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US Marshals Saved 35,000 Full Body Scans
PatPending writes "A Gizmodo investigation has revealed 100 of the photographs saved by the Gen 2 millimeter-wave scanner from Brijot Imaging Systems, Inc., obtained by a FOIA request after it was recently revealed that US Marshals operating the machine in the Orlando, Florida courthouse had improperly — perhaps illegally — saved [35,000] images [low resolution] of the scans of public servants and private citizens."
The more these assholes abuse their power, the less willing the public will be to entrust power to them.
Oh god, who am I kidding?..
We all knew it would happen sooner or later. So, when does Bodyscanporn.com open up? :)
~Bchickens
And they'll get about as much of a punishment as Charles Rangel.
Like maybe: "The officers involved have received reprimands that will go in their permanent record."
If someone is going to invade my privacy for pointless security theater, I might as well make it as uncomfortable and inconvenient for them as possible. In airports, I always opt for frisking instead backscatter. No pictures to save then, either.
I'm sure that whoever makes those machines is not happy. Whoever was the salesman and just lives off commissions might be ecstatic. Now he gets to propose a whole new line of machines, and a whole new commission, on thousands of machines worth a million bucks each.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
HE DIDN'T RESPECT THEIR PRIVACY? INCONCEIVABLE!
You keep using that word 'privacy.' I do not think it means what you think it means.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
No, it's the fact that the data isn't supposed to be stored. They're retaining the data illegally. That's what we're supposed to be even more worried about--the abuse of the system.
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
No, what you should be worried about is that other people are concerned, and the government that represents them doesn't give a shit.
You should be concerned that the government that represents them lied to everyone and said that images could not be saved on the machines that the TSA was getting.
You should be concerned that you are being asked to give up more and more privacy, now the privacy of what is under your clothes and in your pockets, for little more than the simple assertion that it is needed, with nothing of significance to show any real credible threat whatsoever.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Every time the public or public advocates complain about new law enforcement technologies or powers, it is always important to remember is that it is not the ability to perform effective law enforcement that is the problem -- it is precisely to prevent the inevitable abuse of power that we seek to enjoin. Let's forget about official abuse of power (which also happens frequently) and look at unofficial and inappropriate abuse of power such as a sheriff's deputy using their police facilities to check up on his girlfriend or his daughter's boyfriend. This is a kind of abuse of power that I would most certainly find irresistible as would most people. This is precisely why such powers should be handed out carefully and controlled even more carefully. Corruption is a problem of opportunity, not a defect of character.
I thought that for passengers' privacy, the nude-o-scope operator was in another room with no view of the real person, but these photographs match each person with their scan so there obviously is a simple way to view person both clothed and naked! ohhh, the opportunities...
And that makes a difference how? It's still a blatant invasion of personal privacy, low res or not.
Did anybody else notice that in some of the images the people well behind the pad (but still in the image frame) are showing up as well? Just how much EM do these things ACTUALLY emit?
You mean the same machines that we're repeatedly told cannot save images? The ones people don't like because of the privacy invasion and the answer is always "the machines cannot save images"?
Who is actually surprised by this?
So THAT'S where I left my keys!
Is anyone really surprised? Have you ever met a mall security guard, bouncer, airport monkey who wasn't a complete power abusing ass? Face it people do give them grief and it can be a shitty job so the only people that are going to take it are the type who are looking to bully the public.
The end of the world? Or did you mean the next election? Heh.
Require cavity searches for anyone wishing to enter a fast food restaurant
Have you ever seen the people that enter fast food restaurants? You'd have a lot more than the standard number of cavities to search.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Childs have to pass thru body scan? Sarah Palin? Senators? There should be one bad scenario that could convince the people that matter that it should stop.
Of COURSE the images are being stored. Do you think for one moment that they would not be able to recall the images immediately after some airplane has an unforeseen tragic event? Within the hour, CIA Langley would be scrutinizing the scrotes of everybody who boarded, for the past six flights that each passenger took. Even if it turned out to be a maintenance issue or design defect like Qantas just endured. It boggles the mind how many people will just say "but... but... but they SAID they'd delete the images."
[
On the plus side, there will be lots of leaked celebrity nude scans on the Internet starting any day now.
None of the politicians would stand by any government servant. If there is one thing civil servants know, it is when the shit hits the fan, one of them will be scape goated. Media would be going fanning the flames. All those liberatarians and the small government conservatives and the "tax cuts will solve everything" crowd will be silent, very very silent. There will be no one to tell in the media frenzy, "It is sad it happened, but it can't prevented without serious invasion of privacy of millions of people and huge expansion of the government and law enforcement expenditure."
