TSA Promises Privacy For Subjects Of Clothing-Penetrating Scans

[seafan]

Source: InformationWeek

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration today promised to protect air travelers' privacy as TSA personnel peer through their clothes.
The TSA has begun testing a millimeter wave scanning system at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport as an alternative to pat-downs performed by security personnel when secondary screening is deemed appropriate. The technology can see through clothing to detect weapons, explosives, and other objects.

The TSA said that energy emitted by millimeter wave technology -- 10,000 times less than a cell phone -- is safe, that the technology is intended to keep passengers safe, and that it will keep the potentially embarrassing images safe. .....
Not everyone finds such assurances credible. In a statement, Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's technology and liberty program, spelled out three objections to the TSA's plans.

"First, this technology produces strikingly graphic images of passengers' bodies," Steinhardt said. "Those images reveal not only our private body parts, but also intimate medical details like colostomy bags. That degree of examination amounts to a significant -- and for some people humiliating -- assault on the essential dignity of passengers that citizens in a free nation should not have to tolerate."

Steinhardt also expressed doubt that such screenings could really be considered voluntary if passengers did not understand the invasiveness of the images and that the program would remain voluntary in the future. Finally, he voiced skepticism of the TSA's privacy safeguards. "They say that they are obscuring faces, but that is just a software fix that can be undone as easily as it is applied," he said. "And obscuring faces does not hide the fact that rest of the body will be vividly displayed."

Read more: http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202401630

---

And coming soon to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and at Los Angeles International Airport...


In creeping,yet frightening increments, we are losing our privacy, civil liberties and a sense of identity as Americans under this rogue administration.

Have we yet reached critical mass?

[superconnected]

1. They've had this in prisons for decades scanning people who come in and out.

I guess we're prisoners now.

[ixion]

13. yes we are. They've been moving us towards this gradually over the years

and it's pretty much complete now. You are allowed to leave one cell (your apartment or house) get in another cell (your car) and move to another cell (your cube) and then reverse this process at the end of the day. Sure, you can go shopping or to the park. Even prisoners get recreation time. But know that even then you're being watched, because we now live in a fully-actualized police state. :-(

[humbled_opinion]

2. Well I better not catch one of those TSA people jacking off while staring at the screen...n/t

[rodeodance]

3. I do not think this is necessary. NO way!

[NutmegYankee]

4. Well, good looking women are going to get a lot more random searches... n/t

[Alexia Wheaton]

5. ewwww!

No way! :thumbsdown:

[kurth]

6. The Transportation Security Administration will not rest until everyone is buck nekkid

[splat]

7. Pictures of the scans

Some photos are here

I think it's creepy.

Who can keep me safe from people determined to take nude photos of me?

[NYC]

9. Picture here:

[eppur_se_muova]

10. "The unfortunately named Rapiscan Secure 1000 "...

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Kudos to the folks at the ProJo for picking up on that!

[NYC]

11. I think it is appropriately named.

Sad that people should be subjected to this.

[Tiberius]

8. Here's the CNN segment on it

I can't believe most people would choose this over a pat down. ARRRGGGHH!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMMXO_GmWw0

[seafan]

12. Chertoff is behind all of this. In February, 2005 he became DHS head.

Airport Screeners Could Get X-Rated X-Ray Views


By JOE SHARKEY
Published: May 24, 2005

Get ready for electronic portals known as backscatters, expected to be tested at a handful of airports this year, that use X-ray imaging technology to allow a screener to scan a body. And yes, the body image is detailed. Let's not be coy here, ladies and gentlemen:

"Well, you'll see basically everything," said Bill Scannell, a privacy advocate and technology consultant. "It shows nipples. It shows the clear outline of genitals."

.....

The Homeland Security Department's justification for the electronic strip searches has a certain logic. In field test after field test, it found that federal airport screeners using metal-detecting magnetometers did a miserable job identifying weapons concealed in carry-on bags or on the bodies of undercover agents.

In a clumsy response late last year, the department instituted intrusive pat-downs at checkpoints after two planes in Russia blew up from nonmetallic explosives that had apparently been smuggled into the aircraft by female Chechen terrorists. But it reduced the pat-downs after passengers erupted in outrage at the groping last December.

"The use of these more thorough examination procedures has been protested by passengers and interest groups, and have already been refined" by the Transportation Security Administration, Richard L. Skinner, the acting inspector general of the Homeland Security Department, told a Senate committee in January. Mr. Skinner said then that the T.S.A. was ramping up tests of new technologies like backscatter imaging.

Last month, Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security secretary, told a Senate subcommittee that "technology is really what we ultimately have to use in order to get to the next level" in security.

The technology is available, he said. "It's a question of the decision to deploy it and to try to balance that with legitimate privacy concerns," he added. "We haven't put it out yet because people are still hand-wringing about it."

.....

No, that's just Chertie rubbing his hands together.




It is laughable what is featured on the TSA web site as to the *limited detail* offered by these scans:



TSA Office of Privacy Policy and Compliance

.....

Image detail is limited

TSA has worked closely with the vendors to modify the image of the passenger that is taken by Backscatter. The images below are actual images shown to the Transportation Security Officer during the backscatter process.

Male Front View






Female Front View






Images will not be printed, stored or transmitted

To further enhance privacy, when the Transportation Security Officer has resolved any anomaly, the image is erased from the screen. The capability of printing, storing or transmitting the image is not available to the Transportation Security Officer operating the system.

Screener viewing images is remotely located

In addition to not storing, printing or transmitting the image, the Transportation Security Officer will be viewing the image on a stand-alone machine (vs. network) that is located in a remote area from the screening process in order to protect the passenger’s privacy, therefore the image will not be visible in the public domain. The Transportation Security Officer who is attending to the passenger at the backscatter machine is unable to see the image being produced.

Limits the need for physical pat downs at the checkpoint

Passengers who are selected for secondary screening currently have to walk through the metal detector and are subject to physical pat down searches. Backscatter limits the need for the physical pat downs due to the imaging capabilities of the technology.

Voluntary

Backscatter is a voluntary option for passengers undergoing secondary screening as an alternative to the physical pat down procedures currently conducted by Transportation Security Officer s at the security screening checkpoint.

Phoenix Airport to Test New Full-Body X-Ray Screening System, Friday, December 01, 2006



http://onemansblog.com/2006/12/14/the-tsa-is-going-to-photograph-you-naked/





Again, have we had enough yet?

[Massachusetts]

14. Yikes

[cosmicdot]

15. fine, just have our politicians and the Bu$h family

demonstrate it live on national TV ... lead by example ...