Denials Aside, Feds Storing Body Scan Images

The new generation of body scanners employed at airports (and many other places) can record detailed, anatomically revealing pictures of each person scanned, which is one reason they've raised the hackles of privacy advocates as well as ordinary travelers. Now, AHuxley writes "The US Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer that 'scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.' It turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images. The US Marshals Service admitted that it had saved ~35,314 images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse. The images were stored on a Brijot Gen2 machine. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy group, has filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to grant an immediate injunction to stop the TSA's body scanning program."

Comments

Of course they can

[TrisexualPuppy]

All that needs to be said here is that we are dealing with a software-driven platform.

Re:Of course they can

[dgatwood]

And as such, this was inevitable. Did anyone honestly think that our government could have any technology without eventually using it to its maximum potential? First, they say that it doesn't really look like they're seeing you nude. Then upon proof that they're lying, they say that it can't store the pictures. Now that there's proof that this isn't true, either, they'll say that the images are only being stored for diagnostic and training purposes.

Then, when the "Girls Gone Wild JFK Airport Style" video comes out, they'll say that all those people signed release forms. Then, when someone sues because she didn't, they'll pay her off to sweep it under the rug.

This is one of those cases where the slippery slope is almost inevitable. You have a technology that invades the privacy of people so completely that its abuse is almost unavoidable. Abuse was practically designed into the system. Trying to keep such a system from being abused is like trying to teach a jaguar to be a house cat. Doubly so when that system is in the hands of government agencies that are rarely held accountable by the general public. Triply so when even a cell phone camera is sufficient to abuse the system to horrifying ends. Quadruply so when you're talking about nudie pics.

Inevitable.

Re:Of course they can

[cgenman]

You know what happens when we lie about our business activities? We get them taken away.

If the Feds are going to lie to the American Public about fundamental, important tennants of their new airport security theater, then we should take their toys away. "I'm sorry, you needed what? You should have thought about that before you lied about it."

Of course the naked photos will never leak. Wait, that's first thing that happened. Well, the public seems comfortable with the idea. Wait, even DUBAI banned them as intrusive.

Re:Of course they can

[shadowfaxcrx]

Abuse wasn't practically built into the system. It WAS built into the system. You don't need to take a picture of my penis to find out if I'm smuggling a grenade into the courthouse. It, and the rest of me, are non-metallic, and are not composed of explosive compounds. Sniff for explosives, and use a metal detector, just like they've been doing for decades, and you'll be perfectly safe. And the worst part is, TSA, US Marshalls, and the other agencies using these machines KNOW this. They know getting nudie shots of people isn't going to enhance security. It's all security theater, to keep the public believing that they're "protecting" us against a "threat," when really they're grabbing all the authorization for everything they can think of now, while people are still being scared and stupid rather than monitoring the abuses of the government. In short, they want to take naked pictures of you because they can, and because no one is telling them "no."

Re:Of course they can

[Shakrai]

Did anyone honestly think that our government could have any technology without eventually using it to its maximum potential?

I'd like to know what the point of the damn things are, since every post 9/11 attack on an airline has been negated by the efforts of the passengers. It seems to me that metal detectors are all you really need -- keep guns off the plane and there's no way that any would-be terrorist is going to overpower dozens of passengers. Heck, even with a gun it would be tough to overpower everybody on an airplane......

They are also useless from a practical point of view, since they can't scan body cavities. If you are willing to die for your cause it doesn't seem like a huge leap of faith to assume that you are also willing to shove explosives or a weapon up your ass......

Re:Of course they can

[Blakey Rat]

Even more retarded, why wouldn't they store the images?

What if someone slips a gun through security. We need to find out how that happened-- how are we going to find out if we can't review the image? What if there's a trial of a suspected terrorist, and we need evidence of his crime-- oh wait, we don't have the image, so we don't have the evidence.

I mean, I completely understand the objections to installing these machines on every level from "it's an invasion of privacy" to "they're expensive and not worth it." But if you prevent the machines from storing images, you're making them even *more* useless than they are already!

Without a log, there's no evidence during the trial. There's no review when something goes wrong. If a terrorist act does happen, you have no way of knowing whether the machine was effective or not at stopping it. It becomes faith-based security.

The best fight would be fighting to not have them installed at all. If they are going to be installed, then don't fight storing images-- that just makes them *more* useless.

