U.S. Marshals Service Storing Naked Body Scanner Images

Kurt Nimmo
Iinfowars.com
August 11, 2010

Remember last summer when the Transportation Security Administration claimed that images from naked body scanners cannot be saved or stored?

Now the U.S. Marshals Service is getting in on the action.

Earlier this year, Infowars.comreported on a letter dated February 24, 2010 and signed by Gale D. Rossides, Acting Administrator of the TSA, that admits the machines routinely save and store images. “TSA requires AIT machines to have the capability to retain and export imagines (sic) only for testing, training, and evaluation purposes,” Rossides wrote to Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security.

In fact, a TSA document detailing the TSA’s procurement specifications, and classified as “sensitive security information,” reveals that the machines must “allow exporting of image data in real time” and provide a mechanism for “high-speed transfer of image data over the network.” In other words, the machines are manufactured specifically to store and transmit images of naked bodies.

This obvious violation of privacy and the Constitution is not a problem for the government, though. “The program is designed to respect individual sensibilities regarding privacy, modesty and personal autonomy to the maximum extent possible, while still performing its crucial function of protecting all members of the public from potentially catastrophic events,” Janet Napolitano and the Department of Homeland Security argue in brief drafted last month.

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So confident is Napolitano of the legality of the high-tech snoop machines, she ordered they be deployed in airports around the country last month.

Now it turns out police agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service, are storing naked body scanner images too. In response, the advocacy groupElectronic Privacy Information Centerhas filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to grant an immediate injunction and putting a kibosh to the intrusive and unconstitutional snoop program.

Despite the revelation, the TSA steadfastly maintains that naked body scanners are delivered to airports with the image recording functions disabled. “We’re not recording them,” TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz told CNET on Wednesday. “I’m reiterating that to the public. We are not ever activating those capabilities at the airport.”

Let’s get serious here. Naked body scanners are obviously being used to compliment existing dossiers on Americans. The NSA, FBI, CIA, and multitudinous government agencies have long profiled all aspects of the lives of American citizens. Images captured by naked body scanners, including images of genitals, are merely the next logical step in this process.