Next time a terrorist blows up a plane, stand up and say, "yeah, it is sad and tragic. But we as a country have gone through far worse. We lost a million soldiers in WW II. 50K in Vietnam. Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, London were all bombed mercilessly. We survived. Compared to that it losing two buildings and 3000 people is nothing. If we cower in our shoes and crap in pants, the terrorists have won. Just let us go back to normalcy." But no one will.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Saying "the pictures will never be saved" is known as a "Pie Crust Promise" - easily made, easily broken. Here is some interesting reading on similar promises from the government, especially on how the SSN will never be used for identification. http://www.scragged.com/articles/the-plague-of-presidential-pie-crust-promises . The moral is never EVER trust the government .
Which are debt, falling behind in everything behind China. We can't solve everything. This is example how we wate time bi***ing about everything and anything, and do nothing to make things better.
Trains don't fall from the sky. They run on electric power. Carry many more people than planes. Stops right in the middle of downtown, origin and destination, no trip to and from the airport needed. Sometimes you can just get on, no papers or checking at all, and buy the ticket later on board. Sometimes there is a restaurant car, or a bar car. You can see the scenery, it is less than a yard away from your window. You have long seats, tables, lots of space, walk around the cars. You can get off at the next town, walk around, and take the next train. There are almost never any accidents. Did I say it's electric?
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Bush's Fatherland Security czar, Michael Chertoff, profits from the sale of the nudie-scanners.
http://gawker.com/5437499/why-is-michael-chertoff-so-excited-about-full+body-scanners
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/full-body-scanner-lobby-michael-chertoff-rapiscan-2552674.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2627190/posts
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/01/airport-scanner-scam
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
We lost a million soldiers in WW II.
The number was closer to 400k than one million.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
This is old news folks. Looks like Gizmodo saw the original news story some time ago, filed an FOIA request and now that they've got the goods, they show it so it's a new story? Not taking away from the seriousness of the issue mind you but this is pretty lame as far as news goes.
The TSA is now groping women's breasts and little kids genitals. (See the recent video of a girl crying, "Stop touching me!"
And I just now heard an interview with an American is being punished $11,000 by the U.S.G. because he refused to be scanned, or groped by the TSA, so the guards told him, "You cannot fly." He then canceled his ticket, got a refund, left the airport, and was arrested for leaving the area.
Apparently once you enter an air terminal, you no longer have any rights... except to submit to the US Gestapo and their warrantless/illegal searches.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
1. radiation exposure and some mall cop staring at my dick. with pictures for permanent internet memories
2. some mall cop groping my dick
i choose 3: fuck flying. taking the airplane is a burdensome horrendous experience that just keeps getting worse and worse. it makes driving 20 hours seem more attractive than flying 4 hours
"the terrorists have won" is a lame trite statement, but it's true. they've permanently altered our society to turn us into scared cattle and they've permanently made airplanes a hellish unattractive transportation method
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Next time I fly, I'm going to swallow lots of Viagra. If they're going to frisk me, they'll have to accept that I don't have a 3rd leg. I'm sure those bright minds will figure it out eventually.
Sorry to hold up the line folks. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do... :)
Life is not for the lazy.
So where are the political people who promised us it was "impossible" for the images from these scanners to be saved? It was clearly a manufacturing possibility that the images could be stored. And the rule of operation is that "if it can be done, it will be".
Geeky systems observation:
There needs to be a better political process where, when the political message is later proven to be a lie, we can shoot the original messenger. Because without negative feedback the system will continue to run amok. The current political process is not good enough and has a large enough time lag that corrective factors build up and sever oscillations occur.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_margin
It has been pretty apparent that these things could save images from the very start.
Have you ever seen a picture of these scans? Were you at the airport at the time, or was it on TV or the internet? How do you think it got there?
So from now on "how it's hanging" will be a verifiable public record.
Next Wednesday: http://www.optoutday.com/
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Who cares whether the machines can save images or not anyway? Any screener with a camera phone could just take a picture of the screen.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
they just kept images of the hot girls.
No, this is all for the little people. Celebrities will just further flock to their G5's so they don't have to rub elbows with the hoi polloi at the gate. Invest heavily in concierge jet taxis.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
They're retaining the data illegally.
No one really seems to care if anything is illegal anymore, as long as it isn't a "classic" crime like assault, robbery, murder, drugs, or the like. The notion of illegality is as benign and dead as ever. Now it seems, laws are merely for retaining and furthering the authoritative reach of those in power, not as a code by which we determine what constitutes a crime.
... against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." Shall not be violated. Here I was, locked in a bathroom with two police officers, being searched, all because I didn't get lucky when somebody went searching for a promotion in a post-Columbine fear state.
I've had money stolen by Fortune 500 companies and those employees laugh at me after I read the applicable laws aloud to them, even though they were clearly -- even personally -- in violation. It's all just a joke, a game. Of course, they win, because it wasn't enough dollars and cents to coerce me into jumping through all the necessary hoops and sending of all the paperwork to the various & mysterious government entities whom I would need to reach out to in order to even have "THE LAW" enforced.
