It looks like trouble is brewing over the so-called ‘porno scanners’, the new full-body scanning devices at airports that provide screeners with naked images of people. John Tyner, a resident of Oceanside, California near San Diego, refused to go through the machine or submit to the groping alternative. He was not only not allowed to get on the plane, he is now being investigated by the TSA because you are apparently not allowed to leave the airport if you refuse to be scanned, although he was initially escorted out. He could face a $10,000 fine. He has written about the encounter and posted the video on his blog and has now become something of a folk-hero.
November 24 has been declared National Opt Out day when travelers are being urged to refuse to undergo the full-body scans. Pilot associations are urging opposition, civil liberties groups are taking legal action, and petitions against them are being circulated. There are suspicions that the groping pat downs that are the alternative to those not wanting to submit to the full-body scanners are being used as a way to coerce people to use the porno scanners as the less humiliating option.
The promise that the images will be kept confidential have been shown to be false when the website Gizmodo released 100 images that they had been able to obtain. These images are of lower quality resolution than the new x-ray backscatter machines being used at airports. There are also concerns about the health effects of the radiation. A new site called Fly With Dignity has been started to collect horror stories about the TSA’s actions.
Ivan Eland describes another security measure that even I was not aware of.
Another bizarre security addition that I have recently experienced is the plastic cage. Last week I was flying and was randomly selected for the dreaded “secondary screening” (it sounds ancillary but is just annoying). The security woman put me in the cage (fortunately it had air holes), locked it, and told me that I wasn’t getting out until she swabbed my hands (presumably for potential chemical residues from bomb making).
Art Carden at Forbes calls for the abolition of the TSA. Carden also makes a point that has been known for a long time but which only now is being widely voiced, that the threat from dying in an airplane terrorist attack is far less than the threat of dying on the drive to and from the airport, so why are we so freaked out about airport security? Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, in this interview with Stephen Colbert, gets really worked up over the porno scanners.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
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The American people have for a long time ignored blatant abuses by their government of the constitution and basic human and civil rights. They have condoned wars started on false pretences, torture, denial of habeas corpus, indefinite detention without trial or access to lawyers and family, kangaroo courts rigged to produce guilty verdicts, killing of civilians in other countries by predatory drones, murder of American citizens merely on the president’s say so, and so on. Truly horrendous crimes have been greeted with a shrug that ‘they’ probably deserve it and that these actions make us safer.
Could it be that intrusive airport security, of all things, is the issue that awakens people from their stupor and make them finally realize that the national security state is out of control, and that this groping and porno scanning is merely a symptom of a government drunk with coercive power that thinks they can do anything to anyone with impunity? Will people from all over the political spectrum seize this opportunity to join with others and pull on this thread and begin the unraveling of the national security state? Or is it that they are upset because in this case the professional classes are being directly imposed upon and they will become meek and docile again if this particular intrusion is removed and the government goes back to abusing the powerless?
This protest may also fizzle out with the usual sniping based on party labels. Republicans seemed to be just fine with the Bush-Cheney regime violating their rights but now that Obama is in the White House they are starting to grumble. Will the Democrats who protested loudly against Bush-Cheney now meekly support the Obama regime on this issue?
I hold out a slim hope that this is the beginning of a new valuing of personal liberty and privacy and the rule of law.
The TSA is a ridiculous waste of money. A cost per assumed life saved should be estimated and compared with similar benchmarks for auto traffic safety, food safety, etc.
I did see on the evening news, though, that the pat down is only done for those who refuse to go through the scanner. Those people then have to go through a metal detector. If they set off the detector, then they get patted down. If they don’t set it off, they do not get patted down.
Health physicist makes a great point about waste of money. People sometimes get up-in-arms about how “heartless” cost benefit analysis is for things about saving lives, but I think otherwise. Why spend $1 billion dollars to save 10 lives when you could save 100 times as many lives as that doing something else with the money? That is the opposite of heartlessness.
The TSA should probably be abolished in favor of a much more limited-in-power branch of the department of transportation or something.
