Surprise! Feds admit storing checkpoint body scan images.

[woo me with science]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20012583-281.html

For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they're viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that "scanned images cannot be stored or recorded."

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

This follows an earlier disclosure (PDF) by the TSA that it requires all airport body scanners it purchases to be able to store and transmit images for "testing, training, and evaluation purposes. The agency says, however, that those capabilities are not normally activated when the devices are installed at airports.

....

This privacy debate, which has been simmering since the days of the Bush administration, came to a boil two weeks ago when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that scanners would soon appear at virtually every major airport. The updated list includes airports in New York City, Dallas, Washington, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle, and Philadelphia.

....

This trickle of disclosures about the true capabilities of body scanners--and how they're being used in practice--is probably what alarms privacy advocates more than anything else.

....

more at link

[Oregone]

1. Wouldn't a Playboy be cheaper?

[cbdo2007]

2. Yes but Playboy doesn't have naked pics of all of our Senators/Reps, business

executives, and all major celebrities like are contained in these devices.

Those pics can cause a lot of damage to peoples reputations.

[madinmaryland]

12. For good reason too. Boehner and McConnell???

:puke:

[slampoet]

5. You also don't get to pull the Playboy models over for closer inspection......

[notesdev]

3. Anyone still wondering why the public has no trust left?

When these body scanners were being put into place we were guaranteed in no uncertain certain terms that this would NEVER happen. Now we are told the save function is "not normally turned on"... how stupid do they think we are?

On policy after policy we are given ironclad guarantees that all turn out to be vapor. Who do they think they are fooling?

[JohnyCanuck]

9. How stupid do they think we are?

Evidently, pretty damn stupid.

Who do they think they are fooling?
Apparently their thinking is: You can fool most of the people most of the time, and the minority that can't be fooled can be disregarded because we'll just tell everyone else they're only "conspiracy theorists". Now read my sig line.

[tom_paine]

13. Nothing has changed about humanity except energy budget and technology level

You have it all laid out. It is the identical pattern in use in the 1930s, the 1530s, and probably 3330 BC.

It works. Always has and apparently always will, with some very small, brief exceptions.

Make no mistake here, if and when our energy budget and/or technology level goes down, humanity will so swiftly regress sociologically that it will make your head spin, not to mention liberals and witches burn, baby, burn!

Ironically, the Strategy of the Indolent Aristocracy has changed little, but the sciences of advertising, marketing and PR, combined with the massively saturated delivery systems of modern media, has calibrated Machiavelli and made him 1000 times more powerful.

Hell, we Little People weren't a match for Aristocratic tactics when they were so much weaker.

It's a sad sad story of an evolutionary dead-end heading for it's final resting place. Homo sapiens means "wise apes". What a sad joke. Off to the dustbin of failed species.

There will me much suffering and horror as the human population dies off from 7 or 8 billion to 1 billion.

But I would guess that the trip from 1 billion to 10,000 and maybe then to extinction will be longer and more painful to those few poor bastards unfortunate enough to be alive then.

It's all quite clear now, and getting clearer by the day. And if, by some miracle, homo greedicus does NOT go extinct, the same people who lived through the dieoff keyhole 70,000 years ago, socipaths, their henchmen and their cowering plebeian servants, will be the same ones to survive this time.

Thus the window-dressing changes, philosophies and rationalizations chnae, but humanity will continue on the same cruel benighted course we have always been on in which a few live like Gods, a handful reap rewards as henchmen, and the vast majority of people live lives of misery and want.

But, hey, thank doG for the Age of Cheap Oil. We few plebes got to live in one of the brief exceptions, until the Aristocracy started taking it all back.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

4. One more stinking reason to hate flying.

:(

[formercia]

8. The PTB wants you to hate flying

you should be a good little Serf and stay isolated and ignorant.

Now go back home and watch FOX News for all of the latest dirt. Glenn Beck will fill you in on all of the real news.

[snot]

6. Are the images associated with other identifying info?

[zipplewrath]

19. Can be

There isn't much to stop them. The file name under which they are stored if nothing else. But it would not surprise me if they were ALSO saving the survellance footage from the area in which these machines are located. They can even co-locate the two images on the same data storage file so that they are coordinated. And they can ultimately save them and build the machines that check the scans against "saved" images to try to find and detain certain people as they pass through.

