Since the TSA molested my family, why doesn’t Obama volunteer to subject his family to the same security procedures?

Washington Examiner

Two weeks ago, my wife flew alone out to Colorado with our two young children. Unaware that the TSA had instituted new and incredibly invasive new security procedures, my wife called me distressed after getting frisked by the TSA. Or as my wife put it, “in some cultures I would be married to my screener by now.” She was joking, but make no mistake — my wife was incredibly disturbed by how intimate a security pat down she received.

So here’s my not-so-modest proposal: If the President’s Homeland Security department is so adamant that this is the absolute best way to prevent terrorism, I think the President and his family should voluntarily submit to one of the new invasive pat down procedures. I know the Obamas don’t fly commercial at all these days, so they should probably get a pretty good idea what the rest of us are putting up with.

The President and his family — preferably with DHS Secretary Janet “The system worked” Napolitano — should show up at Dulles or Reagan airport on a weekday with a camera crew in tow, as airport pat downs are typically done in full view of hundreds of travelers. All of America will to see the TSA handling the President’s crown jewels. Then a rubber-gloved federal agent will run his hands all over his wife and daughter’s privates while he watches. Then I want him to turn to the camera and tell all of America that this is no big deal and we should all be good citizens and comply with the necessary security procedures.

It only seems fair.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/since-the-tsa-molested-my-family-why-doesnt-obama-volunteer-to-subject-his-family-to-the-same-security-procedures-108480699.html#ixzz15joXuMo5

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Miss Universe 2010 Contestant Tackled Full Body Scanner Question

Matt Ryan
Infowars.com
August 24, 2010

During the Miss Universe pageant, Miss Ukraine was given the question as to whether or not she supported the use of full-body scanners that see through your clothes. Her answer was right out of the mainstream media’s take on it. If it improves security, she is all for it. A glimmer of hope came from Miss Mexico, at the beginning of the clip, who was posed the question as to whether or not she felt unsupervised Internet usage was having a negative effect. Her answer was that the Internet is an indispensable tool for a modern world and that it is up to the family to teach proper family values and keep track of what their children do. Miss Mexico went on to win the pageant and claim the crown of Miss Universe.

4th Amendment Violating Mobile X-Ray Scanners Hit The Streets

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, August 25, 2010

As we warned at the beginning of the year, X-ray body scanners currently being used and abused in airports across the world are set to hit the streets as American Science & Engineering reveals that “more than 500 backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that can be driven past neighboring vehicles to see their contents” have been sold to government agencies.

In January, we divulged how the ultimate end use of the body scanners would not be limited to airports, and that they were going to be rolled out on the streets as mobile units that would scan vehicles at checkpoints as well as individuals and crowds attending public events.

Dutch police announced that they were developing a mobile scanner that would “see through people’s clothing and look for concealed weapons” and that it would be used “as an alternative to random body searches in high risk areas”.

The device would also be used from a distance on groups of people “and mass scans on crowds at events such as football matches.”

The plans mirrored leaked documents out of the UK Home Office three years prior, which revealed that authorities in the UK were working on proposals to fit lamp posts with CCTV cameras that would X-ray scan passers-by and “undress them” in order to “trap terror suspects”.

Now, according to a Forbes report, backscatter x-ray vision devices mounted on trucks are already being deployed inside the United States to scan passing individuals and vehicles in complete violation of the Fourth Amendment.

American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Massachusetts, has sold many of the devices to U.S. law enforcement agencies, who are already using them on the streets for “security” purposes.

“Without a warrant, the government doesn’t have a right to peer beneath your clothes without probable cause,” points out Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC. “Even airport scans are typically used only as a secondary security measure. If the scans can only be used in exceptional cases in airports, the idea that they can be used routinely on city streets is a very hard argument to make.”

Watch a video demonstration of the device below.

“The TSA’s official policy dictates that full-body scans must be viewed in a separate room from any guards dealing directly with subjects of the scans, and that the scanners won’t save any images,” states the report. “Just what sort of safeguards might be in place for AS&E’s scanning vans isn’t clear, given that the company won’t reveal just which law enforcement agencies, organizations within the DHS, or foreign governments have purchased the equipment.”

