Sometimes, the think tanks come through

This is probably more effective comment than most of the other 4000+ submitted to TSA. I'm glad, in this case, that a think tank like Cato exists to spend time on well-researched comments couched in bureaucrat-ese.

The courts don't protect us

Case in point is this dismissed lawsuit.

Comment submitted (finally!)

Here is the comment that I just submitted to the feds (better late than never!). (Disclaimer: It's not my finest work.):

I would like to direct my comments for Docket No. TSA-2013-0004 towards two areas of the AIT rule. First, I object on privacy grounds, and, second, I object on safety grounds to the implementation of AIT screening. My recommendation is that the AIT screening program be stopped immediately.

In part IB of the NPRM (Summary of Major Provisions), it says, “AIT currently provides the best available opportunity to detect non-metallic anomalies concealed under clothing without touching the passenger…” followed by, “TSA implemented stringent safeguards to protect the privacy of passengers undergoing AIT screening when AIT units were initially deployed and enhanced privacy further by upgrading it millimeter wave AIT units with ATR software.” As a modest woman who also chooses to raise her children to be modest, I strongly feel that these two statements are contradictory and can not be reconciled. If you are viewing anything under my clothing, or the clothing of my daughter or son, then you are not protecting my privacy. It does not matter to me that the area under my clothing is not seen directly with the naked eye of an individual that I can see, or if a machine is viewing the area under my clothing and transmitting that image either to an individual in another room or to a software program that interprets the image.

This goes to a very fundamental aspect of humanity and, in particular, to a prevalent strain of modesty in America culture bridging across people of various faiths, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Humans wear clothes not only for decorative reasons, but also, and, in some cases, especially, in order to be modest. Anything under the clothes is intentionally hidden, not intended to be viewed by man or machine without express consent (that is, uncoerced undressing). It is, in practice, impossible to take protect passenger privacy while simultaneously forcibly viewing anything that is under passengers’ clothes.

"Surrendering" your belongings

My husband had a round-trip flight recently. In his backpack, along with his laptop, he accidentally left a Leatherman. This had been a gift and was personalized with his full name. He believed that he had it in his car, and when it went through security on the first leg of his trip without tripping an alarm, he was none the wiser. He stayed for a week in the Philadelphia area, and still did not notice this knife and tool combo in his bag.

Of course, as luck would have it, his Leatherman was discovered by the TSA at the Philadelphia airport on his return trip. It was confiscated, but in TSA speak: "surrendered." It sounds more voluntary and less totalitarian that way.

After he got home with no further incidents (I guess he is just an innocent citizen and not a threat to national security, after all), he called the TSA to find out how he could receive his property. It does have his name on it (and a somewhat unique name at that as out last name is not very common) so it should be easy to track down. He was told that he had "surrendered" it and that it was now the property of the TSA.

For the sake of the person who gave my husband the Leatherman, I want to assure everyone that my husband liked it very much and did not re-gift it to the TSA, despite what the TSA says.

Back to his conversation with the TSA: My husband asked what had happened to his property and was told by the person he was speaking to (if automatons can be called people) that they "did not have the authority" to tell him where it was. Apparently, my husband's coerced gift to the feds is now a state secret (now do you see why they should free Bradley Manning?).

Googling the subject later, my husband suspects that the property is turned over to the city of Philadelphia and, if valuable,  auctioned. I told him he ought to call Philly PD and report his Leatherman stolen, last seen at the airport.

Anti-scanner protests going mainstream?

NYTimes.com has a blog post about protesting the scanners (!)

FDA is selective in regulations

Is it any wonder why I beat up on the FDA? They have basically washed their hands with regulating naked scanners to any significant extent because it is mostly outside of their jurisdiction to - I don't know - make sure no one is going to be killed by these machines. But, tanning beds? The FDA simply has to make sure that everyone knows how bad they are. And they must protect the children! (But not the children going through TSA security.)

Log your anti-scanner comments with the feds by June 24th

The TSA has officially complied with the Notice and Comment requirement, reinforced by the courts last summer. I am not saying that I am holding my breath that commenting on an administrative law will have any effect, I do encourage all who are concerned about scanners to submit a comment. At the very least, they can not honestly say that nobody has complaints about TSA procedures, as they do with their so-called low rate of "customer" complaints. (Can't really file a complaint if I quit flying, can I? Also, seems like a great way to get flagged if I do fly.)

Click on the link above to the Federal Register see instructions on how to comment on the naked scanners and to read the full notice. According to wikipedia:

Interested parties frequently comb through the agency’s own data to find flaws in the agency’s reasoning. Also, interested parties’ comments on the rule then become part of this record.

UPDATE: And the notice itself says:

TSA invites ... invite comments relating to the economic, environmental, energy, or federalism impacts that might result from this rulemaking action.

...The most helpful comments reference a specific portion of the rulemaking, explain the reason for any recommended change, and include supporting data.

H/T to redalertpolitics.com

Alkon: Don't go quietly

Amy Alkon has an entry on her latest violation at the hands of the TSA. After years of degradation by the TSA, there is nothing particularly remarkable about her experience: she was sexually assaulted because she bought a plane ticket.

I wholeheartedly agree with her final remarks:

I will at least make a spectacle of myself and in turn of what they are doing.

Don't go quietly, please. And name names of those who violate you -- post their name (THEDALA MAGEE!) and a picture of them if you can find or take it. (To avoid a libel suit, be absolutely sure it's the right person -- there were a number of Tiffany Applewhites, and most of them are regular people who don't appear to grope people's genitals for a living.)
If more people screamed and yelled and protested in some way, we might be able to make some change. In so many ways lately, our constitutional rights are being eroded. Keeping quiet will not end well for any of us.

If you are having trouble finding a place to publish your story, please send it to me using the contact form on this blog.

Opt-out and Film Week starts Nov 19

A peaceful protest of the TSA is being organized for Thanksgiving week:

Supporters of Opt Out and Film Week are encouraged to film TSA activities at their local airport -- even if they are not flying -- and upload the videos to Youtube and other sites.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/336517#ixzz2CFGF6lgl

Here's the Facebook page.

I am all about peaceful protest - it is the reason I started this blog. I couldn't just sit around and do nothing! If you are the type to go out and be more of a presence, then this may be a good opportunity for you. The best part about it is you don't have to board an airplane, go through security, or even go to an airport to participate:

1.) Fly within the United States, OPT OUT of the body scanner and have someone FILM your pat-down;
You can also opt-out of other unreasonable TSA security procedures (i.e. iris scans, drink testing at the gate, TSA ordering you to 'freeze' on command etc.) and film what happens.

2.) Go to your nearest U.S. airport and hand-out flyers to travelers to spread the word about the event
Campaign sample flyer: http://static.prisonplanet.com/p/images/october2012/flyer.jpg
We also encourage everyone to make their own flyers to hand out

3.) Film TSA at non-airport locations (i.e. subways, highways, etc.) and peacefully re-assert your rights when faced with violating security procedures (i.e. random bag searches).

Correction: Manchester airport substituting one naked scanner for another

The headlines for all of the articles this past week about the backscatter naked scanners trial ending at England's Manchester airport are so misleading. For example, "Manchester Airport's body scanners scrapped" and "Manchester airport axes controversial 'naked' scanners after EU fails to approve them."

Here's what has really happened. The EU approved backscatter naked scanners on a trial basis. The trial automatically expires in October, and Manchester was the airport where these scanners were installed. Therefore, the scanners will be illegal in the EU starting next month and Manchester has to stop using them.