[Missy Vixen]

7. Is anyone here really surprised?

This is going to be the next nightmarish scenario for the average person - his or her nude scanner photos will get "hacked" and somehow, find their way to the Web.

All the person did was make the stupid mistake of flying somewhere.

:eyes:

[arcane1]

10. I'm not too keen on their "random" use either

I flew out of Richmond VA a few months ago, and I was the ONLY person in the security line to be pulled over and scanned with the machine. If it's going to be useful and used, it should be used on everyone, no? Everyone has to go through the metal detector, after all.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

15. Well, you DO look like a hippy terrorist!

:D :hi:

[arcane1]

17. Indeed!

And they would have found all kinds of terrorist items on me, had I not gotten high and forgot to pack them :)

:hi:

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[spanone]

14. of course they are, that's what governments do.

first they lie, then they make a file

[foxfeet]

16. No surprise here. But I'm confident that if they pull up a scanned image of me

their eyes will bleed without ceasing. Payback's a bitch.

[derby378]

18. And even so, some Democrats will still challenge me...

...when I say that if you want to see me naked, either marry me or get a court order.

[Spazito]

20. No surprise here...

It was a 'given', imo. It was ripe for abuse since it's inception.

[1957john1957]

21. Next news flash: radiation exposure from body scanning machines much higher than previously claimed

Here is a petition against these machines:
http://www.stopdigitalstripsearches.org/
(the letter has very interesting information regarding TSA's misleading statements about their intent; here's part of it:

"Moreover, the privacy problems with these devices have still not been adequately resolved. Even though a "chalk line" image is displayed to an operator in a remote location and even though the TSA undertook a Privacy Impact Assessment and said that the image-recording feature would be disabled, it is obvious that the devices are designed to capture, record, and store detailed images of individuals undressed.
...
Further, the TSA repeatedly stated that these systems would only be used for secondary screening of passengers and only as a voluntary alternative to a pat-down search. The fact that the TSA reversed itself on the central question of whether these systems would be voluntary makes obvious the risk that the TSA will later reverse itself on the retention of images.
...
The TSA should also investigate less invasive means of screening airline passengers. The expense of the technology to taxpayers should be considered in light of other less costly means of creating a secure air travel experience.

Finally, we seek a full investigation of the medical and health implications of repeated exposure to Whole Body Imaging technology. The frequency of air travel, medical conditions such as pregnancy, and chronic health conditions, and repeated exposure of TSA and airport personnel stationed in the vicinity of the technology should be assessed. Age, gender, pre-existing medical conditions, and other factors should be evaluated and medical recommendations developed regarding the use of any Whole Body Imaging system.")

epic.org has information as well. (support them financially!)

[1957john1957]

22. Mother Jones did an article on this a while ago:

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/01/airport-scanner-scam
part of the article:
"Known by their opponents as "digital strip search" machines, the full-body scanners use one of two technologies—millimeter wave sensors or backscatter x-rays—to see through clothing, producing ghostly images of naked passengers. Yet critics say that these, too, are highly fallible, and are incapable of revealing explosives hidden in body cavities—an age-old method for smuggling contraband. If that’s the case, a terrorist could hide the entire bomb works within his or her body, and breeze through the virtual strip search undetected. Yesterday, the London Independent reported on "authoritative claims that officials at the Department for Transport and the Home Office have already tested the scanners and were not persuaded that they would work comprehensively against terrorist threats to aviation." A British defense-research firm reportedly found the machines unreliable in detecting "low-density" materials like plastics, chemicals, and liquids—precisely what the underwear bomber had stuffed in his briefs.

Yet the rush toward full-body scans already seems unstoppable. They were mandated today as part of the "enhanced" screening for travelers from selected countries, and hundreds of the machines are already on order, at a cost of about $150,000 apiece. Within days of the bombing attempt, Reuters was reporting that the "greater U.S. government shift toward using the high-tech devices could create a boom for makers of security imaging products, and it has already created a speculative spike in share prices in some companies."

