The next generation scanner

Good news! The next generation full-body scanner, now in use in prisons, does away with privacy concerns because, "There are no soft tissue images created by the SecurPASS System eliminating privacy concerns."

SecurPASS image from Mikron
Digital's website

The operator can't see genitalia, breasts, and other private areas, because the machine looks right through the skin. Like an x-ray.

No privacy concerns there. Feel free to not only virtually undress me, but look what's under my skin.

And, of course, it's safe. Trust us.

       Q: Is the SecurPASS Scan safe?

       A: Yes. The exposure received is less than the average            amount of background radiation that a person receives              standing in the sun for about 1 hour.

Why would you even wonder if wardens (and future TSA administrators?) don't have each prisoner's (passenger's?) best interest at heart? We can't just have scientists and doctors given unfettered access to such an important piece of national security equipment!!!

How many years have you been x-rayed without consent or knowledge?

If you live in New York, you may soon find out. It could be that NYPD has not used van-mounted x-rays to view inside occupied buildings or vehicles, and has not used them near pedestrians. But, they have been stonewalling Pro-Publica for the past three years on even being transparent about their safety procedures. Furthermore, NYPD may have databases of x-ray images of vehicles and buildings (yes, the radiation can penetrate metal and concrete) - and perhaps nude images of people - since they apparently have no privacy protection policies in place. But a judge is requiring NYPD to release documentation regarding how these x-ray vans are used.

(Do you suddenly feel like you have entered a science-fiction novel?)

Furthermore, these vans have been in use by the US military in the countries they occupy (yet more trampling on the natural-born freedoms of foreigners), by US Customs at borders (at least they have a policy in place that requires vehicles are not occupied at the time of the scan), and by other law enforcement agencies at conventions and sporting events;

The most extensive reference to the vans came in a book written by two ABC News reporters who chronicled a year inside the agency's bomb squad.

Describing the security around the 2004 Republican convention in New York, they wrote that every vehicle entering a street in front of the convention hotel was ordered to drive between two white vans, which X-rayed each vehicle for explosives.

Aside from the totally outrageous violations of civil liberties that have been going on right under our noses with almost no public awareness, we could delve (once again) into the issue of whether the government can ever be expected to use technology like this responsibly.

Chris Elliott on giving in to the TSA

A nice article in USA Today.

A glimmer of 10th Amendment hope...

...then the hope us extinguished by a Republican politician. According to this news article, Ohio has laws on the book that prohibit the use of x-rays except as prescribed by a doctor. This means that, technically, the TSA can't legally irradiate people in Ohio airports. But a more winnable test case has arisen with the recent spate of jails using naked scanners on inmates (Tuskeegee, much?).

A sheriff in Ohio bought a scanner similar to, but more powerful than, the airports' naked scanners. It is made by a subsidiary of Canon, and is designed to see inside of people to stop smuggling and theft. Well, the Ohio state health department has shut it down (sanity, at last!).

But, of course, a GOP state senator is doing his best to get the ban lifted. Shameful.

Flying while individualistic and brown

This is an almost unbelievable account of a young man being held extra-legally for the crime of flying alone while brown during a religious holiday and deviating ever-so-slightly from the herd (ie, "opting out" of the naked scanner).  It it's unclear which aspect(s) of his transgression played the biggest role in his 4 hour interrogation by no fewer than 4 different government bureaucracies and as well as an airline.

Obviously, if you have nothing to hide (which apparently now includes your medical history) you still have much to fear, particularly at an airport.

Illegal, hazardous searches - and inhumane to boot!

This video showing a sales pitch by a government supplier is amazing for its bluntness. I blogged about these vans when I first started this blog and again last summer. Two years ago, it was something that was being used covertly, and in other countries. Now, it is being promoted openly as a device for use on American soil.

These vans do not use the backscatter radiation of the airport naked scanners - they are penetrating through metal to find contraband and thus are using x-rays more similar to that used by a doctor to view a broken bone. There is not - and can not be - a claim that they are safe for humans.




