Airport Scanners Can Store and Transmit Images

CNN is reporting on findings from a Freedom of Information request initiated by the Electronic Privacy Information Center that has revealed that, contrary to public statements by the Transportation Security Agency, full-body scanners can store and transmit images. "In the [FOIA] documents, obtained by the privacy group and provided to CNN, the TSA specifies that the body scanners it purchases must have the ability to store and send images when in 'test mode.' ... 'There is no way for someone in the airport environment to put the machine into the test mode,' [an anonymous] official said, adding that test mode can be enabled only in TSA test facilities. But the official declined to say whether activating test mode requires additional hardware, software or simply additional knowledge of how the machines operate."

Comments

No duh

[Anonymous Coward]

The picture they show in every article about the things must have come from somewhere.

amusing

[kharchenko]

The paranoia that someone may see a fuzzy resemblance of your actual body seems to have no bounds in the US. You'd think people would be more worried that the chemical scanners used in airports fail to detect most explosives, but no ...

Re:amusing

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be more concerned about the explosives getting through the scanners if I was actually afraid of getting blown up in a plane (or having an exploding plane fall on my head). Even if we'd had a few more successful attempts at pulling that off, I still wouldn't be afraid. You are STILL far more likely to get in an accident in your car on the way to the airport than having a terrorist strike your plane. On the other hand, EVERYONE has to deal with all these layers of asinine security.

Re:amusing

[Lunix Nutcase]

Yeah, there is clearly no other country in the world up in arms over these scanners.

Re:amusing

[santax]

It's not the fact that someone sees me naked, it's about the fact that I want my damn privacy. I have yet to see the first terrorist ask me to strip naked. Yet apparently when the first goverment-official tells me he wants to have a look at my dick that I have to comply! One thing is sure. I have lost 0% safety and privacy to terrorist. But I lost 100% safety and privacy to goverments the last 20 years. And I bet this goes for 99.9% of the people in the western world. It has to stop you know...

Re:amusing

[Anonymous Coward]

The "fuzzy resemblance" of a body has little to do with anything. People who would just as soon walk naked on the beach have serious concerns about what amounts to no less than a strip search with not even so much as reasonable suspicion.

This is the most invasive government search, justified by less than the smallest legally acceptable standard of criminal suspicion. The reason strip searches are so narrowly confined has less to do with dignity or moral discomfort at being handled by a police officer than with the incredible invasiveness of the procedure. There's quite a difference between being comfortable with your body and enjoying nude beaches...and the government telling you "strip down, you're not trusted and have no rights."

The government simply should not be empowered to demand this of its citizens with no basis whatsoever. Without these protections, what is the point of having gradations in police voluntary contact vs. detention vs. arrest? Why limit searches based only on reasonable suspicion to immediate surroundings and officer safety searches?

If some sub-police TSA agent can give you a digital strip search merely for wanting to fly from Chicago to New York, then there's nothing stopping them from rifling through your shopping bags in your locked trunk when you roll through a stop sign; there's nothing to stop them from a "harmless" invasion into your hard drive because there's an infinitesimal possibility there might be some terrorist information in there.

The line has been crossed with warrantless wiretapping, suspicionless searches, and generally unnecessary, unproductive, and invasive government behavior. If naked pictures of air travelers is the straw that breaks the camel's back, so be it. At least they've finally noticed that something's rotten in the state of wherever-you-are.

Re:amusing

[interkin3tic]

The paranoia that someone may see a fuzzy resemblance of your actual body seems to have no bounds in the US. You'd think people would be more worried that the chemical scanners used in airports fail to detect most explosives, but no ...

A large part of our objection is due to that second part exactly: it's TSA, operator error and general incompetence will likely preclude it actually being effective. It would be objectionable enough even if it would actually increase our safety, but it's not going to do that.

What it's going to be used for primarily is to catch more drug smugglers. I don't give a flying fuck about that goal, I definitely am not willing to sacrifice more privacy, the waste of all that taxpayer money, or the hassle of even longer lines. No.