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However, as we reported right from the start and as was confirmed earlier this month, federal authorities have been storing checkpoint body scan images all along, proving that their claim that no images could be stored or transmitted was an act of mass public deception in order to grease the skids for the rapid introduction of the devices after the botched and highly suspicious underwear bomber incident.

As we have constantly reiterated, everything that we see unfolding in the airports is eventually designed to be used on the streets. People who had a blasé attitude about the privacy-busting body scanners, behavioral interrogations, and intrusive pat-downs occurring in airports on the basis that they could avoid them by not flying face a rude awakening once all this is in their face on a daily basis.

Body and vehicle scanners are just one tool authorities plan to implement on a widespread basis as part of our deepening decline into a hi-tech militarized police state.

Homeland Security is already implementing technology to be enforced at “security events” which purportedly reads “malintent” on behalf of an individual who passes through a checkpoint. The video below explains how “Future Attribute Screening Technology” (FAST) checkpoints will conduct “physiological” and “behavioral” tests in order to weed out suspected terrorists and criminals.

The clip shows individuals who attend “security events” being led into trailers before they are interrogated as to whether they are terrorists while lie detector-style computer programs analyze their physiological responses. The subjects are asked about their whereabouts, and if they are attempting to smuggle bombs or recording devices into the “expo,” proving that the technology is intended to be used at public events and not just airports. Individuals who do not satisfy the first lie detector-style test are then asked “additional questions”.

The use of such technology is not only a complete violation of the Fourth Amendment, it also eviscerates the notion of innocent until proven guilty, and therefore totally undermines everything America stands for. Given the widespread abuse witnessed in the first eight months alone after the roll out of airport body scanners, Americans need to boycott the companies producing these systems and also resist their deployment at every turn.

Fourth Amendment lawsuits such as the one filed by EPIC against the naked body scanners should be used as a tool with which to ensure that such systems are never allowed to become commonplace, unless we wish to see supposedly free countries turned into high-tech prison grids ruled over by corrupt government enforcers who treat citizens as slaves.

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.

Lawsuit challenges airport full-body scanners

By Katie Johnston Chase

Globe Staff / August 4, 2010

A privacy advocacy group is suing the Department of Homeland Security to suspend the use of the controversial full-body scanners employed at airports across the country, including at every major checkpoint at Logan International Airport.

The machines, which use X-rays or radio frequency energy to detect weapons and explosives beneath passengers’ clothing, have been much criticized because of privacy concerns.

In the lawsuit, filed last month, the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., said the slightly blurred but accurate pictures of passengers’ naked bodies produced by the machines are the equivalent of a “digital strip search.’’

Should U.S. airports use full-body scanners? A decade after 9/11, the ability of a Nigerian man to get explosives on a flight to Detroit raises troubling ... An article from: New York Times Upfront

The suit says the program, run by the Transportation Security Administration, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, violates the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.

The program also violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the lawsuit says, referencing religious laws about modesty.

Court documents allege the scanners also violate the Fourth Amendment by having passengers undergo “a uniquely invasive search without any suspicion that particular individuals have engaged in wrongdoing.’’

The TSA declined to comment on the lawsuit, but spokesman Greg Soule said the agency is exploring “additional privacy protections through automated threat detection.’’

Currently, an image is created for every person who goes through the scanner. The agent with the passenger never sees his or her image, and the agent viewing the image never sees the passenger.

Travelers can opt to have a pat-down and a metal detector screening instead.

The TSA is working with technology companies to develop software that would show a generic paper-doll-like figure instead of an actual image of a passenger’s body — and transmit images only when a threat is detected.

The TSA plans to keep the current scanners in place until less invasive software is available.

This will not solve the privacy issues, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, because the images of travelers’ naked bodies are still being captured by the machine.

“We think the privacy safeguards are mostly fiction,’’ said Rotenberg, adding that a congressional investigation is underway to review the scanners.

According to the TSA, the scanners’ ability to store images is used for testing purposes only and is disabled before they are installed in airports.

“There is no way for someone in the airport environment to put the machine into the test mode,’’ Soule said.