I have suspected that these devices have already been used on American soil by VIPR teams when they search trucks. I now have no doubt. It is unclear to me whether they ensure that drivers and passengers of the vehicles (all commercial trucks, to my knowledge) are clear of the x-rays. I certainly hope so, but any truckers out there should be aware of the physical danger these machines could expose them to and protect themselves in the event of a VIPR trap. I also doubt that TSA agents operating these x-rays are wearing dosimeter badges, as the TSA agents in airports do not don such badges.

What really bothers me about the use of these x-ray vans (and which is glossed over by the sales rep in the above video) is that one of the uses of the vans is to examine cargo at border crossings. What is smuggled across borders? Drugs, guns, and people. These vans have been used (at least in other countries) to see inside of trucks to find illegal passengers (leaving jails). In what world is it humane to knowingly expose prisoners, illegal immigrants, or anyone else to large doses of ionizing radiation without their consent or knowledge? It sickens me that this practice is even considered by the US government, and I fear that it has been or will soon be implemented at the Mexican border without consideration of the very serious human rights violation involved.

Handheld scanners

You may have heard that the TSA is now looking for handheld naked scanners. I just can't wait until every law enforcement arm in the country is carrying around something that can strip search me without my permission or knowledge! There is a slippery slope, and we are headed down at break-neck speeds.

What I find interesting about this is how the state-friendly media (or do I repeat myself) deals with this kind of information. The original announcement that the TSA was looking for this was back in November. The ominously named Government Security News let its readers (many of whom are apparently government contractors) know that DHS "issued a presolicitation notice on Nov. 2 inviting technology companies to describe... handheld detectors that could provide such secondary screening in the event that the AIT body scanners now being rolled out to dozens of U.S. airports pick up an 'anomaly' during their primary inspections of passengers."

At the beginning of last week, there was a solicitation (not presolicitation?) for white papers on handheld naked scanners, again reported in GSN. Fast forward 6 days and this turns from a bland request for proposals-type announcement in an industry rag to a positive PR story for the TSA. Sample headlines:

• 5/26/11, LA Times, New technology may reduce TSA pat-down searches in U.S. airports
• 5/29/11, Seattle Times, TSA working on way to reduce pat-downs
• 5/29/11, Boston.com, TSA seeks tech device to cut patdowns

It may just be coincidental, but on May 29th, the story also broke that the TSA's budget is set to be cut and this may lead to higher airline ticket fees. Republicans are going to prevent this from happening by cutting other so-called government services. Democrats are joining forces with the TSA to make sure there is no real budget cut by increasing fees:

The agency, backed by Democrats in the Senate, wants to increase the security fee everyone pays with a ticket from $2.50 a flight. to $5.00 per one-way ticket. A total of $10.00 would be added to round-trip tickets.

Uhhh... why is the idea of cutting the budget of this really truly terrible agency off the table? The cynic in me knows the answer, but it's a good question to put to other citizens to get them to think about what is going on here.

Security at the Superbowl

Before the Superbowl, there were confirmed reports of a DHS presence, including bag searches and x-ray ray scanners for bags and trucks. As if that wasn't bad enough, there were also rumors that naked scanners would be employed.

When I read this, I though "Welcome to your police state."

So what actually happened? It was arguably much worse in some ways. The night before, we got this report:

Helicopters and planes equipped with special monitors for radiation and biological agents constantly hover and scan high above Super Bowl village...

In addition to air patrol, on the ground police use giant x-ray machines to scan every vehicle arriving at the stadium, and surveillance cameras, which allow officers to monitor both the interior and exterior of the stadium. The videos are streamed into command centers set up throughout the area nearby. Hidden monitors test the air for toxins and biological weapons, and police patrol with portable radiation detectors. 

Although vehicles were subjected to x-ray scanning, there does not appear to have been naked scanners for people. But, everyone go a pat-down! And, if you watch this video, at least some football fans didn't care about this gross violation of their rights as long as it didn't take too long (which it didn't):



Why are  so many okay with the feds interfering with a nominally private event? (And when will truckers stand up to the cargo scanners that are quite dangerous?)

