Thread: Lies Michael Chertoff Tells Us

New horror stories are appearing about how the TSA uses full body scanners to take nude photos of airline passengers and send them over the Internet. In fact, just about any computer can save and send images over the Internet now days, so the following lie told by Chertoff about TSA scanners not transferring images is just a propaganda smoke screen meant to hide what everyone is now suspecting: TSA body scanners are being pushed by sexual deviants in our own government.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01746.html

By Michael Chertoff
Friday, January 1, 2010

Since the uncomfortably close attempted attack on Northwest Flight 253 last week, many have focused on why the alleged terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was not placed on a watch list that would have prevented him from flying, even though the government had received information that he was a potential extremist. We should focus on a more fundamental question: How can we keep explosive materials off planes?

Most airport security checkpoints use metal detectors. Al-Qaeda has shown that it knows how to avoid detection by using an explosive device that contains little or no metal, such as PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, used by Abdulmutallab and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid in 2001.

During my time as secretary of homeland security, the Transportation Security Administration began working to replace the 1970s-era metal detectors used at airports across America with modern technology able to detect non-metal weapons concealed by terrorists on their bodies -- even in their underwear, where Abdulmutallab allegedly hid his bomb. The latest versions of these machines -- sometimes called whole-body imagers -- are deployed at 19 airports, and the TSA is attempting to place them throughout the nation.

From the onset, deployment of the machines has been vigorously opposed by some groups. In June, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would prevent the TSA from using the new systems in most cases. If the House bill were to become law, the TSA would be limited to using the new technology only after a passenger had been selected for additional scrutiny. The vast majority of passengers would still pass only through metal detectors. So, under the standards set by the House bill, a terrorist not on a "no-fly" list or a watch list mandating closer scrutiny -- like Abdulmutallab -- could probably carry a concealed non-metal weapon onto a plane undetected.
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Congress should reject this restrictive bill and instead fund a large-scale deployment of next-generation systems.

Opposition to whole-body imagers essentially relies on three arguments. First, the American Civil Liberties Union and privacy advocates have complained that the machines subject passengers to a "virtual strip search." Second, they claim that the machines are unsafe because they expose passengers to dangerous amounts of radiation in screening. Third, some critics argue that the only correct approach to airline security lies in better intelligence.

All of these objections lack merit. The "safety" concern is particularly specious, because the technologies expose people to no more radiation than is experienced in daily life.

The case of Abdulmutallab shows that we cannot simply "rely on intelligence." Abdulmutallab was not on a watch list that required closer scrutiny. Even if the review President Obama has ordered closes a gap that would have put Abdulmutallab or others on more select watch lists, there are plenty of terrorists out there about whom we know nothing. Too many potentially dangerous people simply would not appear on any watch list. We cannot put all our eggs in the "intelligence basket." That's why, since Sept. 11, 2001, we have worked to establish multiple layers of defense to protect the American people. Watch lists surely are an important layer, as is intelligence-sharing, but others, such as the deployment of advanced detection technology, are just as important.

Claims that the screening amounts to "virtual strip searches" is calculated to alarm the public. As if screening is meant to reveal people's private parts to TSA officers. But the agency has nonetheless taken privacy concerns seriously in creating procedures for using this technology. In deploying the machines, the TSA has strictly limited the number of officers who see the images; separates the officers looking at images from the passengers being screened (so the officers do not know which passengers the images belong to); and uses software to blur the faces on the images -- further protecting the anonymity of passengers. Moreover, the machines are configured to prevent TSA officers from storing or retaining any images. [This is not true. Anyone with the right passwords can send these images by email over the Internet.] As an additional measure, passengers can choose not to walk through one of the machines and receive a physical examination instead. [Complaints have started to surface of aggressive body searches with sexual motives.]

In short, the TSA has listened to the reasonable concerns of privacy advocates and incorporated numerous suggestions into its protocols to draw the right balance between security and privacy. The administration must stand firm against privacy ideologues ["ideologues"? We now have the worst Federal government in recent history!], for whom every security measure is unacceptable. Failing to use all available tools to plug a gap in security puts the lives of airline travelers needlessly at risk.

The writer was secretary of homeland security from 2005 to 2009 and is co-founder of the Chertoff Group, a security and risk-management firm whose clients include a manufacturer of body-imaging screening machines.

[Now Chertoff helps sell body scanning equipment?]

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/hea ... t-interest

Michael Chertoff's Conflict of Interest

By Heather Saturday Jan 02, 2010 10:00am


As Steve Benen points out, it seems Michael Chertoff along with The Washington Post are having some conflict of interest problems--PAGE 7 VS PAGE 15:

The Washington Post reports today, on page A7, that Michael Chertoff, the former DHS secretary, has been playing a little fast and loose with the public trust.

Since the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has given dozens of media interviews touting the need for the federal government to buy more full-body scanners for airports.