Nearly ten years ago, I was searched every single day before class my senior year. I dropped out because they wouldn't stop and I was sick of it. No due process. There were no charges, no arrest, no evidence -- nothing. Just some overzealous police officer saying I did something (I didn't), and that being enough. The police are the authorities on reality now, I suppose. Be searched, or be denied an education! No one cared at the school, the local school board, the state department of education, the ACLU, the attorney general's office -- whoever I reached out to. Couldn't even find any money-grubbing lawyers to take on the district. I was only seventeen, a definite no one. Why should they care? There are no consequences if they don't.
There, in the corner of a locked bathroom, lay the United States Constitution trampled, battered, abused, and with a page upturned to the fourth amendment, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons
So, the law is dead. It's because nobody cares. No one is individually accountable. Nothing matters as long as you can have your TV dinner in front of a friendly glowing screen made just to keep your empty mind company; crawl under your made-in-China blanket at night; and sidle up to that wife of yours you met staring down the packets of pet niblets at the grocery store in the dog food aisle.
Take away a person's false sense of security and all of the comforts of modernity, perhaps they'll have time or be more inclined to think about trivial, meaningless things such as "sense-makery" and "justice."
not much, just being forced to manually insert line breaks into my comment
Every citizen has the right to do a citizens arrest. Once they touch your junk all you have to do is notify them you are arresting them and any "real" law enforcement officer must take them into custody. It's the law. However I'm very certain this will never happen.
IF I'm only wearing a speedo, I can't hide anything right?
Is the passenger train industry moving to capitalize on this at all?
Suddenly those bullet train proposals here in California don't seem all that bad. Well, other than the fact we can't build any public works anymore without it costing $1 billion per foot.
So privacy issues aside (but not forgotten), how often are these machines calibrated and inspected? The article says the image quality suffers due to a misalignment in the machine. How long did that persist? Were people exposed to higher doses of radiation as a result? Why should we trust security guards to run what basically amounts to adapted medical equipment? If we are going to have these machines, shouldn't they be operated by trained radiologists who have some hope of recognizing when the machine is not working in spec and understand the potential consequences?
It seems like what's necessary at this point is for someone with a public platform to actually say what we all know, that security theater (a) has gone too far and (b) isn't helping anyway.
It's probably too risky for someone who, say, works for an airline, or an airport, to say it even if they know it, because then if that airline or airport is the target of the next attack, even if it had nothing to do with what they said, the lawsuits would fly even faster and more furiously than usual. It's unlikely that a politician from the spineless Democratic Party would say anything that could be construed as being soft on terrorists. I'd like to think that some of the Republicans (especially some of these newly elected Tea Party types) might, but I also think they count on the whole atmosphere-of-constant-fear thing to drive up demand for their preferred policies of military spending, gun rights, the death penalty, and so on, so I am not counting on them either. And anyone who has to answer to the politicians (like the head of the TSA) probably has to shut up for the same reasons.
So I'm not sure who I'm counting on here. I dunno if some 2nd-tier broadcaster could do for this issue what Rick Santelli did for the mortgage bailout, because when he ranted, it was politically easy for others to say "yeah! what he said!" But there must be someone. Right?
101010, 222, 52,
Yeah. Where's the torrent? Low res pictures of fat businessmen are boring.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
This isn't the ONLY thing either...
Big Sis Caught Lying To American People
http://www.infowars.com/big-sis-caught-lying-to-american-people/
Video: Big Sis Caught Lying
http://www.prisonplanet.com/video-big-sis-caught-lying.html
'Naked' scanners at US airports may be dangerous: scientists
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h08khPyFPinX_4vNYd1JZwn8hV4Q?docId=CNG.442824fa7c08853af96322d7315a6f02.461
Shocker: TSA Has Been Molesting Children For Years
http://www.prisonplanet.com/shocker-tsa-has-been-molesting-children-for-years.html
TSA Now Putting Hands Down Fliers’ Pants
http://www.prisonplanet.com/tsa-now-putting-hands-down-fliers-pants.html
TSA Gives Rapists And Illegals The Green Light While Groping Children
http://www.prisonplanet.com/tsa-gives-rapists-and-illegals-the-green-light-while-groping-children.html
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Damn the people of the US are fat!
in airports for people who are doing nothing, but trying to travel. These invasive and unnecessary scans and pat downs need to be ended and an investigation into why Michael Chertoff was allowed to manipulate Homeland Security so he and his friends could make billions of dollars selling nude body scanners.
If I have to be frisked shouldn't I at least have the right to choose the hot chick with the handcuffs to search me?
Where was I?
I have been saying that since 9/11. In fact, on the very day, I was saying to people that the response is a far more scary thing than the event. I don't let publicity stunts like a few guys flying a couple of planes into buildings, change how I view the world.
I was against ID checks at airports before 9/11, I never once changed my tune.
For the record, I also was against both wars, though I have changed my tune there. I used to think these were unjustified wars, now I think war is unjustifiable since it costs the lives of others, with no guarantee of accomplishing any specific goal. Modern conflicts which have made enemy decapitation (removal of leadership, not literal removal of heads) ineffective have made this even more painfully obvious.