In fact I think it's more likely that this will be counterproductive by making longer lines. Fairly often, the lines to go through the scanners have more people than are actually on a plane. That bombers aren't targeting those lines is a real testament to how stupid TSA and terrorists are, it's only a matter of time before they realize this. I'd prefer security checkpoints be faster so fewer people are in the real danger zone when they do.

Re:amusing

[Hatta]

This is the most invasive government search

Well, the 2nd most. The most invasive search requires rubber gloves.

Re:amusing

[Ziekheid]

Exactly! I'm so sick and tired of people saying "if you have nothing to hide why whine?" or "you must have a small penis if you're so concerned with body scanners".
It's just none of their damn business and we've given the terrorists EXACTLY what they wanted, mass paranoia and giving up our freedoms for "the war on terrorism".

Add to this the fact that in a moment of hysteria the airport that let the Nigerian through (Schiphol) ordered 60 of the WRONG bodyscanners which would not be able to detect the kind of "bomb" the Nigerian was carying http://www.depers.nl/binnenland/366577/Verkeerde-bodyscanners-besteld.html (source in Dutch, since Schiphol is in the Netherlands).
They are ordering the same bodyscanners in the US but possibly with the addition of x-ray scanners that are able to find anal insertions, I'm guessing these will only be used in case of doubt but are likely to be bad for your health (I have no idea to what extend).

Police in the Netherlands is already talking, and set aside money for research, about a mobile bodyscanner.
I'm wondering what the next step will be, body scanners before I enter the bus or train?
Body scanners when I enter the university?

Re:amusing

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You'd think people would be more worried that the chemical scanners used in airports fail to detect most explosives, but no ...

Considering we've seen WAY more cases of TSA malfeasance than we have seen terrorist attacks, is it really so surprising?

Just you watch - we'll see a new kind of pr0n from the pervs who brought us "up-skirt" - scanner pr0n.

Furthermore, these machines are obsolete before they are even deployed - they only see through clothing, not through the body and we've already had one case of an "ass bomber" in Abdullah Hassan Taleh al-Asiri this past september in Saudi Arabia. And while he mostly succeeding in killing only himself with little harm to others, that's because he detonated it in his ass. Even the underwear bomber spent 20 minutes in the lavatory getting ready - nothing to stop someone from taking the bomb out of their ass before detonating it on a plane. Get three or four of these guys on a plane and that's lot of bomb material sailing right past the latest billion dollars boondoggle.

Personally, I'm waiting for the schlong-bomb. Some poor schlub gets castrated and then fitted with a horse-sized prosthetic full of bomb, detonators in the balls of course. The TSA will just let him pass as they will be shocked and awed by the size of his tool, not realizing who he's really going to use that tool to fuck over.

Re:amusing

[saaaammmmm]

Who would have guess that those child porn laws would be good for something?

Re:amusing

[biryokumaru]

I dunno, the rate we're going people won't realize they're prisoners until they've put the bars up in their own homes.

Re:amusing

[nine-times]

There's quite a difference between being comfortable with your body and enjoying nude beaches...and the government telling you "strip down, you're not trusted and have no rights."

I agree with you generally, but I think there is still another side to this whole thing, which is that your rights are not quite as absolute as our talking about that sometimes implies. Like yes, I have the freedom of speech, but if someone in the House of Representatives decides to run toward the President during the state of the Union yelling "Sic semper tyrannis!" then you'd better bet he's going to be detained for a little while. There's the issue of context, and these rights are still subject to reason. Likewise there have been court decisions, I believe, that school administrators can search student lockers without probable cause-- or at least that the standard of probable cause needed is quite a bit lower.

So given this issue of context, I would say that airports are already situations where we endure a lower expectation of privacy than elsewhere. I don't know if that's a legally appropriate way of saying it, but what I mean is, we already essentially allow our bags to be searched at airports. If a police officer stopped me randomly on the street and asked to look in my bag, I'd say no. If the same police officer asks to look in the same bag when I'm going through security at an airport, I'll agree. When I showed up to the airport that day, I knew ahead of time that I'd have to allow my bags to be searched (or at least viewed through an xray machine). Likewise when I pass over the border from another country, I know that I'll be expected to have a passport. If a police officer asked me for my papers while I was just walking down the street, that would seem far more sinister to me. I've also emptied my pockets, walked through a metal detector, and allowed myself to be pat down at an airport. I wouldn't approve of police doing that randomly on the streets.

