Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

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Re: Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

Postby elfismiles » Wed Jul 06, 2011 5:37 pm

Thanks for that article JD.

The news below says this is "ASSpirational" and was demonstrated in the movie "Hurt Locker" (and of course in other sci-fi films like IMPOSTOR http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0160399/ )

Image


U.S. NEWS - JULY 6, 2011, 5:03 P.M. ET.U.S.
Warns Airlines on Human Bomb Implants . Video
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 16376.html

By KEITH JOHNSON And SIOBHAN GORMAN
Militants from al Qaeda's branch in Yemen are mulling plans to surgically implant explosive devices in would-be suicide bombers, possibly targeting airlines, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

That intelligence about al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, considered the group's most dangerous affiliate, led the Obama administration to warn foreign governments and American and international airline executives over the past several days that terrorists might attempt to board planes with explosives concealed in their bodies.

Militants from al Qaeda's branch in Yemen are mulling plans to surgically implant explosive devices in would-be suicide bombers, possibly targeting airlines, U.S. officials said Wednesday. Keith Johnson has details.
."It's more than aspirational," a U.S. official said. "They're trying to make this happen."

The Department of Homeland Security hasn't warned of a specific plot, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. But the specter of militants carrying bombs within them will prompt additional security measures at U.S. airports and overseas airports serving U.S. destinations, the Transportation Security Administration said in a written release.

Mr. Carney said terrorists have repeatedly expressed interest in trying new techniques to conceal explosives.

"That fact that terrorists are interested in finding ways to attack us is pretty much self-evident," Mr. Carney said. "Our security procedures are multifaceted, and we adjust them according to the threat all the time."

U.S. officials have become increasingly worried about plots emanating from Yemen, where a popular uprising against the country's authoritarian leader and tribal clashes have created a security vacuum in which al Qaeda can operate more freely.

The U.S. official said that the administration isn't aware of an imminent plot involving implanted bombs, but the effort represents the next generation of plans following the botched attempt by al Qaeda's Yemeni affiliate on Christmas Day 2009 to down a Detroit-bound airliner with a bomb sewn into the bomber's underwear.

In recent years, the TSA has added hundreds of new full-body screening machines to scores of airports to complement metal detectors and help detect hard-to-find items that could pose a security threat.

However, the new scanners wouldn't be able to identify explosive devices implanted inside a body, which has prompted many security experts to push for alternative security measures, including profiling a passenger's behavior and demeanor to identify potential security risks.

"What technology can we use? The simple answer is the human brain—that's the only way to address the threat," said Philip Baum, founder of Green Light Limited, an aviation-security consultancy in London. Given that drug smugglers have implanted contraband for years, he said he is surprised that terrorists haven't yet tried to do the same with explosives.

Despite initial speculation that an al Qaeda terrorist used implanted explosives in a failed bid to assassinate a key Saudi Arabian minister in the summer of 2009, U.S. security officials concluded that the explosive device was hidden in the man's underwear—exactly the same technique used four months later in the Detroit plot.

—Carol E. Lee contributed to this article.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 16376.html




“Belly Bombs”: Government Claims Phantom Terrorists Will Surgically Implant Explosives In Humans Video
Coincidentally, new full strength body scanners are ready to be rolled out
http://www.infowars.com/belly-bombs-gov ... in-humans/
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Re: Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

Postby elfismiles » Sat Jul 16, 2011 2:09 pm

farewell freedom to travel ... it's over. considering the lack of reaction to date ... barring some new liberty-enducing pearl harbor type event, the US is now, in my opinion, pretty much a frakking police state. none of my fellow debt slaves are about to rebel. and if they can grope us just to travel, its over. :choke:

:wallhead: TSA told to get public comment on body scanners
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... 5-15-59-56

:wallhead: Federal Court Rules That TSA ‘Naked Scans’ Are Constitutional
http://blogs.forbes.com/kashmirhill/201 ... itutional/
http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/o ... 318805.pdf
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Re: Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

Postby LilyPatToo » Sat Jul 16, 2011 2:29 pm

I'm completely stunned by the US public's acceptance of the gropes. Most of our friends are people I thought would be outraged--Lefty human/environmental rights activists--yet every one of them reacts with total apathy and shrugs when I try to get them to discuss what can be done. WTF?! It's downright surreal.

And I'm being forced to make a REALLY long, expensive train trip in August to see my elderly aunt one more time--she's just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. As a sexual abuse survivor, I've worried that this sort of situation would arise ever since the groping began. It took me until my 50's to grow normal sexual boundaries and I'll be damned if I'll surrender them to a stranger in a crowded airport because I have no legal choice. I have friends with sexual trauma backgrounds who are forced to fly in order to keep their jobs and who have developed a way of dressing (tight-fitting clothing from head to toe, with which they're very uncomfortable), plus prescription anti-anxiety drugs in order to make it through the security lines.

