it is only a matter of time till US airports are faced with similar cases.

The problem with this equipment is not the technology – which has been proven to work just fine – humans are the real issue, and knowing that some of the operators manning the checkpoints are going to be on the lookout for “big tits” won’t help the public’s attitude towards them one bit.

(Photo: Getty Images)