So in short, I have been right here.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
As a male, can I request that I be frisked by a female TSA agent? If so, then I fully support these new security procedures, and I applaud the work you're doing!
Not so sure. All the examples I have seen are some of the least erotic images ever produced.
It's like trying to get aroused over a topographical map.
Er... not to insult all you topography fans out there.
It boggles the mind how many people will just say "but... but... but they SAID they'd delete the images."
You do realize that is what this discussion is about right? Just because we all saw it coming doesnt make it right...
Much of the recent Security Theatre, for example, the requirement to notify the government 72 hours in advance when you travel domestically in the USA now being phased in as a result of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which was, of course, passed by a Republican Congress.
You can still buy a ticket less than 72 hours before the flight and fly anywhere. From the link you provide in you post:
"Will passengers still be able to book a ticket within 72 hours of a flight? Yes. TSA’s Secure Flight program can conduct watch list matching for passengers up until the time of the flight. Passengers will be prompted to provide Secure Flight information when booking travel. For reservations booked on short notice, or within 72 hours of the scheduled flight departure time, airlines must submit the required passenger information as soon as the reservation is made."
The passenger has no duty to notify anyone, anytime. It's all on the airlines.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Modify the body scanners to remove the displays and any I/O connectors. Further modify them so that they detonate any explosives within them.
I bet we run out of terrorists before the replacement costs for the scanners start to become a problem.
If it's a computer, it can save images. When I read reports that the machines are incapable of storing and transmitting images I get angry.
I would be infinitely be more likely to trust a press report stating that TSA policies prohibit storing and transmission of these images, but as with anything computer related there is always a risk that the system will operate in ways that were not intended.
Which is exactly why a FOI request revealed that 30,000 images had been stored and transmitted to a consultant. This is also why the TSA RFP (Request for Proposals, a purchase order in layman terms) for the scanners required that the scanners be able to save and store images, be network capable and be able to transmit stored images to other locations.
Why do you believe them when the say they can't do it when all the evidence indicates they can and that the agency has not only required that the machines be capable of doing so that they have been caught doing EXACTLY what they say they can't do. The DHS and TSA is FULL of liars!
"had improperly — perhaps illegally — saved [35,000] images [low resolution] of the scans of public servants and private citizens."
Ok, how many times were we told they did not save the images? Sorry, boardingarea.com, voa.com, Tim Bennett, Bruce Schneier, and others, but either you were a willing conspirator in lulling us into accepting this, or you were also lied to. Choose your side now, ok?
And we can stop believing DHS now, can't we? Lying weasels, all of them, even so many of the front-line worker weasels. Soon, airflight security will be so onerous that we will stop choosing to fly. Then the airlines will ask for relief. And there will be none.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Excuse me, but if we are allowed to shoot a politician everytime he lies and/or reverses his stand on any issue, we might as well wipe out every federal and state and local post there is. All you need to do is watch the Daily Show *any* random day of the week, and they will run a bit involving a senator or congressman saying one thing and then show how a year earlier he/she said the exact opposite.
Our political process seems to *depend* upon mass amnesia, where, depending upon which way the wind blows politicians can reverse their stands on an issue and somehow we never take notice. Certainly, the media (with the notable exception of Comedy Central) never takes notice.
Just because *you heard them say* "images will not be saved" doesn't mean that after this incident they won't say "images are being saved in the interests of national security and to use as evidence when and if potential threats are intercepted, and the perpetrators brought to justice".
Or, they'll puill a Fox News and just lie saying "Images are not being saved." And then you can show them the images and ask "what about these?" And they'll respond "In this post 9/11 world, there will always be isolated incidents where the appearance of inpropriety occurs. But it's in the best interests of all to support this technology as it's our patriotic duty to keep America safe."
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
"But MY problems are different, and the candidates that I vote for are special and wouldn't do THAT.
RON PAUL 2012!!
Perhaps you're too young to remember or just trying to bash Obama, but I seem to recall during the Bush administration that the telcos were all coerced to enable illegal blanket wiretaps on US citizens without warrants. These airport x-ray devices weren't invented, developed, and deployed in just two years. The rollout was initiated during the Bush administration. It was he who authorized the creation of an entire additional government department, the Department of Homeland Security. Talk about increasing government spending unnecessarily by duplicating efforts... Why won't the tea-partiers call it like it is?
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I saw two things in the video.
1) The average weight of people going into this courthouse in Florida is unusually high.
2) Most of the time, the "bad area" identified by the machine was in the ribcage area. To me, it looked like the system generated a boatload of false positives.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
I think most people know and acknowledge that the tragedies mentioned aren't worth the sacrifice of our liberties to prevent. The government, however, is more interested in increasing it's power, and the media select which points of view to present to further the cause of the government. As a result an artificial picture of support for government intrusion is created.