Re:Of course they can

[EdIII]

I for one can't wait 'til we get this clown Bush and his Republicans out of office, and a new Democrat administration in place, so they can stop this spying stuff.

I see what you did there... and I like it. A lot.

Too bad, Obama is a million times worse than Bush on this matter. Bush made it clear that he did not care about your rights at all. Obama said he would bring change and lied.

A lot of people voted for Obama because they thought he would hold true to his word and try to restore a lot of what we had lost, shut down Gbay, etc. Betrayal hurts a lot more than suffering incompetence and abuse.

Re:Of course they can

[Shakrai]

If you allowed those who have concealed carry permits to have their guns on the plane, there is slightly a higher probability that someone will bring one on and try to hijack the plane, but there is also a higher chance that if someone tries to hijack the plane the person in the seat behind them will reach over the seat and put a gun to their head.

I'd love to see CCW holders allowed to legally carry on airplanes. 9/11 would have ended differently if somebody on those planes had been armed. I doubt it will ever happen but I can dream.

If it doesn't happen you still don't need to go any further than metal and explosives detectors. Even a trained Special Forces operator isn't going to be able to defeat dozens of people before someone takes him down. It's absurd to attach all of this security to flying.

Re:Of course they can

[commodore64_love]

>>>You don't need to take a picture of my penis to find out if I'm smuggling a grenade

Precisely. And I find this part of the article funny: "The TSA says that body scanning is perfectly constitutional." The actual constitution says the People shall not be subject to unreasonable searches unless a warrant is obtained. No warrant was obtained, so the next question is: Are virtual strip searches that reveal a man's ballsac and woman's breasts/nipples/vaginal lips a reasonable search?

Not in my book.

I would be alright if the private airline wanted to run these scans, since it's their plane, but to allow the government to record these strippings and share them with other agencies that might wish to arrest me ("Oh look - he snuck Seventeen back from europe," says the new pedophile czar) is not acceptable. And it sure as hell isn't constitutional/legal.

Re:Of course they can

[shadowfaxcrx]

That's not the point I was trying to make at all. The answer to government abuses is not to kill the government, any more than the answer to a heart attack is to remove the heart. The size of the government has absolutely nothing to do with the level of corruption in the government. Any country with 300 million people and nearly 4 million square miles is going to take a large organization to run it.

And blindly removing laws isn't going to do any good either.

The solution is for the public to take an active role in government again, rather than just believing whatever their cable-"news"-moron-of-choice tells them to believe. Instead of running around believing that all "gubmint" is bad, find the actual bad parts, and cut them out. Want to take naked pictures of everyone for no damned reason at all? You're fired, and will be replaced with someone who will do their job properly and without tromping all over our rights.

Re:Of course they can

[tiptone]

The government knows how easy it is to make changes like this. They were just using the argument that the images wouldn't be stored as a lubricant to make the insertion a little easier.

Maybe you could explain what nefarious purpose the federal government would have for purposely storing these images.

Remember, the images are not connected to the people's identities in any way. Except for the few seconds where the first TSA worker scans your ID card (and doesn't record anything) everybody who goes through the scanner does so in a random manner. There's no way, currently for them to identify any scan as belonging to any person.

You suggest that the government is doing this scan-storing on purpose. Give us your best guess as to why.

Up until, well, still right now, they've denied storing the images which has proven to be false. You think that maybe they're storing the information off of your ID card as well? Seems at least plausible, right?

Re:Of course they can

[ebuck]

Obama has called on people to actually track and rate the honesty of his platform. That's a first amongst presidents (to my knowledge). You can track the results.

Out of 254 evaluated statements, 208 have been found to be true, in varying degrees. 208 are know to be true, 44 are known to be false. That's a truthfulness rating of about 80%. I don't know about you, but in my book (for a politician) that's incredibly high. Even if you count the "barely true" category as being false, which technically it isn't, then your still left with 176 true to 76 false.

Out of the 500+ campaign promises, he's only broken 19. Certainly not all promises are weighted equally, but again we are talking about breaking less than 5% of his promises. By scientific testing standards, that's an acceptably low enough number to prove he's keeping his promises.

He has compromised on 39 of the 500+ campaign promises, which shows that the United States still has a President, and not a Dictator. Even with the compromises added to the broken promises, he's kept or working on keeping 90%+ of his promises.