Officials at Logan International lobbied for the airport to be the first to have the full-body scanners installed. The TSA aims to deploy as many as 450 machines this year — adding to the 50 that were already in place at airports around the country — following the attempted terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day. And Logan is now pushing to be the first to implement the less invasive scanning software.

“When this technology is available, we want to be the first airport to put this in so we can take the privacy issues off the table,’’ said Edward Freni, director of aviation at Logan.

Freni said that no privacy concerns from Logan passengers had been brought to his attention. But one of the petitioners in the lawsuit is Bruce Schneier, a Minneapolis security technologist who said that while he was traveling through Logan Airport he was not told the full-body scan was optional. Nor did he see any signs indicating he could have a pat-down.

Ralph Nader’s Center for Study of Responsive Law has also weighed in on the full-body scanners, raising questions about privacy and safety.

And a group of University of California San Francisco scientists wrote to President Obama’s science adviser in April, stating that the dose of radiation from the X-ray scanners may be “dangerously high.’’

The scanner X-ray emits the same amount of radiation that a passenger receives in two minutes of flight, according to the TSA, but the scientists say this is misleading because the scanner X-rays are not distributed throughout the whole body, but are directed at just the skin and the underlying tissue.

There are also questions about the effectiveness of the scanners, which critics say may not be able to detect explosives hidden in body cavities.

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to expand the full-body scanner program to more airports.

Currently, 157 full-body scanners are in use at 43 airports; by the end of the year nearly 500 are planned to be in place.

Next year, 500 more machines are scheduled to be installed.

Katie Johnston Chase can be reached at johnstonchase@globe.com.


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Airline Pilot: Everybody Forced Through Naked Body Scanners in El Paso

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
July 30, 2010

Infowars.com received an email today from a pilot for a major airline who claims all passengers are now forced through naked body scanners in El Paso, Texas. “‘I’m a pilot for a major airline and overnighted in El Paso. Came to the airport the next day and everyone except for crew and airport employees were sent through the scanners. Stood there for a while and did not see anyone sent through the metal detectors,” the pilot writes.

	“Came to the airport the next day and everyone except for crew and airport employees were sent through the scanners,” a pilot tells Infowars.com.

On July 20, the El Paso Timesreported that security employees at the El Paso International Airport are using naked body scanners as the primary method of screening passengers. “The U.S. Transportation Security Administration has blocked entrances to metal detectors. Officials now instruct all travelers to get in line at one of the three imaging detection scanners,” writes Adriana Gómez Licón. Signs at the airport deceptively indicate the scanning technique is optional.

“TSA officials declined to give a reason why body scanners are being used but metal detectors are not. They unveiled the body scanners in June. Until recently, passengers were randomly chosen for the scanners.”

Companies such as Southwest Airlines have warned passengers about new procedures and advised them to be at airports two hours before their flight’s scheduled departure time, according to the El Paso Times.

In February, the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety, which includes the European Commission, International Atomic Energy Agency, Nuclear Energy Agency and the World Health Organization, said that the government must inform air passengers about any health risks posed by naked body scanners. In response, the TSA claims the imaging technology is completely safe. “Recognized standards bodies have known standards on health and safety for this type of equipment,” the agency said in a statement. “TSA complies with those national health and safety standards.”

In June, Dr. David Brenner, head of the center for radiological research at Columbia University in New York, criticized government studies claiming the scanners are not a health risk. Brenner said children and passengers with genetic mutations are most at risk because they are less able to repair X-ray damage to their cells. “The population risk has the potential to be significant,” he said.

The majority of complaints about the machines, however, focus on the invasion of privacy. “Many frequent fliers complain they’re time-consuming or invade their privacy. The world’s airlines say they shouldn’t be used for primary security screening. And questions are being raised about possible effects on passengers’ health,” USA Today reported earlier this month. “Opposition to new full-body imaging machines to screen passengers and the government’s deployment of them at most major airports is growing,” the newspaper adds.

For the government, opposition to naked body scanners is not an issue. El Paso appears to be a beta test for what is to come around the country — forcing all passengers to submit to government intrusion of not only privacy but also compromising the health of the American public under the rubric of a war on manufactured terrorism.