In response to public and pilot outrage at sexual assault by transportation security authorities and to the carcinogenic x-ray machines used to scan flyers, New Jersey lawmakers announced on Monday the introduction of several resolutions banning such practices. Additionally, the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security is holding a Transportation Security Administration Oversight Hearing today (10 AM Wednesday).
While Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano seems deaf to public outrage, New Jersey lawmakers are not. Below is the video of the press conference held on Monday.
Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, noted:
In England where they spent about a third of all [their] security budget on video surveillance, there is study after study after study that shows that those who observe the surveillance are tracked to look at pretty girls’ special parts, and to use those kinds of technologies to essentially violate women’s privacy, or children’s or boys’ or whoever we might be looking at.
The same danger exists here, and that’s something we should be aware of. It’s been absolutely consistent in the tests. Some jurisdictions have even stopped using these technologies.Assembly member Valerie Vanieri Huttle noted, “England repealed these procedures after four years.”
New Jersey’s bills SR91 and AR127 urge the Transportation Security Administration to terminate recent changes to its procedure for conducting pat down searches at airport checkpoints.
Huttle acknowledged what many people understand: These pat down procedures cause psychological trauma, as we saw in the video of three-year-old Mandy Simon who screamed in terror, “Stop touching me!” (That video has since been pulled by CW-39.com, a Houston, Texas news station. Mandy’s father, Steve Simon, works as a reporter for CW-39.)
Midwives believe that trauma can cause a baby to turn breach. In 2002, Nicholas Monahan recounted the traumatic experience he and his pregnant wife endured at the hands of airport security in Portland, Oregon. His wife burst into tears after TSA agents exposed and fondled her breasts. He was then arrested when he reacted in anger, and later convicted of a misdemeanor and fined. He concludes:
I can never prove that my child went breech because of what happened to us at the airport. But I’ll always believe it. Wrongly or rightly, I’ll forever think of how this man, the personification of this system, has affected the lives of my family and me. When my wife is sliced open, I’ll be thinking of him. When they remove her uterus from her abdomen and lay it on her stomach, I’ll be thinking of him. When I visit her and my child in the hospital instead of having them with me here in our home, I’ll be thinking of him. When I assist her to the bathroom while the incision heals internally, I’ll be thinking of him.
… There is now a division between the citizenry and the state. When that state is used as a tool against me, there is no longer any reason why I should owe any allegiance to that state. And that’s the first thing that child of ours is going to learn.
Huttle, along with Assembly Members, Alison Little McHose, John DiMaio and Erik Peterson, also introduced SCR135 and ACR160, which call on Congress and the President to address concerns raised by advanced imaging technology employed at airports or to discontinue their use.
At the press conference, Senator Diane Allen focused on the dangers of radiation.
Certain Americans, including cancer patients and survivors who are being treated or have been treated with radiation therapy are told by their doctors to avoid unnecessary exposure to additional radiation. As a cancer survivor myself, the new imaging equipment used for full body scans concerns me greatly. The U.S. government has not provided adequate information on the potential health impacts of these machines- to say nothing of the invasive nature of the alternative presented to passengers.
She emphasized that:
David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University has in fact said it is likely that at least some people who are exposed to the new scanners will develop cancer as a result, with frequent fliers and children among the most susceptible.
Several lawsuits have already been filed, as Paul Joseph Watson reported today. One case involves “a woman who had her blouse pulled down in full public view by TSA goons who then proceeded to laugh and joke about her exposed breasts.”
Watson uncovered that 2002 report, as well other lawsuits: one in Miami and one by pilots. John Tyner, of “don’t touch my junk” fame, told Alex Jones he will countersue TSA if they pursue their $10,000 fine against him.
At a Monday press conference, Federal Security Director Mike Aguilar, TSA director for San Diego, promised to prosecute Tyner for his refusal to submit to the carcinogenic body scanner as well as sexual assault.
TSA chief John Pistole would only say, “If somebody doesn’t go through proper security screening, they’re not going to go on the flight.”
Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security, so far has refused to hear the public outrage at her invasive and perverted procedures.
On November 24, flyers are urged to Opt Out of the body scan.
H/T BrassCheck TV and FlyerTalk.com.
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