The problem is that it is so hard to take away power once it is given.
Jared
PS -- It has been anecdotally noted that woman with large breasts tend to be disproportionately “randomly” chosen for the screening.
PPS -- Personally, I’m perfectly happy to strip down in front of strangers if it actually serves a purpose. You know, like providing materials to bandage wounds in an accident or to prevent hypothermia after being in freezing water. I guess don’t consider acting as a pawn in the flexing of arbitrary government power a worthy enough cause.
I wouldn’t recommend betting on the US populace waking up any time soon, Dr. Singham. Even if this ignites into a real movement to restore the individual rights of travelers, it will peter out quickly once they get their way. The masses really aren’t that upset about our interventionist and imperialistic actions around the world; they believe (without evidence, of course) that this is the only way to promote our interests.
And please, don’t refer to these searches as “pat downs.” They are not merely pat downs by any definition. The pat down, or Terry Frisk, has specifically defined limitations as established in supreme court case law. What they are doing is a full search, minus the strip part (for now). When I worked in law enforcement we were explicitly trained that we could only conduct so thorough a search upon arresting an individual.
Also, congress just had a circle-jerk session congratulating and ego-stroking the director of the Dept. of Homeland Security. The dems expressed their sycophantic adulation, while a few token repubs tossed out a few half-hearted concerns. If the makeup of the congressional body was the opposite, then the roles played would have been as well. In other words: Congress will be no help at all in this, unless the airline industry starts lobbying for change. Why, then it will be in the best interest of everyone involved (meaning CEOs and investors). :-\
It’s funny that we accept this expensive invasion of privacy that is mostly useless, and yet proposing a quick, non-invasive breathalizer screening for patrons leaving bars late at night, a measure certain to save many lives, is hugely unpopular.
I think this is a case where high-tech is not necessarily the answer. Why not use canines? Mans best friend is being used all over the world to sniff out all manner of things. I saw a documentary where a passing grade for a “fire” dog was that he had to find two drops of kerosene in a several acre forest!!! Several years ago, while travelling from Seatle to Vancouver Island by boat, Security had a dog on a leash walking up and down the boarding line, probably there to sniff out drugs. Dogs are in the sniffing business and they are good at it, this has been proven over thousands of years and in numerous situations. I have no doubt that a dog could be trained to sniff out just about anything you wanted him to find.
Another thing I forgot to mention is that the DHS has unilaterally taken up all of our supply of He-3 so they can look for NEUTRONS of all things. It’s an absolute waste and our ability to do science is significantly hampered.
(For those who don’t know, He-3 is an isotope of helium that is exceedingly rare -- you can only really get it from reactors. A closed system of He-3 can get you to less than 1/4 the temperature as a He-4 system; 0.35 vs 1.75 K. Without He-3 we must use things such as dilution refrigerators which are much more expensive to implement.)
Correction -- I don’t know why I said you can really only get He-3 from reactors. Actually, there has been talk about this but I don’t know if you currently can. Like He-4, He-3 is found in the crust. Also, dilution refrigerators do contain He3, but they tend to hold onto the gas better than a simple He-3 refrigerator which leaks slowly.
1). the new scanners are the result of the former head of Homeland security, using his previous position to publicly push these very expensive machines as a standard screening tool for all travelers at airport. Then when he left homeland security, his consulting firm represents the larges scanner manufacturer and he regularly appears in the press to “lobby” for thier use. This is a red flag conflict of interest and highly suspicious.
2). Both the backscatter technology and the millimeter wave technology of these scanner is completely untested. There are professional opinions on their safety which state that the amount of xray exposure is minuscule and represents an amount of exposure of about the same whole body exposure as 2 minutes of flight time in the air. Other prominent experts disagree and charge that TSA is falsely distorting these facts to their own benefit. They point out that the back scatter system radiation cannot penetrate deeper than the skin layer (thus the highly detailed nude pictures generated), which means that a comparison to full body absorption is grossly deficient a comparison to that level of absorption only in the skin. This would raise the total skin absorption values significantly higher. In addition they warn that repeated xray exposure in this way would certainly translate into increased skin cancer incidents in vulnerable travelers: those who have already been exposed to medical xrays, dental xrays, cancer treatment and those who have a history of personal cancer or cancer running in thier family. The most vulnerable groups would be children, young people and people in puberty with damage to the testicles and ovaries.
