Romney ♥ Pornoscanners

Wow! It's been awhile. I'm afraid I've gotten caught up in life and hope that I can resume regular blogging soon.

Very quickly, though, I just came across this story on Mitt Romney's advisors which includes Michael 'Pornoscanner' Chertoff. If you even remotely, for one second, considered supporting Romney for POTUS, I hope this turns you off for good. For more on Chertoff, see here.

And you thought this was limited to airports

Before airport body scanners were on the radar of many freedom-loving Americans, Homeland Security was figuring out the next step for brutal assassination of the Fourth Amendment.

The Homeland Security Department paid contractors millions of dollars to develop and study surveillance systems that could covertly track pedestrians and check under people’s clothing with airport-style body scanners as they enter train stations, bus depots or major events, newly released documents show.

Thanks to the work of EPIC, we now know about these projects. Chertoff's Rapiscan received almost $2 million in 2005 to turn its scanner into one that would work on moving targets: people in a crowd. No consent would be given and people would be irradiated and virtually strip-searched without any knowledge or warrant. Northeastern University received a similar grant to investigate these types of devices around the same time.

The documents EPIC obtained also show that pilot programs for surveillance of all rail passengers were in place (presumably using only standard photography and videos and possibly infrared imaging) in New Jersey and elsewhere. Additionally - of course - the images were saved for analysis.

Dear Mr. Chertoff..

Dear Mr. Chertoff:

You should be ashamed of yourself for shilling for a technology that has not been tested enough to prove its safety and that is so extremely invasive.  I can only hope that you suffer through the humiliation and indignity of being screened while being doused with radiation on a regular basis as well.  If I had to guess, though, you and most of your lobbyist buddies and fear mongers make enough money from your selling out the Fourth Amendment that you fly privately on a regular basis.

Thanks for profiting off your illustrious position as the head of the ultra-fascist DHS.  I recently returned from serving in the US Army in Kuwait but I cannot say I am proud to have served a country that no longer values our fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution.  I am fairly certain that Patrick Henry did not utter “Give me a false-sense of security or give me death!”

Sincerely,

Eric S. Morris

 Eric says that Mr. Chertoff has not responded and: 

His email address can be found here:  http://www.cov.com/mchertoff/, you can make comments to his Chertoff Group here (http://chertoffgroup.com/cgroup/contact-us/), and you can even comment on Rapiscan’s website here:  http://www.rapiscansystems.com/worldwideservices/onlinetechnicalsupport.aspx.