Which brings us to the money shot. The body scanner is sure to get a go-ahead because of the illustrious personages hawking them. Chief among them is former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff, who now heads the Chertoff Group, which represents one of the leading manufacturers of whole-body-imaging machines, Rapiscan Systems. For days after the attack, Chertoff made the rounds on the media promoting the scanners, calling the bombing attempt "a very vivid lesson in the value of that machinery"—all without disclosing his relationship to Rapiscan.
...
n forecasting the fate of the full-body scanners, we can turn to recent history, which saw the rapid rise—and decline—of the previous "miracle" screening technology. In the years following 9/11, dozens of explosive trace portals (ETPs) were installed in airports across the country, at a cost of about $160,000 each. These "puffer" machines—so called because they blow air on passengers to dislodge explosive particles—were once celebrated as the "no-touch pat down." But in a Denver test by CBS in 2007, a network employee was sprayed with explosives and then walked through the airport’s three puffers without any trouble. The machines also set off false alarms, and they frequently broke down, leading to sky-high maintenance costs.

After spending more than $30 million on the puffer machines—most of them purchased from GE—the TSA announced earlier this year that it was suspending their use. Only about 25 percent of the machines were ever even deployed at US airports. A report last month from the Government Accountability Office found that the TSA had not adequately tested the puffers before buying them."

[woo me with science]

23. Interesting. A scanner image gets deleted on DU if the colors are inverted,

but ISN'T deleted in its original form. Yet it's the very same picture, just differently colored to show "flesh."


See the problem with the machines?

[cbdo2007]

24. deleted from DU but I'm sure they've got it saved and stored somewhere....

*sarcasm*

[Shallah Kali]

25. Oh and the scanners DON'T WORK - would not have found crotch bombers chemicals

Are planned airport scanners just a scam?

New technology that Gordon Brown relies on for his response to the Christmas Day bomb attack has been tested – and found wanting
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/are-planned-airport-scanners-just-a-scam-1856175.html

Since the attack was foiled, body-scanners, using "millimetre-wave" technology and revealing a naked image of a passenger, have been touted as a solution to the problem of detecting explosive devices that are not picked up by traditional metal detectors – such as those containing liquids, chemicals or plastic explosive.

But Ben Wallace, the Conservative MP, who was formerly involved in a project by a leading British defence research firm to develop the scanners for airport use, said trials had shown that such low-density materials went undetected.

Tests by scientists in the team at Qinetiq, which Mr Wallace advised before he became an MP in 2005, showed the millimetre-wave scanners picked up shrapnel and heavy wax and metal, but plastic, chemicals and liquids were missed.

If a material is low density, such as powder, liquid or thin plastic – as well as the passenger's clothing – the millimetre waves pass through and the object is not shown on screen. High- density material such as metal knives, guns and dense plastic such as C4 explosive reflect the millimetre waves and leave an image of the object.

[Shallah Kali]

28. Not to mention it won't detect fanatics like the rectum bomber - link

Al Qaeda Bombers Learn from Drug Smugglers
New Technique of Storing Bomb Materials Inside Body Cavity Nearly Kills a Saudi Prince
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/28/eveningnews/main5347847.shtml


To get his bomb into this room, Abdullah Asieri, one of Saudi Arabia's most wanted men, avoided detection by two sets of airport security including metal detectors and palace security. He spent 30 hours in the close company of the prince's own secret service agents - all without anyone suspecting a thing.

How did he do it?

Taking a trick from the narcotics trade - which has long smuggled drugs in body cavities - Asieri had a pound of high explosives, plus a detonator inserted in his rectum.

This was a meticulously planned operation with al Qaeda once again producing something new: this time, the Trojan bomber.

[guardian]

26. It's only a matter of time

before some pop singer's or actress' image gets bootlegged to the internet.

[truebrit71]

29. In that case I hope Megan Fox flies somewhere real, REAL soon then...

..:evilgrin:

[Taverner]

27. How else are FBI agents to have jerk off material?

:P

[City Lights]

30. I could say I'm surprised by this news.

But then I'd be lying.

[truebrit71]

31. On a serious note...what use would saving the images have? They aren't like fingerprints ...

I mean, obviously they've been saving the images from the start, anyone with a semi-functioning brain knew that, but for what legitimate purpose? Just to add to our ever-growing secret files?

[Ignis]

32. Yup, none of us could have seen that coming, right?

Pull the other one, TSA, it's got bells on.

:argh: