Despite promises made to the public on the new controversial body scanners, some private images have been made public. According to Gizmodo, U.S. Marshalls in a Florida Federal courthouse reportedly saved 35,000 images on a scanner, despite rules that they immediately be deleted. (I swear, I was going to erase them!)
The Transportation Security Administration has been getting a lot of flack this week — first for the “don’t touch my junk” incident, and now this. A new policy forces select passengers to choose between a very intimate pat-down or a full-body scan that produces a detailed images of your nether regions. It’s like apples and oranges — I’m not sure which one is worse.
TSA Director John Pistole stands by the “enhanced” procedures. In a meeting today, he told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee the methods are an essential part of maintaining airport security. He also said airline passengers won't be able to skip body imaging screening or pat-downs based on their religious beliefs.
The new pat-down procedure involves airport security touching the inside of passengers' thighs and touching around women's breasts.
Is it a severe invasion of privacy or necessary procedure set up in order protect us form terrorism? Tell us in the comment section below.
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There are so many low tech ways that are simple and proven effective and do NOT deny us our rights. Why are we letting big business once again tell us how to protect ourselves. Police officers on the street have long followed court approved procedures of developing "reasonable suspicion" before conducting even a pat down. Or "probable cause" before doing a search. This is simple at the airport:
1) You screen with the metal detector.
2) You have explosive detecting dogs on duty.
3) If the metal detector goes off, you then screen with a wand to localize the issue. If there is no explanation for the alert, you proceed to the search or scanner.
4) If the dog alerts to possible explosives, you proceed to the search or the scanner.
Simple. And it doesn't deny anyone their rights. Just adding that intermediate step, instead of immediately moving to invasive techniques prone to abuse, would calm most people on this issue. But don't be fooled. This is all about big business raking in the bucks and has little to do with our security.
http://gizmodo.com/5689759/tsa-full+boc-rscanners-protecting-passengers-or-padding-pockets
This comment is not related to the above post, but does speak to the last episode of the last word -11/16/10. I didn't catch the name of the guest, but he was siding (from what I could gather) with the "burn the Koran guy" from Florida concerning the "dangerous nature of Islam"(only quoted to communicate I understood him, those words weren't his own), he also said that Ideas had consequences, well this I must say I agree with, and when you have hicks or your well educated friend deciding that they will use your show, or any other medium to challenge anyone's belief system with the arrogance he so readily displayed, then that too has consequences (not a threat please don't fox news me) and you add to the problems, not work toward all those noble causes he latter claimed to be reaching for at the tail end of the interview. I understand atheists, I don't agree with them, but when you attack people at their core beliefs you want a fight, you should be smart enough to know that. My beliefs happen to be "love thy neighbor" even if he believes different from me.
When are we going to acknowledge that airplanes are not where the danger of a serious terrorist attack lies? 9/11, if nothing else, has ensured that there will never be another hijacking (passengers will literally mob anyone that tries it--as we've already seen once or twice), and that's the only way a terrorist attack with a commercial plane is ever going to be really serious. These attempted plane bombers are so inept I can't believe they're even a serious concern.
Stop wasting time, energy, and money--not to mention people's rights--on defending against the last threat. There are FAR more porous targets available to a terrorist these days than airplanes.
Since we do not check the freight in the hold, it makes no sense to put passengers through this invasion. When we react this way, I have to think that the terrorists really have won as our freedoms dissolve.
We are still reacting to the 9/11 plane hijackings which is insane. Anyone who wants to do us harm looks at us going nuts at the airports and in reality probably moved on years ago to planning other types of attacks, if that is still their wish.
My flying is being curtailed until this invasion of my privacy is gone.
I'm not surprised that in some places save images of body scans but what freaks me out the most is that the blog Gizmodo got these images through the freedom of information act. It was so easy to these images. I'm even more baffled that some one actually gave these photos to them. Someone was not thinking. Isn't this leak against the law? Why isn't the TSA punishing the facility that allowed these images to be saved? There was a poll asking this a few minutes ago, http://my-take.com/poll/Should-the-TSA-punish-the-facility-or-agent-that-allowed-the-leak-to-happen I'll go through a body scan but never let the picture see the light of say and release the image when I'm dead.