This is the easier because lots of people, myself included, thing that something should be done. E.g., don't leave the door between the pilots and the passengers unlocked. This is a lot different from "anything must be done", but that's the way it gets portrayed. This is the easier because there's a lot of disagreement about exactly which steps are appropriate. And this disagreement can be used as a mask to enable those in authority to select the particular viewpoints they wish to choose, and pretend that they are "obeying the wishes of the electorate".
The central problem is the concentration of power. That is the great evil of the current system. (Other systems have other evils, but that's a very common one.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You've been reading ycombinator. http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother
None of the politicians would stand by any government servant. If there is one thing civil servants know, it is when the shit hits the fan, one of them will be scape goated.
You've hit on the truth of these things. They don't provide the flying public security, they provide the politicians job security via CYA. When the shit hits the fan, as it always does one way or the other, the politicians can point to ever more draconian measures and say "we did everything possible" but now give us even more money!
So remember that next time you are getting a rub and tug from a TSA agent, it isn't for your safety, it is for some muckety-muck's job security.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Lying about this is unconscionable, but I can see a valid reason for them wanting to save such things: it lets you know how they were defeated last time.
Suppose that somebody does manage to sneak something deadly on board. If this were a bug in a piece of software, you'd all want to leap to reconstructing the event, and you'd be irked if you knew you had deliberately thrown away a crucial piece of information. Especially since if it happened once, it could happen again. So you'd have to go on lockdown.
I'm NOT trying to justify this. Lying bad, radiation bad, groping bad, virtual strip search bad, TSA bad, pictures always leak, terrorists winning, Orwell right, etc. I'm good with all that.
But I'm a bit surprised that they didn't even try to make the case for saving the pictures, perhaps with an public key encryption and the private key kept only on a piece of paper locked in a safe somewhere. I guess they felt it was futile; people are uncomfortable enough about the pictures as it is.
I have been confused by this. They often report that there is no way for the machines to record the images and therefor it is not a violation of privacy. I do not see how that makes any difference. If someone creates a peep-hole in the women's changing room it is an invasion of privacy, whether pictures are taken or not.
On the other hand, I would WANT the machines to be able to capture the image if something suspicious was found. I would want them to show me on the screen why they felt they had the right to do a more invasive search if they thought they saw something suspicious. An image capture should be kept should the incident go to court for any reason (the screener followed up with a more invasive search when the screen did not display anything that should have raised any suspicions, or on the flip-side something illegal was found after a more invasive search but the suspect claims they were chosen illegally for a more invasive search.)
Penn and Teller once cleverly pointed out the obvious fact that having human beings behind the spying pretty much ensures that said spying will be abused (they did a rather amusing test to see if security staff would abuse their power if tempted, and almost all of them did). You can put all the regulations in place you like, but there will always be plenty of humans in charge who will ignore them for whatever reason ("Hey look, it's Angelina Jolie coming through the scanner! Get you're cellphone camera, Bill!").
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Seriously, I trust Gizmodo about 10 times less than the US Government.
Gizmodo saying something bad about them is almost a get out of jail free card.
Gizmodo is not a reputable source for anything, ESPECIALLY news that involves politics.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
They look at hundreds to thousands of headless scans a day. Sounds like a mostly dull job to me. Especially if you've been to an airport and seen how many unattractive people are traveling. I doubt adding my own ugly scan to pile would do much for either them or me. The complainers interviewed on TV are mostly an un-attractive lot. I dont see what they have to fear either.
I was in HS when terrorists rammed two planes into the WTC. I remember explicitly that most of the students were angsty, waiting to see what was going to happen next. Would we go to war? Would we kick someone's ass back to the stone age? Would we glass the motherfuckers that just attacked us? Etc. etc.
A few months after the WTC attacks we started hearing the first murmurs of new security measures being implemented at airports to prevent another 9/11 attack. I explicitly recall some of the "conservative" students arguing that such security was necessary for safety. I remember some students, that were known for being "liberal," kept reiterating that the attacks sucked, but that was no excuse to give up individual rights. I recall rolling my eyes at the whole damn debate because I figured that terrorists would have to be pretty fuckin' stupid to attack using planes again (my bet was on a train attack or ship attack next).
Anyways, the moral of that anecdote was that even at the young age of 17, there were folks saying precisely what you just said, "Yeah, it's tragic, but we can deal with it without giving up liberty."
I have no doubt that there were plenty of other folk in all areas of all ages saying the same thing. The problem is, there were a lot more people saying otherwise, and that's why we are in this situation now. This is America. We get what we ask for after all...
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Child porn.
Why should I care about the low-res crap copped from some security scanners?
Seriously, as long as they don't give me cancer (which is iffy so I'm "opting out" until "the science is in") or cause growths (like a second head,) who gives a fuck?
Hell, if they turn the heat up in winter, I'll walk naked through the airport. It won't be pretty but neither is comedy.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
But that's what I'll be doing too.
Next summer, the wife and I are taking the Adirondack Express, a misnomer if I ever heard one, to Montréal, Québec, staying there a while to catch the Jazz Festival, flying to Calgary, taking the Trans Canada train through the Rockies, stopping at Lake Louise, more Rockies, down to Vancouver, flying back to Montréal, spending a few more days there before heading back on the Adirondack Express, aka The Garbage Run, back home to New York City.