From a police state to a military state (with help from the TSA)

Even I find this surprising. I've not been to Boston, but have been in several cities and rode on mass transit in each recently. I did not notice a police or TSA presence and did not have to undergo any warrantless searches.

TSA's successes

Straight from the horse's mouth. But, as the first commenter noted: "You will look in vain on this 'top ten' for any terrorist threat."

12 ideas for the TSA

I'll add one more to Chris Elliott's list: Go away, TSA!

Columnist remains inside the box

A column in an Oklahoma paper is titled Airport security abuses power. I was going to say that the "Columnist states the obvious," but not all of her title is obvious - just not imaginative in the least.

The column is about a teenager who had trouble at the airport because she had an image of a gun sewn onto her purse. Low-level bureaucrats tend to get in more trouble if they think, so it is in their best interest to do really dumb stuff that is, nonetheless, by the book. The columnist's discussion of this is apt, but is decidedly less cynical than I am.

My issue is with this non-sequitor:

I am OK with the full-body scanners that were so controversial earlier this year, and I’m happy to put my travel-sized liquids in a resealable bag.

...All citizens deserve freedom and privacy, whether or not they’re in the air.

How are full-body scanners and precise inane instructions on how to carry your personal items consistent with "freedom and privacy." They're not! This is not a matter of some aspects of the TSA abusing some power. This is a case of a bureaucracy being given way more power than is legal, and running with it.

Another win for the Drug War police state

An addict was caught by TSA carrying methamphetamine. And a suspected marijuana smuggler was stopped, too. But I thought the TSA was looking for terr'ists!

In related news, Pistole is bragging about how many guns his agents have confiscated. He admits that most of the offenders are law-abiding and simply forgot to take their weapons out of their carry-on bags. Don't forget that all totalitarian police states have sought to disarm their citizens. Here's a great straw man argument for doing so, courtesy of my favorite agency: the TSA.

He also bragged about how many drugs were caught by the porno-scanners. I believe you, Johnny, but I thought the naked scanners are in place to protect me when I fly from terrorists carrying explosives and weapons, not from the victimless crimes of drug smuggling and accidentally bringing a legal firearm onto a plane. (By the way, these gun-toters would be great to have on the plane if there really were a terrorist among the passengers!)

Up? Really?

An Anchorage, Alaska new site has a column titled "Who's up/Who's down." Because of the cartoon software, the incoming scanners are earning the TSA an "Up." Talk about the slave thanking his master for not whipping him today!

The tone-deaf TSA

A reporter notes that the expansion of the "Trusted Traveler" program is really out-of-touch with the whole OWS protests sweeping the nation:

That means going through security without removing shoes and jackets, leaving laptops undisturbed or having to follow restrictions on toiletries the other 99 percent of us must adhere to.

...OK, so maybe it's not totally unreasonable, but the idea of hassle-free check-ins for a lucky chosen well-heeled few, considering the times, could hardly be more tone-deaf.

I have to agree.

Only the politically favorable will be able to fly soon

Pistole gave testimony on Capitol Hill in which he stated that the horrendous Trusted Traveler program is going to be expanded:

As a result, Pistole said, the agency is moving in the new direction by expanding several pilot security programmes and changing the way children are searched at airport security checkpoints.
A test programme that began last month at four American airports � Miami, Dallas, Detroit and Atlanta � lets passengers who volunteer personal information zip through a special screening lane without having to remove their shoes or jackets, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Pistole told lawmakers that it has worked so well that he wants to expand it to more airports.
"We are working closely with other airlines and airports to determine when they may be operationally ready to join," he said. [emphasis mine]

Here's the deal: you open up your entire personal, financial, political, medical, etc... files for the state, and it will allow you to take your family home for Christmas, have a face-to-face business meeting, or just take a vacation. This has great and terrible potential for abuse. Maybe you trust Pistole, (big sis) Napolitano, Obama, your Congressman, etc... But maybe you won't like the one that replaces him or her in five years. Are you so confident that there is nothing in your history that could ever be used against you by a totalitarian jerk?

I am also assuming that by using the plural "security programs," that SPOT will also soon be expanding beyond Boston. This is the Stasi-style interrogation methods in which they intimidate passengers in order to identify who is worthy of flying.

