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Controversial TSA Nudie X-Ray Machines Sent To Prisons
An anonymous reader writes "The controversial TSA backscatter X-ray machines are being sent to prisons. According to Federal times, 'The controversial airport screening machines that angered privacy advocates and members of Congress for its revealing images are finding new homes in state and local prisons across the country, according to the Transportation Security Administration.' 154 backscatter X-rays have already ended up in Iowa, Louisiana, and Virginia prisons. TSA is working to find homes for the remaining machines. Per the article: '"TSA and the vendor are working with other government agencies interested in receiving the units for their security mission needs and for use in a different environment," TSA spokesman Ross Feinstein said.'"
If the USA hosts it, then it is good to be 100% sure that one of the contestants is not a terrorist.
They were treating us like prisoners.
You should only lose one right: Freedom.
Not
- security of your personal well being
- privacy
- respect to the human
- torture (psychological or physical)
- physical punishment.
The punishment is withdrawing freedom, not becoming a sub-human. Once you leave prison, you should be considered a typical citizen again -- you served your sentence, so it must not carry on forever.
That said, punishment is known to not be efficient, and not a deterrent for others (as most crimes are not driven by thinking long about the consequences). So modern prisons focus on re-constituting the citizen to full capacity. Because it works better than punishing.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Weren't these machines banned in Europe over health concerns from radiation exposure? I know that these are prisoners but shouldn't the health effects of such a machine be studied prior to deploying stuff like this out into the world? http://science.howstuffworks.c...
It's all about the possibilities!
The people who would be inconvenienced by a fully nude rendering of their body presented to a remote office worker making minimum wage have objected to said technology. These people are politicians and businessmen, members of the plutocracy in some cases and powerful individuals in other cases. The machines were withdrawn because they were perturbed, not you.
when we say, 'privacy concerns raised by airport passengers do not apply in many cases to prisoners' what we mean is that we reserve the right to treat United States citizens designated as prisoners, or detained by law enforcement while charged with a crime, like human fucking garbage. We categorically embrace the power to bombard those in custody arbitrarily and at our will with ionizing radiation that depicts them nude and has been proven by numerous security experts to be easily thwarted. We endorse the ability to do this with or without their consent because theyve written a bad check, been charged with an unpaid parking ticket, or have a warrant for an unreturned library book.
This is a bigger deal than most readers understand. Namely because America has the highest rate of incarceration in the known world. We arrest and imprison people at or above the height of the Soviet Union, so to conject that the reader would not be subject to this type of technology in the future isnt at all certain. In a "detention facility" or "correctional center" as its known it is implicitly understood that your moral and ethical treatise concerning the dangers and repercusssions of using this technology are tolerated only as long as it takes your corrections officer to apply her riot baton to designated 'departmentally approved areas' of your tender human body.
The systemic repercussions of widespread application of X-Ray backscatter systems in the various private penal colonies of the united states, while financially sound at its salesmans word, certainly isnt a long term bet to hedge. Incidences of debilitating cancers will need medical treatment for both guards and prisoners alike as has been shown in the incidences of cancer for certain groups of TSA screeners. Liability for introducing a prisoner or employee to a cancer suspect agent will likely follow the course of most other folly of american scientific perversion in the hands of government. It will likely be assigned to the government, who in turn will insist it was the technology, and in turn the manufacturer will absolve itself through a complex series of medical puppet shows, out of court settlements, and evasive restructuring practices so as to ensure no real harm comes to the corporation. Once your sentence is complete, and you emerge from prison, the biblical retribution set upon you is now the denial of employment, housing, food stamps, medicare, and finally a malignant cancer risk substantially greater than the rest of society as your corrections system applied background scanners quietly and incessantly for the duration of your incarceration.
Good people go to bed earlier.