Ah the joy of being retired (okay on disability, but I don't have to show up anywhere anymore,) and having a wife who's off school for summer.
Life is good when you don't have to rush...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
What I would personally like to see is someone with a young child, preferably female that instructs their child to start screaming if anyone touches their genitals.
link... have you called your airline contacts and congresscritters? I sure have.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
"If we cower in our shoes and crap in pants, the terrorists have won."
I can't cower in my shoes....TSA made me remove them.
Also, they took my pants.
Anyone know what the current procedures are in Canadian airports? (The real procedures, although the theoretical "these are your rights" is mildly interesting I guess.) I live close enough to the border that I might consider flying out of a Canadian airport.
it's not a train, it's a unmanned missile the size of the Chrysler building!!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Those scans have very low resolution and don't look like "naked" pictures at all. If this was the best the scanners could do, I don't think most people would be worried. I wonder if this is a deliberate attempt by the government at disinformation.
I would do anything for Govt but I won't do that!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
No matter what promises were made, it's inevitable that the images from the scanners would be able to be saved... for evidence. Imagine if someone was actually caught with a bomb in their pants. When the case went to court, there would be no image from the scanner to provide a reason for the arrest, and the whole thing would be based on "He Said, She Said."
I would more believe in a policy of "not retained for more than 48 hours" than "Not able to be saved at all" - the former is more realistic, even if it's admitting they can be saved.
It has begun: http://www.scannerporn.com/
Don't worry, just a trial run so they can pick out distinguishing characteristics from the scans. Soon they can just store 50 reference points from the scans and identify people without passports or anything, like fingerprinting. The ultimate biometric identification system.
So, if I go through this backscatter machine wearing my tinfoil hat and I make another tinfoil hat for my groin (tinfoil underwear?), I take it that I'll be immediately tackled by security? Or does backscatter go right through tin foil?
It seems my choices are : wear a lead-suit, or go naked, since they are going to see you naked anyhow.
Also, let's say you're wearing an althetic cup?
Are they going to make you remove that to feel up your balls?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Compared to that it losing two buildings and 3000 people is nothing.
Compared to 40,000 lives lost on the US highways every single year that 3000 lives is nothing. Since 911, half a million people have died on US highways.
I'd say the goddamned scanner money should have gone to guard rails and other highway safety projects.
Free Martian Whores!
...that every single person in Orlando is fat. If body-scan porn wasn't already a niche, BBW body-scan porn will be.
Next time a terrorist blows up a plane, stand up and say, "yeah, it is sad and tragic. But we as a country have gone through far worse. We lost a million soldiers in WW II. 50K in Vietnam. Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, London were all bombed mercilessly. We survived. Compared to that it losing two buildings and 3000 people is nothing. If we cower in our shoes and crap in pants, the terrorists have won. Just let us go back to normalcy." But no one will.
It's not that no one will. It's that it would be utterly pointless. These terror acts are pre-planned, and the reaction to them by the government is also pre-planned. Before the public has a chance to realize what's what, it's already too late. And if not, the government won't give squat about public opinion - it hasn't, it won't, and it'll do whatever it needs to accomplish what it wants.
Let's not be so idealistic as to pretend the public has real choice.
From the pictures, it looks like we're seeing a set of images where the automated part of the scanner picked up something interesting. Big wristwatches and belt buckles are marked for attention. These images were probably captures for that reason.
With that unit, the image resolution is so low that it shouldn't upset anyone.
I don't see why people are so upset about this. You know you're being scanned. What's the big deal?
You are perceiving part of a much larger problem. The United States is a deeply dysfunctional country that should be recognized as existing to provide an example of failure.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/nov/14/tsa-ejects-oceanside-man-airport-refusing-security/
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
This is a scam.
These scanners were promoted by Michael Cherfoff, Head of Homeland Security under W.
Now he is CEO of the Chertoff Group, and is lobbying for Rapiscan, which makes these very machines at issue here. How convenient.
Or groped. Have I missed something, and are Methodists from Ohio a terrorist threat to civilization? Why not hire real detectives to work security checks, who can decide to pass through embarrassingly innocent folks through with no irradiation and groping? If the detective has the slightest of doubts, sorry, you're off to the irradiation and groping line.
In the country where I live, millions of folks take trains to work every day. Some friendly neighborhood terrorist put a suitcase with a bomb on a train, which luckily did not go off. How did the authorities respond? Pat down all passengers? No, police armed with HK MP5s patrolled the train stations, and talked to anyone that looked suspicious. Not grandmas and their grandchildren. No other terrorist attempted attacks have occurred.
This "let's just irradiate and grope everyone" policy is just an indication that the folks who work for the TSA are such dumb-asses that they could not tell the difference between Osama bin Laden and Mother Theresa in the security line. Hiring real detectives would obviate this problem, and save money and time for most travelers.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Security is illusory.