Of course, this is the USA, where we ignore facts and vote on the latest smear campaign. At the rate we are going, we will vote in office Sarah Palin. Her numbers are sobering. 27 true items to 13 false items, or about 67% true. Counting the barely true against her (as we did previously) brings the numbers to 22 true to 18 false, a mere 55% truthfulness.

A more important issue, do you really want your president to be 100% truthful? How fast do you think the economic recovery would progress if the President of the United States motivated the entire nation with, "Well we are totally fucked, and hundreds of millions of people will probably lose their jobs." How do you think we would fare in trade agreements if we said, "We're going to use our status and military power to bully you into giving us a better cut of the pie."? Both of these statements are true, but they much better told in half-truths, ie. "We are working on a plan which will increase our financial stability at home and abroad." and "We feel we could assist you with your problems more if you removed a few trade barriers."

Blaming Obama for lying is like blaming Obama for being a good negotiator. The fact that he has managed to not lie on 90% of his campaign promises is not just remarkable, it's incredible. In fact, it is so good that Republicans have voted against bills they sponsored to try to decrease his approval rating. They then use that "evidence" as a weakness of the Presidency, knowing full well that the public doesn't associate the passage of laws with Congress, they "feel" the President does it all.

Re:Of course they can

[Shakrai]

He telegraphed the fact that his promises mean nothing when he reversed himself on FISA months before the general election. Anybody that still voted for him has only themselves to blame.

I gotta give him credit though, most politicians wait until they've won the election before they start backstabbing their supporters.

Re:Of course they can

[commodore64_love]

>>>The answer to government abuses is not to kill the government,

Strawman argument. Nobody said we should do that.
.

>>>The solution is for the public to take an active role in government again

Or we could follow the solution the Founding Father set-up for us: A Supreme Law (constitution) that chains and limits what the government can do, both at the national and state level. The government can exercise those specifically enumerated powers given to it, and nothing else. Hence: No cameras doing a virtual strip search, because said power was never given to the US government.

Re:Of course they can

[shadowfaxcrx]

It's not a strawman. Someone did say that. Whoever the anon poster is, tried to tie this issue to a big gubmint issue. He said "The US gov. is much too large." Shrinking the government to an ineffective size will kill the government.

And to your second point, agreed. That's obvious. And the reason that the constitution isn't being followed is because government officials aren't following it, and they're getting away with it because of a lackadaisical public which is not involved in government, and is not holding government officials accountable for what they do in the public's name.

Re:Of course they can

[ultranova]

I was trying to preempt the inevitable "OMG GUNS ARE SCARY" knee-jerk response.

Guns aren't scary. Idiots who think guns are penis substitutes are scary.

Re:Of course they can

[Score Whore]

Umm. Have you read the promises? Things like "Express an opinion", and "Advocate for something." Neither of which requires anything more than giving a speech. Unlike "Won't raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000/year" and "No mandate to have health insurance." A bit different. Not to mention Politifact's habit of exceptionally broad interpretations of some statements and absurdly narrow of others.

Also this is the same president who, after winning the election, requested "judge me from the promises I keep, not the promises I made." Yeah. Sweet.

Re:Of course they can

[Attila Dimedici]

The problem is that he has kept the promises that the voters thought he didn't really mean and broken the ones that the voters really wanted him to keep (transparency, not raising taxes on people earning less than $250,000 a year).

Re:Of course they can

[kryliss]

Because some "dummy" will want to know where "You" got your "facts" from? I do give you credit for at least posting your sources... Oh i mean, source.

Re:Of course they can

[commodore64_love]

>>>You aren't being subjected to an unreasonable search. You choose to get on an airplane.

You choose to get in a car. It's not an unreasonable search when cops demand to see inside your trunk.
You choose to walk on the sidewalk. It's not an unreasonable search for cops to stop you & pat you down.
You choose to live inside the city limits. It's not an unreasonable search for inspectors to ram the door & enter.

I may be wrong, but I think there's something wrong with your original premise. The reason why the Constitution (both national and state level) says the government must obtain a warrant is so you can live your life in liberty, without being hassled when you are at home or traveling, or living in constant fear of the police.

The SCOTUS agrees. That is why searches of homes, people, or cars without warrants (from a judge) or probable cause (cop hears screams) have been overturned again and again and again. Likewise travel by a train or plane instead of a car should be a protected right, without a lot of hassle, like being stripped by a scanner.

