Thread: Welcome to Obamaland. Is this the America you want?

Mobile backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans, airport full-body scanners

Privacy: Gone With the (Obama) Wind

By Diana Clark
Wednesday, September 1, 2010

While attorneys argue the pros and cons of airport full-body scanners, something much worse goes unnoticed – no doubt, for a reason that we slugs on the street just aren’t swift enough to gather up.

The next generation of those scanners is already rolling off the assembly line and right into the eagerly waiting arms of Obama et al. The U.S. government has purchased mobile backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans, primarily for use in combat zones overseas - but also to search for potential car bombs right here at home.

Consider that. The whole reason the Court took up the issue of airport scanners is that, right off the bat, there appears to have been inappropriate use of them in the airports. Put simply, the temptation to peak just couldn’t be resisted – and people just don’t like the idea of some stranger being able see under their clothing!

So how does the idea grab you of strangers roaming the streets of your hometown, scanning you, your spouse and the kids, as you go to and from your daily business?

Yes, yes – we know: it’s only for Homeland Security purposes, and they have no interest in anything but possible explosives hidden in vehicles. But how long will it take before some bored operative decides to spice up the day by scanning some well-built chick passing on the sidewalk? AND emailing a shot of what he sees to his buddies? After all, who is going to know?

In the airports, it didn’t take long at all.

Progressives positively screamed over the idea of having their overseas phone conversations monitored under the Bush administration’s Patriot Act. But where is the outrage from the talking heads about this invasion of privacy? Oh, they reported on it for a day or two – without tongue-in-cheek comments designed to dismiss the whole issue silly and irrelevant. In a day when “wardrobe malfunctionsâ€

Power corrupts – and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If our government is permitted to conduct this kind of invasion into the personal lives of our citizens, can those armed troops and Check Points be very far behind?

Welcome to Obamaland. Is this the America you want? If not, you had better stand up and say so now, while you still can.

I have been standing up and shouting...but...we are out numbered....stupid is as stupid does.....



KICKTHEMALLOUT~!!!!!!


Kathyet

Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Airport Body Scanners: Yet Another Indignity, Privacy Violation

Everybody who has ever dropped by this blog probably has read a post of mine about these new airport body scanners that essentially see through clothing, producing images of digitally naked passengers. I don't want to reinvent the wheel today, so to find out most everything you need to know about them check out my article "The Politics of Fear and Whole Body Imaging" (from January 2010), or check out any of my past three posts on the subject, here, here, and here.

For the most part my focus has been on (see my former posts for answers to these questions) A. whether being viewed essentially naked in itself is a violation of privacy, B. whether these scanners actually make us "safer", C. whether the irrational fears of a terrorist attack warrant such a privacy invasion, D. whether these images are actually protected and won't be somehow shared or saved, and E. what forces and interests have so much to gain from pushing this ever expanding surveillance state, with ever more threats and security technologies?

But one topic I've only just begun to hone in on, and which the Boston Herald article from yesterday brings to light even further, is the pat down, body search "option" for those that refuse to go through the whole body imaging machines.

Now, before I get to the article detailing this new, and aggressive form of body searching being utilized by the Transportation Security Administration, let me re-post three comments by readers of this blog about their experience of trying to take the "pat down option" that tuned me into this potential additional problem.

Anonymous:

I flew out of Indianapolis last Friday. (Indy has had these scanners since before last Christmas.) I politely stated I'd rather not go through the body scanner, and was told I would have to "go through special screening." I thought the body scanners were OPTIONAL? So wouldn't I go through the NORMAL screening, and not "special" screening?

I went through the metal detector and was told to stand to the side and wait. The male screener asked for a female screener for a pat-down. From the other side of the machine, the female screener ROLLED HER EYES and said loudly "Oh boy." Her sarcasm was opaque.

The pat-down that followed ensured I wouldn't need my annual Pap Smear.

I am convinced the TSA would simply prefer we go through these untested, unregulated, unsafe machines for their own convenience. They are determined to make the other "screening options" so invasive that we might find the body scanner "safer" than being molested.

I will never step through one of those machines. Not EVER. There is nothing they have done to prove I can trust these machines medically, or them with my privacy. On the off hand, I don't find it optional to fly. My family is 2,000 miles away, and I have to move with military orders (husband is active duty). So what is my option? I MUST fly. It isn't a choice, and I'm not the only one who sees it that way.

And another women commented:

I am a young female who flew out of Heathrow yesterday, on a 45 minute flight to Newcaste upon Tyne. I was randomly (I say randomly,I saw the young male security guards pointing as they chose me) selected for the body scan. I have read all about these machines and had decided I would never go through one, but when I refused I was told I would not be able to travel.

I was visibly upset and did not want to do this scan, I feel it is a total invasion of my privacy. I am a businesswoman and travel regularly, but something about this invasive process really got to me. Well I had no option but to do the scan, but this morning I am still thinking about it and worrying that I will be subjected to this every time I fly. Privacy, health? It just all seems so over the top for the normal traveller like myself.

And another woman commented:

I am 33 weeks pregnant and just flew from Chicago to Orange County last night. At Chicago, I was forced to go through the imaging machine. I asked to go through the metal detector but was scolded by all of the TSA agents present that I had to go through the scanning machine. I asked if this was an xray machine and they said that it wasn't, but IT IS!! I feel violated and now I am worried about the effects of the radiation on my unborn child.

AS you can see, we're seeing a pattern here...one that appears to be a very concerted effort by airport security to force people to go through the body scanners...be it through making the alternative body search even less appetizing, shaming and embarrassing those that refuse, or simply trying to say that they have to, when the don't.

Well, it appears that those commenting on my blog were simply giving us a forewarning for what appears to be official policy.

The Boston Herald Reports:

Logan airport security just got more up close and personal as federal screeners launched a more aggressive palms-first, slide-down body search technique that has renewed the debate over privacy vs. safety.

The new procedure - already being questioned by the ACLU - replaces the Transportation Security Administration’s former back-of-the-hand patdown.

Boston is one of only two cities in which the new touchy-feely frisking is being implemented as a test before a planned national rollout. The other is Las Vegas.

“We’re all for good effective security measures,â€

I certainly hope it is not over....you would think the herd mentality would wake up and say NO but...guess not..

We refuse to fly because of all the bull crap that goes on at airports, but this scanner stuff is beyond the pale. I think these TSA people are perverts I have brought other abuses over here in different threads about some of this stuff........Some of them are even developing cancer from working at this job...did I hear define intervention????

This pregnant women who walked through the scanner is brainless....

I am 33 weeks pregnant and just flew from Chicago to Orange County last night. At Chicago, I was forced to go through the imaging machine. I asked to go through the metal detector but was scolded by all of the TSA agents present that I had to go through the scanning machine. I asked if this was an xray machine and they said that it wasn't, but IT IS!! I feel violated and now I am worried about the effects of the radiation on my unborn child.

I see lawsuits coming as far as the eye can see.... God help the person who dare's touch my body with out my permission....

Kathyet

What angers me is that all of this spying technology that was promised to be used for terrorism is actually being used to spy on us. The government has wanted something like the patriot act for years, and they finally got it. What's even worse is how FOX spun it like it was a good thing, and people believed it.