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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

So much for "The scanned images are not stored"
Posted by Jill | 7:45 PM
Look, I really don't care if someone leaks TSA scanner images of my fat ass on the internet. What I do object to is the idea that in order to get on an airplane you have to go through more humiliating security checks than you do to move from place to place in a maximum-security prison. I object to the idea that making Michael Chertoff rich somehow trumps the reality espoused by people who actually DO face down the threat of terrorism every day that full-body scanners do not catch the kinds of explosives that a savvy would-be terrorist will be carrying. I object to a security system that sanctions the legalized groping of small children in the name of national defense. And I especially object to having my intelligence insulted by being told it's to "keep me safe" and that "the images are not stored or transmitted."

Especially when this happens:
At the heart of the controversy over "body scanners" is a promise: The images of our naked bodies will never be public. U.S. Marshals in a Florida Federal courthouse saved 35,000 images on their scanner. These are those images.


A Gizmodo investigation has revealed 100 of the photographs saved by the Gen 2 millimeter wave scanner from Brijot Imaging Systems, Inc., obtained by a FOIA request after it was recently revealed that U.S. Marshals operating the machine in the Orlando, Florida courthouse had improperly-perhaps illegally-saved images of the scans of public servants and private citizens.



We understand that it will be controversial to release these photographs. But identifying features have been eliminated. And fortunately for those who walked through the scanner in Florida last year, this mismanaged machine used the less embarrassing imaging technique.


Yet the leaking of these photographs demonstrates the security limitations of not just this particular machine, but millimeter wave and x-ray backscatter body scanners operated by federal employees in our courthouses and by TSA officers in airports across the country. That we can see these images today almost guarantees that others will be seeing similar images in the future. If you're lucky, it might even be a picture of you or your family.


While the fidelity of the scans from this machine are of surprisingly low resolution, especially compared to the higher resolution "naked scanners" using the potentially harmful x-ray backscatter technology, the TSA and other government agencies have repeatedly touted the quality of "Advanced Imaging Technology" while simultaneously assuring customers that operators "cannot store, print, transmit or save the image, and the image." According to the TSA—and of course other agencies—images from the scanners are "automatically deleted from the system after it is cleared by the remotely located security officer." Whatever the stated policy, it's clear that it is trivial for operators to save images and remove them for distribution if they choose not to follow guidelines or that other employees could remove images that are inappropriately if accidentally stored.



Or this:
Ah, the old "planting a fake bag of cocaine on a stressed traveler" trick—a classic! A recently released document reveals an idiotic TSA screener who, earlier this year, joked around with fake cocaine instead of doing his job.


The man, whose name has been redacted from the disclosed reports acquired by The Smoking Gun, was supposed to be testing expensive new screening gear from Northrop Grumman at Philadelphia International Airport. But that is totally boring! So the employee filled the time by harassing travelers passing through screening with a bags and vials of creatine—which looks a lot like cocaine.



Tell your friends...this is NOT about your safety.

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2 Comments:
Blogger Unknown said...
TSA, unifying the country, bringing Right and Left together, for the first time since... well, the firing of Keith Olberman, actually.

Hey, maybe Jon Stewart started something after all. :-)
11/16/10, 9:22 PM  
Anonymous mandt said...
I was 65, disabled , wearing a suit and carrying an old family Bible through the Denver Airport where they put me through the entire security routine because they suspected my knee brace was a bomb.
11/17/10, 5:23 PM  
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