So looking at it that way, I can't quite decide whether these scanners are going too far. I suppose if the consensus is that you feel like you've been stripped of your dignity by being asked to step into one, then it probably is too far. However, I think I wouldn't really feel worse for being scanned than I feel for being asked to take my shoes off. Maybe that's just a mental defect on my part.

Re:amusing

[bugs2squash]

As I get older my body is naturally getting fuzzier. If the scanner adds more fuzz the TSA will simply view me as a giant hairball.

Re:amusing

[linhares]

who needs to bring a bomb through these machines anyway?

"We've got to face the fact that you can build a bomb in the duty free shop, after you've gone through screening.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8438355.stm

Re:amusing

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not the point, the point is that they deliberately lied to the public about the machine not being able to store images, they got caught and now they are (doubtless) lying again when they say there is "no way" to put the machine into test mode outside of TSA "test centers".

Re:amusing

[russ1337]

So then you will never get an x-ray or a mammogram, which are transmitted over a network and by law are stored for years.

Which are medical procedures. Same as gynecological and rectal examinations. All of which I reserve for someone who's graduated Med school.... not some $2 an hour night-club qualified security guard.

Re:amusing

[Trillian_1138]

Exactly! I'm so sick and tired of people saying "if you have nothing to hide why whine?" or "you must have a small penis if you're so concerned with body scanners".

Without being sarcastic, some of us are concerned about having their small penis put up for display. This will inevitably be TMI, but I know I'm not the only trans woman who reads Slashdot, and presenting and being perceived as a woman but smuggling a dick through security runs the risk of harassment (if you're lucky) and arrest/sexual assault/murder (if you're not).

I'm all for safe air travel, but I can see a million ways to abuse this technology, and use it to harass and humiliate people who aren't terrorists for every one way it can be used to "fight terrorism."

Re:amusing

[Jeremi]

And even after that, what happens when the bomb is surgically implanted?

There's probably no need to resort to surgery even, someone could just swallow a number of small timed explosives. Hell, drug smugglers have been swallowing condoms full of cocaine for years, and it (usually) works for them...

Re:amusing

[nine-times]

If the government *REALLY* wanted to save lives, they would help people eat healthier (which might help some of our health problems), work to improve safety in cars, pull people over for texting and driving...all things that cause many more deaths than plan crashes.

I agree entirely. Heart disease and car accidents are a couple big killers, but if you put a tax on fatty foods or talk about increasing public transportation, then people start complaining about socialism and bemoaning their loss of freedom. On the other hand, if the government suspends habeas corpus, tortures prisoners, and conducts wiretaps and invasive searches without cause, everyone's fine with it because "we're fighting terrorists". It doesn't make any sense to me.

Re:amusing

[lena_10326]

When being singled out and abused for being transsexual is institutionalized, you tend to get a bit nervous when technology is installed that would expose you as a transsexual to individuals with great power. Nearly every transsexual person has had bad experiences with police, clerks behind a counter, and those expecting your identification papers to fit within a narrow set of parameters. http://www.wmctv.com/global/story.asp?s=8515744

Also, a fat man with man boobs will not look the same on the image as a pre-op transwoman of normal weight. It will be very obvious who is transsexual with that scanner. Remember these scanners will be installed in airports around the world in countries having despicable records for abusing if not killing LGBT people.

Re:amusing

[GameboyRMH]

It's worth noting that whenever they show a scan on TV, they have the subjects put metal plates over their "naughty bits" for the scan. That says something.

So?

[Mononoke]

It doesn't matter, and nothing we think on this subject matters anyway.

Check the redactions

[russotto]

Further analysis of the documents finds some improperly-redacted material indicating that the test mode can in fact be entered with a sequence on the control panel, to wit "UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A START".