No Surprise at all

[LeepII]

Since the original request for the system included "the ability to store and transmit" said images, this is no surprise. Any computer that has the "Print Screen" button on the keyboard can copy an image. Since the TSA scanned a 12 year old girl, why aren't child pornography charges being brought up on them?

Re:No Surprise at all

[HungryHobo]

It would still be fun if the archive got leaked and we got to see a political cage match between those who see terrorists everywhere and the people who spend all their time thinking about the children.

Re:No Surprise at all

[clone53421]

They claimed over and over that they were not storing the images. The fact that they were storing them clearly indicates that something deviant was occurring.

Re:No Surprise at all

[MBGMorden]

Possibly. It's not a guarantee. If the photo was legal then what he does with it could be viewed as irrelevant. In that case it'd be no more a legal problem than if they were "enjoying" the kids section of the latest JC Penny flyer.

Either way, it's still a "what if" scenario in the end. Until that's proven then the point is moot.

Re:No Surprise at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because it's used for sexual gratification doesn't mean it's pornography. Given the fetishes of some people, just about everything could be labled pornography then.

Re:No Surprise at all

[blueg3]

The TSA claimed they're not storing the images, and the U.S. Marshals (at one location) are storing the images. Those aren't the same organization.

Re:No Surprise at all

[dfghjk]

"Child pornography must be pornographic."

No it doesn't, it doesn't even need to be a child.

"You simply have to prove that the purpose of the image is not for "deviant gratification"."

The government has to prove its case against you, not the other way around.

"As long as their contact is necessary and professional, then it's allowed."

What you mean is that it matters WHO benefits from it.

Re:No Surprise at all

[Jason Levine]

When parents are accused on child porn for taking photos of their kids in the bath, saying "child porn must be pornographic" is completely untrue. It seems that all it takes is for one person to object to the amount of clothing on a child for the "child porn" label to be tossed around.

I'm confused

[jmauro]

The TSA (part of DHS) says their not recording images of people entering the airport, but the US Marshalls (part of DoJ) are.

So folks are suing the TSA? It seems to me that you'd actually want to sue the US Marshalls instead.

I'm also confused

[confu2000]

The party involved seems to be the US Marshals at a court house.

The TSA seems to be speaking only for themselves for airports.

Is this Florida court house also an airport? Or located inside an airport?

Am I having a problem with logic or is it the article?

Re:I'm also confused

[hyades1]

Given the number of cops, lawyers and criminals typically found in a court house, it can safely be said that if assholes could fly, that court house would most certainly be classified as an airport.

Does not violate the Fourth Amendment?

[Defenestrar]

From the article:

"For its part, the TSA says that body scanning is perfectly constitutional: '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.'"

Since when did the Fourth Amendment provide exemptions for "the end justifies the means" situations? (Which is a separate argument altogether).

To claim that an effective strip search without probable cause, hot pursuit, or arrest is in any way not a violation of the Fourth Amendment is a bold and likely incorrect point of view. The issue of consent is probably a critical issue here. Perhaps one doesn't have to travel by air; but when the issue may be to lose one's job for refusing to complete a business trip, perhaps then defaulting on a mortgage, & etc, or to "consent" to a millimeter wave search... That sounds more like extortion.

Not to say that the Constitution has never been violated before, but let us not deceive ourselves as to what we are doing.

Re:Does not violate the Fourth Amendment?

[russotto]

Perhaps one doesn't have to travel by air

It doesn't matter. When the government says "You must waive your rights to participate in any activity which you don't have the explicit constitutional right to participate in", it has violated your rights. The extent of the violation is more or less depending on how common or important the activities are; for air travel it's pretty darned high, though not as high as for surface travel.

Re:Does not violate the Fourth Amendment?

[vlm]

Perhaps one doesn't have to travel by air; but when the issue may be to lose one's job for refusing to complete a business trip, perhaps then defaulting on a mortgage, & etc,

Or, in other words, dark skinned folks technically don't "have to" ride the bus, so its OK to make them sit in the back. Repeat for about one zillion other racial / ethnic discrimination situations.

Re:Does not violate the Fourth Amendment?

[operagost]

Or, in other words, dark skinned folks technically don't "have to" ride the bus, so its OK to make them sit in the back.