What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines. The relationship drew attention after Chertoff disclosed it on a CNN program Wednesday, in response to a question.

An airport passengers' rights group on Thursday criticized Chertoff, who left office less than a year ago, for using his former government credentials to advocate for a product that benefits his clients.

"Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to abuse the trust the public has placed in him as a former public servant to privately gain from the sale of full-body scanners under the pretense that the scanners would have detected this particular type of explosive," said Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, which opposes the use of the scanners.

As Steve notes, that same paper allowed Chertoff a 736-word op-ed calling for expanding the whole-body imaging technology. No, it's not just you Steve. There is a huge disconnect between pages A15 and A7. It seems the Washington Post has as bad a case of dissociative identity disorder as the rest of our corporate media.

At least Campbell Brown bothered to point out the conflict during the CNN interview. That doesn't explain why they still brought him on when they know he's going to profit from the technology being expanded.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

BROWN: But what the president said, though, was systemic failure, you know, bigger than one guy dropping the ball. Or at least from what he seems to know -- and presumably, he knows more than any of the rest of us.

So, talk me through some of the specifics, given what we know. How do you think the system should have worked?

CHERTOFF: Here's what -- here's the way it should work, and normally does work.

You get all kinds of intelligence or information from the field. Some of it is very unreliable or questionable. Some of it is much more reliable.

Whatever it is, it has to be written up in a report and sent by a reports officer up the chain to headquarters, and then through the National Counterterrorism Center, which is the agency set up a few years ago by Congress, to collect and integrate all the information. All the various scraps of information are brought together.

And then an evaluation has to take place. Is it reliable? Is it specific? Does it suggest that some action has to be taken? And then, of course, if it is sufficiently specific and reliable, action should be taken.

So, at any point along that chain, people have the responsibility for making sure that they are accurately and fully reporting what they've learned.

And then there are going to be some judgments that have to be made about whether and what action ought to be taken, based on the information.

BROWN: Bigger picture, what do we do to protect ourselves? Clearly, the systems in place didn't work, if somebody was able to get that far in the process.

When we talk about screenings at the airport and other protective mechanisms along the way, what should we be doing that clearly were not?

CHERTOFF: Well, Campbell, the strategy recognizes that there's always going to be human error in any system. You can't count on perfection. And that's why we built a strategy at the Department of Homeland Security of what we call "layered security" -- a number of different layers, so that even if one fails, another one gets picked up.

It's complicated here, of course, because the actual screening took place overseas, where the U.S. ability to control what goes on is obviously not the same as it is here.

But there are a few things we could do to make things better.

First, we could deploy the scanning machines that we currently are beginning to deploy in the U.S., that will give us the ability to see what someone has concealed underneath their clothing. That has been vigorously opposed by the ACLU and privacy advocates. The House of Representatives voted to prevent us from using it.

But I think now there's been a very vivid lesson in the value of that machinery.

BROWN: OK. Can I stop you there for a second?

CHERTOFF: Yes.

BROWN: I know you've been an advocate of this technology for a long time.

CHERTOFF: Correct.

BROWN: But just, in the interest of full disclosure, I also want to point out, in your current role as a security consultant, you are representing some of the companies who manufacture that technology. Correct?

CHERTOFF: Absolutely correct, yes.

BROWN: OK. Go ahead.

CHERTOFF: A second thing is, it apparently is the case the British did revoke the visa for this individual earlier this year. That information may not have been communicated to American authorities. Why is that? Because the European Union has been very, very adamant in refusing to share information about immigration problems that they discover with American authorities.

So, we've got to go back to the E.U. and fight this fight all over again, and tell them that their exalting privacy over security could very well have resulted in a tragedy that would have killed Europeans as well as Americans. So, that's another measure we could put into place to help cure this problem.

The third thing is, we're going to have to go back and see whether we need to light a fire under some of the people involved in the reporting process, to make sure that they move with urgency and with accuracy when they get reports of the kind that we saw apparently came into the Nigerian embassy.

BROWN: There has also been a renewed debate about racial profiling here. I know you have been opposed to this. And it's not for civil liberties -- or not only, I guess, for civil liberties reasons -- but largely because you don't think it's effective.

Explain your reasoning.

CHERTOFF: Well, the problem is that the profile many people think they have of what a terrorist is doesn't fit the reality. Actually, this individual probably does not fit the profile that most people assume is the terrorist who comes from either South Asia or an Arab country.

Richard Reid didn't fit that profile. Some of the bombers or would-be bombers in the plots that were foiled in Great Britain don't fit the profile. And in fact, one of the things the enemy does it to deliberately recruit people who are Western in background or in appearance, so that they can slip by people who might be stereotyping.

So, I think the danger is, we get lulled into a false sense of security, if we profile based on appearance.

What I do think is important is to look at behavior. And that's something that we are doing and should continue to do more of.