Good enough for government work

[ebonum]

"cannot be hacked"
This should be a massive red flag. The is the same as stating to the world, I'm unqualified and have no idea what I'm talking about.

"employees who misuse the machines are subject to serious discipline or removal"

Hmmm. So when pushed, they admit that security is ensured by the fact that the government employees are going to behave. Just like those Blackwater guys?

I would be temped to get a job with the TSA just to get a chance to hack these things. Plus, working with a partner, you could easily get high value images of celebrities.

Re:Good enough for government work

[biryokumaru]

Actually, this would be a great application for that Van Eck idea. Everyone's always playing with their wifi doodads at airports, no one will notice someone setting up an odd "wifi" antenna that just happens to capture the images on the security guy's monitor. Heck, maybe his flight is late in the day, he could be there for hours.

Not answering is an answer

[93 Escort Wagon]

'There is no way for someone in the airport environment to put the machine into the test mode,' [an anonymous] official said, adding that test mode can be enabled only in TSA test facilities. But the official declined to say whether activating test mode requires additional hardware, software or simply additional knowledge of how the machines operate.

Leaving aside the idea of whether we really should care or not...

By not answering, I think this official made the answer pretty obvious. Basically it's analogous to the RFID passport issue. When they say "it can only be done under these specific circumstances", they're simply leaving off the lead-in phrase "Our policy is clear - ". The erstwhile "restriction" is political, not technical.

I imagine it won't be too long before some enterprising TSA employee - or a hacker - puts up a website with surreptitious photographs of cute women alongside their full-body scan images.

Dignity is an essential human right.

[$beirdo]

Just imagine some TSA creeps snickering at an image of your girlfriend's, your father's or your mother's naked body.

We are all endowed with certain inalienable rights, including the right not to be examined nude en masse by the government when we travel.

Dignity is an essential human right. How dare we sacrifice it to terror?

Freedom? Yeah, right!

Re:Dignity is an essential human right.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying that she looks like Alice Cooper?

Re:Dignity is an essential human right.

[Xyrus]

Senator: "We must stop at nothing to prevent terrorist attacks!"
TSA1: "I can see your penis."
Senator: "Err....well...uhhhh..."
TSA2: "Your wife has nice tits, too."
Senator: "Now wait a just a minute..."
TSA3: "Mmm...barely legal T&A. Are you sure that daughter is yours?"
Senator: "May God smite you! I am outraged!"
TSA1: "Sir, you are behaving in an odd manner. I'm afraid we'll need to do a full cavity search."
TSA2: "The wife's mine."
TSA3: "Dibs on the daughter!"
Senator: "My God, what have I done?"
God: "Fucking idiot."

~X~

Duh.

[mosb1000]

They probably record every single image generated by those things, and hold it at least until the passenger's flight is over. I don't see why they would do it any other way. It flies in the face of reason. I know they say otherwise, but I doubt they feel bad about lying to the general public. It's for the greater good, right?

Cool!

[zmollusc]

They can add value by auto-updating everyone's FaceBook page with the latest scan and the new status 'clean'/'hilarious'/'needs liposuction'/'tumescent'/'en route to Gitmo' etc.

Hey, can I borrow your cameraphone for a moment?

[chiph]

Got a real hot babe going thru the scanner here.
- TSA Perv

Like BIG celebrities are going to use this.

[geekmux]

C'mon now, all this talk about celebrities and hacking those "high-profile" images. Please. Most celebrities don't bother with this now.

Let's see, I'm a celebrity making millions. Do I A) Pay $1000 to fly first-class on a public airline and risk my career being ruined by a horny airport scanner operator stealing my "naked" image, or B) Realize I have enough "ah, fuck it" money lying around to lease my own NetJet where I don't have to deal with the bullshit of either scanners or the pubic.

Problem Solved

[fast turtle]

just fly naked. If they don't like it, you can claim it's a security related measure.

No crap!

[/dev/trash]

Say you catch a guy with something and they have a trial. And the judge asks for the evidence to be presented. Well. Yeah they need a copy of that in initial scan.

You don't even have to watch Law and Order to know that shit.