January 11, 2010
Shocking: Govt. misleads public on body scanners.
Full-body scanners used to violate our privacy and strip us of our dignity when we fly are capable of storing and transmitting images:
A privacy group says the Transportation Security Administration is misleading the public with claims that full-body scanners at airports cannot store or send their graphic images.
The TSA specified in 2008 documents that the machines must have image storage and sending abilities, the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) said.
In the documents, obtained by the privacy group and provided to CNN, the TSA specifies that the body scanners it purchases must have the ability to store and send images when in “test mode.”
That requirement leaves open the possibility the machines — which can see beneath people’s clothing — can be abused by TSA insiders and hacked by outsiders, said EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg.
EPIC, a public-interest group focused on privacy and civil rights, obtained the technical specifications and vendor contracts through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
The written requirements also appear to contradict numerous assurances the TSA has given the public about the machines’ privacy protections.
“The machines have zero storage capability,” the TSA Web site says.
A TSA video assures passengers “the system has no way to save, transmit or print the image.”
I wish our government could get a step ahead of the terrorists, rather than always staying five steps behind and enacting reactive policies that won’t do a damn thing to protect us from the next terrorist attack being planned against us. I don’t know why the public is so foolish to believe that full-body scanners are going to prevent anything. Trust me, they are already scheming some other way to blow themselves up and take as many of us with them as they can. These scanners can’t see what’s inside a person, so that would be where I would guess they’ll be carrying the explosives next. Once that happens, is it going to “bend over and spread them” every time we want to fly?
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No more flying for me! I was singled out once for “special attention” for having a one-way ticket to Savannah, of all places – heaven forbid I should be able to travel to my son’s All-State concert unmolested! Just ask Stacy, I really look like a terrorist. Not.
Comment by Obi's Sister — January 11, 2010 @ 9:22 pm