This is a great analogy for anyone who understands the era of segregation.

What about the children

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what the legal definition of child porn is, or whether these machines violate that statute. But if a teenage kid can get in trouble for snapping a nude pic of himself, then I'd think the legal limit is fairly low.

Re:What about the children

[dfghjk]

Child porn is what you have that they don't like, it's not what they have that you don't like.

Re:Went through one recently

[clone53421]

Does it matter?

This is too painless. Give people the version that whacks them with the clue hammer. “What the hell, my rights are being violated.” Damn right they are. This scan is no different from having you walk into an empty room, disrobe, and slowly turn in front of a silvered window. The only difference is that it doesn’t feel as degrading. It should.

we need a new undershirt

[robi2106]

We need an undershirt with metalic paint (or anythign that shows up as high contrast in those scanners) in big block letters that says "Fuck You TSA."

I'd love to see a new market for Anti-TSA underwear.

Reality

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a nice story, but let's look at reality: when government fails, the people responsible aren't fired and the budget isn't cut -- most often they are rewarded with even more power and revenue. In the business of government, failure isn't a reason to stop spending or consolidating power into the hands of the elite few. It's the exact opposite: a justification for more spending and more power over the people. The reason for failure is never that the idea was bad and unjust in the first place; the reason is a lack of power and revenue.

There's a reason why the US government of today dwarfs the US government of only 100 years ago, both in revenue and power over the people -- and it's not because they have a policy of cutting losses clean. In the business of government, failure is opportunity.

Re:Reality

[Hatta]

That's a nice story, but let's look at reality: when government fails, the people responsible aren't fired and the budget isn't cut -- most often they are rewarded with even more power and revenue.

Sounds just like corporate america.

Re:Reality

[FutureDomain]

That's a nice story, but let's look at reality: when government fails, the people responsible aren't fired and the budget isn't cut -- most often they are rewarded with even more power and revenue.

Sounds just like corporate america.

That only happens for a little while until they drive all their customers away and go bankrupt. The government can't go bankrupt, it'll just steal more of your money to cover their stupidity.

Re:Well, if they did save the images ...

[Ryokos_boytoy]

Nobody said they were women. Let's not give them the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Went through one recently

[NicerGuy]

You are not legally obligated to go through one of these if you do not want to. If you refuse to go through this, which essentially amounts to a high-tech strip-search, they have to give you the old-fashioned pat-down.

for now

Re:Alt-Print Screen

[EraserMouseMan]

We need more Federal oversight of screen capture capability. Let's pass a new Citizen's Transportation Privacy Reform Act that makes it unlawful to sell keyboards with a 'Print Scrn' button. Then we create a new Single Seller Keyboard agency that makes it unlawful for anybody to purchase a keyboard from a private entity. Free government keyboards for all! It's the only way to protect the country from the privacy abuse of the TSA.

Re:They could wedge something in there!

[Archangel Michael]

It won't be found by a backscatter machine. So the point is moot. The images only go skin deep, and no deeper. My daughter has a bunch of metal in her, and it doesn't see any of it.

Nice try though.

Re:Went through one recently

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least you are not required to do so this week.

Next week though, you won't be allowed on the plane or in the court room if you do not agree to such a scan.

You simply stay and loose your ticket. Or your case.

So it's like ChatRoulette?

[billstewart]

There are lots of reasons Federal Employees might store images.

• Some of them get stored as evidence in case they actually do see something that looks like a weapon. (Duh! You think they'd build a system that *couldn't* do that?)
• Some of them get stored by Federal Employees who like millimeter-resolution pictures of hot naked chicks. (Just because they're Feds doesn't mean everything they do at work is strictly an official job function. And hey, you're reading Slashdot instead of working, and so am I :-)
• Some of them get stored by underpaid Federal Employees who are supplementing their rent-a-cop salaries by selling pornography at more commercial prices.
• They're almost certainly saving some of the images for quality control and training.
• They may be saving some images of suspicious people or politically interesting people for whatever reasons, and just because they've told us that the images are anonymous doesn't mean there's any reason to assume they're telling the truth, given that we're talking about them getting caught lying about whether they can store the images or not.

Re:Alt-Print Screen

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously because running them on the most virus-infested and vulnerable OS will make it far more likely that those images become public. Or are you just shilling?