The kid who "borrowed" my Rav/4 was not licensed and he certainly didn't have my registration when the car got sideswiped in Brooklyn.
The little fuck can rot in juvie hall for all I care.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I just saw this in the local (Springfield, IL) newspaper:
Free Martian Whores!
What is most interesting about the images is that the millimeter wave images show passengers in the background, not just the passenger being scanned. Apparently they just irradiate the whole area.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The next generation of scanners will have the option to directly upload to Facebook.
Honestly, what intelligent person would take that job? It's a guaranteed FAIL!
Either, you increase security so that the public is unhappy about it, or a terrorist even happens, or both. There is simply no positive upside to the job.
Taking it implies that your ambition exceeds your intelligence.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
we will stop choosing to fly. Then the airlines will ask for relief. And there will be none.
Nice in theory. The reality is, that time has come and gone. Evidently, there's always a few billion socked away to prop up the airlines. I don't think we can count on that to change.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
What I want to know is, if it's illegal for TSA agents to retain these images... why the fuck are they buying machines with internal storage that allows them to do so? You don't "accidentally" save 35,000 images.
And even if it's not strictly illegal to retain them, and allowing that there may be a requirement for image retention for some period of time... why is anybody who's operating the machine able to copy or access them without "super-user" style privileges? write the scans to an encrypted internal store, delete them automatically after some legislated retention requirement, and don't allow anybody to access, display, or copy them without extra privileges far beyond what the person staring at the monitor needs?
It just seems like this is one of the worst-engineered solutions you could imagine. "I know, let's add some USB ports and flickr integration so it'll be super easy to share photos of all our passengers! Access to stored images should be impossible (if it's illegal - simply *do not allow* the image data to be written to a storage device), or require high-level admin privileges, access to which would be flagged to other audit personnel to make sure somebody's not "accidentally" reviewing 20 or 30 images of the prettiest young ladies to come through the line in the past 30 minutes...
I guess you could crap on the floor next time a TSA agent asks to give you a patdown? Make it a really memorable occasion for the two of you?
Post CCTV video of it on youtube - "Two girls, one backscatter x-ray machine"
Is it just me, or doesn't it seem odd that all the pictures posted had some sort of detection in them...as if....these were....TRAINING images?
Why would Gizmodo pick 100 out of supposedly 35,000 that all had something fishy going on in them (highlighted by the blue alarm detection graphic), other than to guess that these are training images used to train the operators on how to use the machinery? Hey, but I don't train TSA employees on how to operate scanners for a living or anything, so whatever.
If it is an image of a child, isn't that child porn? If so, prosecute the bastards.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Nothing, why?
At least, it isn't 'ionizing radiation', which is the radiation most people think of when they hear the word 'radiation' - e.g. the type that can give you radiation sickness, cancer, etc. "Millimeter wave" scanners are just radio waves. We live in a constant ocean of radio waves. 24 hours a day radio waves are passing through you (at least, at some frequencies), and bouncing off you (at other frequencies). If they *must* scan people, I'd rather it be with radio waves than X-Rays, which *are* radiation in the 'ionizing radiation' sense of the word.
It's not like they're high resolution photographs which show a lot of detail. What's presented on the linked sites are very blocky/pixelly images with almost no contrast - there's really nothing to see. If that's all there is, people need to move on and quit worrying about. Of course, if they increase the resolution and contrast in the future, then there might be a valid reason to worry, but I for one honestly wouldn't give a crap if someone posted a crappy blocky no contrast 'naked' picture of me somewhere - there's not even enough detail to identify who you're looking at in those.
Xrays aren't mandatory in the UK (at least now). I had the choice in 2007 and just a standard metal detector / pat down 2 months ago.
. . .justify each and every individual decision to screen someone. As soon as you give the TSA discretion to 'skip over' people they think don't fit 'the profile' of 'suspicious/possibly dangerous', everyone else will bitch about being targetted.
Nobody can claim discrimination or prejudice if everyone is screened.
Also, the second you exempt a group, people will start trying to claim other groups *should* be exempt - you'll get the muslims saying muslim grandmothers in full head-to-toe Burkas should just be passed through - that you shouldn't just exempt 'white' grandmothers.
There's also the small possiblity that someone in a group you would otherwise never expect to be terrorists (e.g. an elderly white person), might have converted to a radicalized form of some ideology or another, and are used as a mule exactly because everyone knows they won't be screened. Or maybe, "The Terrorists" do something like kidnapping their grandchild and telling them if they don't do what they're told, their grandkid is gonna get a bullet in the back of the head, or tortured. From that standpoint, no exempting them is protecting them - if no group is exempted from screening, then there's no particular incentive to target a member of any particular group.
Since 911, half a million people have died on US highways. I'd say the goddamned scanner money should have gone to guard rails
You know, if the money went to removing the guard rails, then maybe some of those people wouldn't have died on the highways.
