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

[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

[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.

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.

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: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.

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: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.