I'm back...

My posts may still be infrequent, but there will be more regular posting once again.

One observation from my trip:

We drove a moving truck cross-country. As expected, we had to go through the California Department of Agriculture at the Arizona-California border. In the past, when I've been stopped crossing into Cali, I've been asked if I have any fruits in the car (or something along those lines). There was a lane for cars, one for RV's and one for trucks - we went into the the truck line. I don't know what happened in the other lines, but we were stopped in the truck line and asked to pull forward and sit tight. I suddenly remembered that we had some orchids in the car we were towing and thought that was the issue when they asked my husband for assistance with their search. While we were parked there, at least half a dozen commercial semis were waived through without being asked to stop, which seemed odd. When my husband returned to the truck, he said they saw some "saw dust" near the gate of the truck and asked him to open it so they could look inside. He complied and they saw pretty much everything we own in the back and let us move on through.

My guess is that the CA department of agriculture was doing Homeland Security work. We got to the border on the morning of Sept 13th and were driving a "box truck." That is, we fit the description of the supposed 9/11 anniversary terror threat that never happened, and only a couple of days after 9/11. Commercial truckers were not under suspicion, they didn't ask us about fruits and vegetables, and didn't care about our plants. I will say that if there was saw dust on our truck, it was there before we picked up the truck 14 days and 4000 miles (we took a circuitous route) earlier. In other words, the saw dust was imaginary. We weren't in the mood to put up a fight - we just wanted to get to our final destination as quickly as possible, so we didn't question their bogus claim.

Does the average person think it is right that the relatively narrow mandate of the state agriculture department and their border inspections is being repurposed as another arm of the police state?

Administrative law: where the TSA gets its power

Becky Akers explains how administrative law has made the Constitution irrelevant:

Administrative law “allows for the creation of public regulatory agencies” — that’s “bureaucracies” to you and me — “and contains all the statutes, judicial decisions, and regulations that govern them. It is the body of law created by administrative agencies to implement their powers and duties in the form of rules, regulations, orders, and decisions,” says West’s Encyclopedia of American Law. And yes, you read that circular reasoning right. Agencies draft the laws that empower them to draft laws: They write the rules of the game they play against us.

...The TSA also demonstrates what happens when someone challenges a bureaucracy in court. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a lawsuit to stop the TSA’s irradiating of passengers with its porno-scanners — but the bench found that forcing passengers to submit to naked examination is indeed constitutional.

If you don’t know about the Second Set of Books, that ruling is so absurd you can only assume the three justices deciding the case had savored the marijuana that barred one of them, Douglas Ginsburg, from the Supreme Court. But if you realize that virtually anything bureaucracies declare necessary to carry out their mandate from Congress is “constitutional,” you’ll understand how adults literate in English can possibly wring permission for government’s goons to ogle us from the Fourth Amendment’s clear prohibition of warrantless searches.

Power, humiliation, and fear

These are the things that the TSA and the national security (police) state thrive on. This testamonial by a passenger who recently encountered all three makes it clear. The crew is operating on fear - a terrorist around every corner - and a possibly a bit of a power trip. The passenger, Vance Gilbert, was then humiliated by being singled out for no good reason. No doubt the cops and TSA agents enjoyed their power trip, too. At least the police officer involved eventually showed some common sense and realized the book Mr. Gilbert was reading did not make him a terrorist. But, shouldn't there have been some common sense much earlier? Reading a book never makes one a terrorist. Period!

The future of security: less rights, of course

This MSNBC article gets interesting below the jump, where it postulates some possible future directions of airport security (theater):

• In 5 years: "Criminal checks, fingerprinting and character references will be a standard process for all of us"
• In 30 years: "passports laced with computer chips. Your official travel document 'will not only have information as to who you are and where you have traveled, but it will also ... allow government officials to track your travel not only in the air, but your daily travels to work, grocery stores and social events.'" 

Don't like it? Too bad; a security consultant claims, “All these measures seem extreme. However, after we declared a war on terror, we must be more proactive than reactive when it comes to airport security.”