Why, I once allowed a doctor to strip my wife naked and cut her open with a knife to pull a baby out. If I had no problems with a doctor doing it, I shouldn't have any problems with anyone else cutting my wife open either.
Why, just the other day I let a nurse jab a needle into my kid, so clearly it's OK for the TSA to do the same!
You're not going to seriously argue that TSA agents carry the same responsibilities and follow the same codes as doctors, priests and lawyers, are you?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
"Pics or it didn't happen".
(Someone had to say it, and we're almost 500 comments in without anyone doing their duty.)
Actually, I wonder how many of these images will soon be downloadable. Not that I expect it to compete with any real porn site, of course.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I have way more than 35K full body scans. Perhaps the government can pay me $1M to re-examine them. It is a matter of national security, trust me.
Yeah, the whole prison thing is probably the largest indication of how completely screwed up and out of control this country has become. The saddest thing is that I think the individual realizes this, but the individual also realizes they are powerless to change it. That is pretty bad, when the collective dissent isn't enough to quash the powers that be. Need to organize, somehow, but people tend to want a thorough, cohesive plan for such things. Sometimes I imagine that I'm actually a prisoner as a citizen of the United States, and that my dream of escape is to defect to some civilized nation, where ever that may be.
I don't know if planet Earth is trending much better as a whole, but that could prove too opinionated to explore.
not much, just being forced to manually insert line breaks into my comment
But where were you when "if $something saves one child it is worth it" crowd is going nuts?
FTFA, it sounds like TSA employees "saving the children" is part of why the crowd is going nuts...
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
"Last week, one of my flying partners (Captain with Skywest) was going through security at DEN with his 18 year daughter. As his daughter approached the detector, the TSO working the NoS said on his headset, "heads up, got a cutie for you." He then confronted the TSA clerk with what he said and that neither of us are going through the NoS. The TSA clerk said you must have misunderstood me.
He said pat-down was pretty evasive, and his daughter felt uncomfortable. "
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/1147497-tso-saying-heads-up-got-cutie-you.html
I will vote.
It may not help in reality, but theoretically, if everyone else is with me, we can make a difference.
I bet that with a little more poking by the powers that be, we could gather a semi-large crowd to all participate in an airport No Pants Day.
I think you guys are going about it the wrong way.. Surely there must be some TSA agents who are uncomfortable with this new policy.. All it will take is one agent fired for "refusing to touch up a child" and this will be busted wide open.
You may want to re read the posting. I mentioned cities from both sides. Now Japan and Germany are on our side. Even if USA bombed them. Or they bombed England.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I find it amusing that people can live with such cognitive dissonance.
645 posts, the bulk of them blaming this on a president 2 years gone.
So if I understand your logic, the government before 2000 was a pristine engine of public good, respected its citizens, and was run by conscientious thoughtful bureaucrats who only wanted to do right.
2001-2008 Satan took hold, and shall forever after be blamed for anything we don't like.
The Forces of Good took over congress (2007) and the white house (2009), yet were somehow unable to mitigate any of the evil done by the previous Dark Entity.
Is that right?
-Styopa
Humans did. Does tribe designation really matter? The point is, we survived our own brutality, against ourselves.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Well part of that is just the debate being framed wrong. You could look at it as the TSA vs Planes going down... and maybe it is. However, their best case scenario is to convince terrorists to... bomb shopping malls, commuter trains, and sporting events instead.
SO in reality, they are choosing to save businessmen, at the expense of children's lives.
You just have to frame the debate properly.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Heh, my mother was working at a major hospital when Princess Di checked in for some treatment. This was the mid 90s, and they already had some of the beginings of modern electronic medical records then. They also had auditing.
It was amazing how many hospital workers got their wrists slapped for checking out her records in the database. I think it was their first real introduction to the fact that auditing was going on.
Thats one of the interesting things about technology. We have always had rules. Society is full of rules. However, at no time before the present, has it really been possible to be watching, so much of the time, over so many people.
Should it really be any surprise that the vast majority of people act differently when they know they are being watched? Should it be any surprise that we all have the impulse to break a rule now and again when it seems harmless to us (and nobody is watching). I mean, come on, saving that body scan of the hot girl... who is ever going to know? If nobody knows, no harm no foul right?
It is so easy to see why the abuse happens, and often, the abuser even, well its often to see why they would not think their seemingly (to them) minor and harmless infraction is ok. I don't think you can avoid it, and will always have abuse whenever there is power, so we should only put people in positions of power, when we actually need to.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Next time a terrorist blows up a plane, stand up and say, "yeah, it is sad and tragic. But we as a country have gone through far worse. We lost a million soldiers in WW II. 50K in Vietnam. Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, London were all bombed mercilessly. We survived. Compared to that it losing two buildings and 3000 people is nothing. If we cower in our shoes and crap in pants, the terrorists have won. Just let us go back to normalcy."
Absolutely agreed. I've said the same thing before so you are not alone. But just like sex makes society uncomfortable so does death so this is a big pill for people to swallow. Thank you.