Slashdot Mirror
The Ineffectiveness of TSA Body Scanners - Now With Surveillance Camera Footage
McGruber writes "Jonathan Corbett, the subject of the earlier Slashdot Story: 'The Ineffectiveness of TSA Body Scanners,' has an update for us. His video showing him wandering through a nude body scanner with undetected objects is now complete with the feeds from TSA's security cameras at the checkpoint."
Lol, nice. Of course the software the L3 scanners use doesn't show any 'nude' pics anymore, the TSA just gets the warning from the software if it thinks there is a weapons with a generic outline of a human form with an arrow. They used to keep the nude images in a remote room but the last software release I am aware of ditched that too. Ironically, when the software was updated the worry was that it would be less effective and it seems they might be correct. However, were I planning to smuggle something on the plane myself I would hardly count on the scanner not picking it up.
After watching the original video some months ago, I had my first confrontation with the nude body scanners in May. I initially wasn't sure if opting out would be easy or hard, but when I saw the woman in front of me (with a toddler in her arms) have the cardboard cutout in front of the "out of service" metal detector moved, I thought "Well, it's just as easy as asking for that."
However, when I requested to not use the scanner, I wasn't allowed to walk through the metal detector despite asking for it (it worked; I saw the lights flashing on it). I was told to wait where I was for a pat down. When the TSA worker walked me to the screening area, he politely told me what he was going to do before he did it, and proceeded to feel along my arms, waistline and chest/back. However, when he went to do my legs, he went straight up from my ankles to my crotch, squishing my genitals into my perineum (I was wearing loose sports shorts). I jumped up a flash of panic, and he told me to stay still, because he was going to do it again on the other leg!
I've traveled across the globe and gone through many security processes (including Israel, where I was subjected to a strip search), and this was by far the most invasive, mortifying experience I've ever had. I found myself sitting by my gate feeling ashamed of what just happened, and suddenly I I understood where those cheesy-seeming accounts of molestation/fondling victims really come from. I've never understood, until now, just how it feels to be groped unwillingly, and how those emotions feel exactly as they are described by sexual assault victims. It's a sick feeling you get in your stomach when someone does something to you without your permission, and you are helpless to stop them. I learned that from the TSA.
I'm not comparing the magnitude of my experience to those of rape victims or children that have been abused, but just the fact that going through a security screening at an American airport jars memories of those horror stories is enough for me to take action and support Jonathan Corbett's cause, and I hope you do, too. The TSA has other methods for security, and is choosing to continue with these naked pictures/shameful patdowns despite public outcry, and it wouldn't be American to not do something about it.