No research at all is present for the potentially harmful effects of millimeter wave technology on humans.
3). The larger issue here is the trampling of our legal and constitutional rights as Americans and our right to privacy and unreasonable search and seizure. Pornographic pictures of ourselves, our sons and daughters, grandmothers and loved ones are not to be the standard price we must pay to our government to travel in this country or anywhere else. The government’s job is not primarily to keep us safe, it is to protect our rights and liberties. destroying our liberties to keep us safe defeats the purpose, because at this point the enemy has already won by forcing us to relinquish our way of life and trash our constitution in the process.
4). Those who refuse this intrusion of the scanners are therefore “punished” by the TSA by being forced to surrender themselves to a brutal, sexual assault by TSA agents, who then probe, touch and feel one’s testicles, penis and breasts. Anywhere in the civilized world this is a gross miscarriage of government power and would be looked upon in any circumstance as sexual assault and criminal prosecution and jail-time. Is this what you want for your 5 year old daughter, your 16 year old daughter, your grandmother, yourself?
5). Those who refuse this “Advanced Pat-Down” face criminal civil suits of up to $11,000. This is what it now costs to be “free”.
6). Do you really think it will all stop here? This procedure is being assembled as the standard procedure for all passengers. Do you really think that this will not soon be instituted in train stations and bus stations and highway check-points around the country.
7). What happens when the first suicide bomber uses an anal suppository to explode a plane? Will the TSA now be instituting body cavity searches on all travelers as a standard procedure?
8).This is how liberty and freedom have been traditionally dismantled throughout history with the eventual result that one day we all wake up in a police state controlled by the government. I say, the TSA’s new procedures have just introduced exactly that. lets be constantly vigilant and jealous of our constitutional rights, they are there for a reason….so that just this kind of thing can not take place.
healthphysicist,
I don’t think that the news program you saw is correct. If you are selected (for whatever reason) to go through the porno scanners and decline, you have no option but to submit to the grope.
If the TSA did not use this coercive technique, everyone would decline to go through the scanner, preferring to take their chances with the metal detector.
In this instance, I believe, technology is not really the good solution. Well trained dogs could probably do the job quite effectively.
After all, dogs’ their noses are extraordinarily powerful, they are very easily trainable and they are usually willing to work with us humans.
I have wondered why dogs haven’t been used more. I understand that the physical “pat down” or the scan have to do with finding explosives in non-metal containers. It’s my understanding that dogs could find such items.
I’m also aware that some sub-cultures are offended by having dogs brought close to them. Perhaps the “pat-down” or scan could be reserved for those situations. Let the individual decide which is the least insult to his or her dignity and privacy.
I recently saw another documentary on search dogs and they are very impressive. It seems that you can train a dog to find pretty much anything you want them to find. One example was money or drugs hidden in containers of coffee being smuggled across the US/Mexico border. As soon as this technique was discovered, search dogs were trained to ignore the coffee smell and still find the contraband.
Personally I would rather have a dog sniffing me than being groped by some $12 an hour government employee who is probably in a very bad mood from the abuse he/she just suffered from the last person they searched.
Also, if there is even a hint of conflict of interest, and the person(s) involved do not remove themselves to eliminate the conflict, the courts should certainly do so.
Having dogs is just as good as having the best technology. Ie in airports or out in afghanistan dogs noses are so powerfull that they smell out the trouble and just as quick as technology would be able too
Personally, I don’t feel that we have security problems to the point we need all this scanning and probing by TSA. The way I see it, is that TSA is infringing on our liberty so that they can have complete control of what is left of our freedoms.
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