But, the EU has no such law against the millimeter wave scanners. So Manchester will be swapping one naked scanner - the MMW version with the software upgrade showing cartoon figures - for the old naked scanner - the x-ray backscatter version. As I've written here before, the MMW scanners with the cartoon software are still taking an image of unclothed people, virtually strip-searching them. But, instead of showing the security goons that data in a format that looks like an actual naked person, it shows the data in the form of a cartoon. Either way, the data exists to reconstruct an unclothed person - the software is just hiding it.

ZOMG Delta!

This blog post by a (non-white) man about his recent experience with Delta, TSA, and the Niagara Transit cops is upsetting - on many levels. It is also a great illustration of how things will not change with regard to the TSA and security theater until there is a serious change in mindset in this country. How depressing!

In short, Arijit was wearing a sarcastic anti-security theater t-shirt when trying to fly Delta. He had no problems at the TSA checkpoint, but Delta decided to harass and eventually kick Arijit and his wife off the plane. Meanwhile, the TSA had re-cleared him (and even apologized for the incident), but the Niagara cops took over for Delta in the harassment. He was able to fly Delta the next day without any problems, although Delta didn't even give him and his wife a hotel or transportation voucher.

The Delta supervisor, Delta pilot, and the passengers on Delta (who were being blamed for complaining about being "uncomfortable" flying with Arijit) have every right to be bigots. But, if Delta were serious about not being bigoted and treating its paying customers like, well, paying customers, they should immediately reprimand the supervisor and pilot (I'm thinking unpaid suspension at the very least, but firing them would be more appropriate). They have the unions to contend with, but who cares? Instead, Delta has taken the standard TSA line: denial, denial, denial, with official policy repeated over and over again (as if policy makes counter actions impossible).

For example,

Delta spokesperson Betsy Talton told MailOnline that the airline does not discriminate against any of its passengers.

I've always maintained on this site that the airlines are, at best, complicit in the TSA and all the related abuses. They will have to stand up beside us if change is to happen. And, it would help to have fellow passengers and local cops wake up, as well.

A protestor states his case

Kevin McElroy, a writer and father, sent me this video of his reasons for not flying:

Highlighting a new addition to the Blogroll

TSA Out of Our Pants! has been added. I thought it was already on there, but apparently not. This guy is a hero, so I want to highlight his blog. It includes his viral videos of beating the scanners - offering real world proof of some of the things that scientists pointed out early on.

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.

The LA Times and the scanners-are-safe interpretation

As soon as I read the LA Times' take on a new scientific article on naked scanner radiation study, I knew they had misrepresented the findings. I have now read the original research article in full, and my hunch holds.

The article, by Hoppe and Schmidt in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Marquette University, seems solid to me. The introduction nicely summarizes what studies have been done at this point. Two that were done in conjunction with the TSA (by the FDA and by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab -- which is functionally a government research lab doing a lot of work requiring security clearances) had access to some form of naked scanner technology, although not necessarily the exact models used in airports. They both were assigned the task of determining whether the scanners met radiation guidelines specified by an ANSI, which is suspect. So this is where Hoppe and Schmidt take off. They note the shortcomings of these earlier studies, and also reference the "scanners aren't safe" articles from 2010.

Nonetheless, as the scanners have not been made available to anyone outside of the TSA for testing, Hoppe and Schmidt were left to use TSA-provided data for their analysis. They created a computational model for measuring radiation doses in various organs of the body. They replicated the radiation from the x-ray scanner by correlating it with the TSA-provided data first, then running the simulation on their human organ models. It is true, as the LA Times reports, that they find that the effective dose of radiation that passengers receive is below the ANSI standard, as has been claimed by the TSA.

They do not claim the scanners are, therefore, safe. Indeed, they make no judgement on this at all. They note the caveats that they did not have access to an actual machine several times throughout the paper, which means that they can not independently verify the radiation levels coming from the scanner. They also had to make some assumptions and simplifications with their computational model. Although I can't find fault with their methods, it is not the same as testing the real thing, or even a physical model, with an actual scanner, as the authors are well-aware.