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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."
All that needs to be said here is that we are dealing with a software-driven platform.
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.
And when that doesn't work, EPIC failed!
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
It's all the young, beautiful 16 to 19 1/2 year-old females who are all alone and need protection from the strong DHS.
Get some enterprising hacker to release those 30k pics. If some schoolkids visited the courthouse, we'll see which is stronger: "think of the children!" or "think of the terrists!"
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.
Since the TSA scanned a 12 year old girl, why aren't child pornography charges being brought up on them?
Despite me not agreeing with this program, the "think of the children" scream has no bearing here. Child pornography must be pornographic. Even nude stills that are considered artistic (ie, some of Lewis Caroll's photos he took) are not considered pornography and are perfectly legal. You simply have to prove that the purpose of the image is not for "deviant gratification". In this case, the purpose of the images will be for airport security. End of story. It's the same reason every pediatrician in the country isn't going to jail for molestation. As long as their contact is necessary and professional, then it's allowed.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Silver paint pen should do. Remember not to write "the TSA, the" in German, because some people might misunderstand.
Look for the sweaty pervert manning it.
I had my first millimeter wave radar scan at the Denver airport when traveling last weekend. I thought it was rather interesting, but wasn't impressed by their insistence that I had something in my pockets, until I turned them inside out to show they were empty.
Necron69
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.
I was going to try to find some cites to prove you wrong and I went to Google and typed in "naked children pictures enjoying pornographic" and thinking better of it, closed the browser window.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
This is an epic obscure Simpsons reference. When Sideshow Bob goes before the parole board, they question him about his "Die, Bart, Die" tattoo. He explains it as German, where 'die' is a definite article, and they buy it hook, line, and sinker. Sideshow Bob gets out, and mayhem insues.
Seriously, make the perversion jokes if you must, but I don't think most Americans have any idea what's even being discussed here.
The TSA should allow a small sample, say 5 each male and female, various ages, of un-filtered un-redacted (but anonymous) full-resolution images available for a trusted third party to post on their website. It could be a newspaper, a travel mag, Consumer Reports, whatever, but an unbiased supervisor needs to be responsible for the authenticity.
There's not even enough information available here to have an informed debate, just a few down-sampled 'privacy filtered' press images.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"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.
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.
they cannot use software to make the display be like those displayed in Arnold's Running Man movie.
It cannot be hard to remove the human part of the picture and leave the rest... and just "animate the human"
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
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.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.