This is just WRONG.

:cry:

The bizarre acceptance of this outrage is really terrifying--it tells me that most Americans have been successfully mass-mind-controlled via carefully calculated traumatization and programming into passive, apathetic sheep who will now passively obey just about any command from Authority. Even completely beyond-the-bounds ones that involve genital touching! This would have been unthinkable and would have sparked national outrage pre-9/11. Again--WTF?!


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Re: Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

Postby Project Willow » Sat Jul 16, 2011 3:55 pm

It took my dear friend two weeks to finally tell me she had been assaulted at our airport. Her story was gut wrenching, and it made me so angry. She plans to take part in activism around the issue.

I wonder and worry about what will happen to people over the long haul as these assaults keep adding up.



(edited for middle-aged typing.)
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Re: Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

Postby LilyPatToo » Sat Jul 16, 2011 7:05 pm

It's happened to 2 close friends of mine who have no histories of sexual abuse at all in their lives and it took *both of them* 2 full weeks to be able to talk about what it felt like to be groped by a stranger. When they finally admitted that it had happened to them, they were extremely upset. And I want to be clear about what sexually healthy women these are--both around 50 years of age and happily married. I try to imagine what it would do to someone like me and my mind boggles...how is this allowed to happen in this country?

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Re: Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

Postby crikkett » Sun Jul 17, 2011 10:38 am

Just to make sure I have this clear in my head: to board a plane, our choice is either exposure to ionizing radiation, or groping by a stranger?
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Re: Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

Postby elfismiles » Tue Aug 02, 2011 9:17 am

"TSA to debut 'Israeli-style' airport screening... "


TSA to put Hub fliers on the spot
Some skeptical of new security program

By Natalie Sherman and Joe Dwinell
Tuesday, August 2, 2011 - Updated 1 hour ago

Boston’s TSA screeners — part of a security force whose competency has come under fire nationwide — soon will be carrying out sophisticated behavioral inspections under a first-in-the-nation program that’s already raising concerns of racial profiling, harassment of innocent travelers and longer lines.

The training for the Israeli-style screening — a projected $1 billion national program dubbed Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques — kicks off today at Logan International Airport and will be put to use in Terminal A on Aug. 15. It requires screeners to make quick reads of whether passengers pose a danger or a terror threat based on their reactions to a set of routine questions.

But security experts wonder whether Transportation Safety Administration agents are up to the challenge after an embarrassing string of blunders — including patting down a 95-year-old grandmother in Florida and making her remove her adult diaper and frisking a 3-year-old girl who screamed “stop touching me” at a checkpoint in Tennessee.

“I’m not convinced that the TSA has good enough people to make the Israeli approach work on a large scale,” said Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who has followed the TSA at his blog, Instapundit.com.

But he noted, “Almost anything would be an improvement over the clown show we’ve got now.”

A leading proponent of Israel’s detection techniques agreed the TSA will be severely tested.

“The question is obviously, what is the quality of the verbal interaction that is going to be implemented?” asked Rafi Ron, a former Logan consultant and CEO of New-Age Security Solutions. “If it will have a poor quality, then obviously it will be another way to waste taxpayer money and increase the hassle to passengers. If not, then this will be great.”

Civil libertarians argue the screening is TSA showmanship — coming just weeks before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — and could quickly devolve into profiling.

“It’s an ineffective waste of taxpayer dollars that has the potential and the reality of leading to profiling based on race and ethnicity,” said Massachusetts ACLU executive director Carol Rose, who dismissed SPOT as “security theater.”

Logan’s TSA Federal Security Director George Naccara said he doesn’t expect to see longer lines, just better security in the long run. “I’m trying to refocus the screening effort,” he said. “We have finite resources, so we have to figure out a way to use them more efficiently.”

Under the SPOT program, as passengers hand over their boarding passes and identification, specially trained agents will ask three to four questions — from “Where have you been?” to “Do you have a business card?” and “Where are you traveling?” — while looking for “micro expressions,” such as lack of eye contact, that might hint at nefarious intent.

Suspicious individuals will be pulled aside for more questioning, full-body scans and pat-downs. If the encounter escalates, agents will call in state police.

At Logan, about 70 agents — all with college degrees — are undergoing training by an international consulting firm that includes a four-day classroom course and 24 hours of on-the-job experience, said TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis.

Logan passenger Lina Texeira, 41, of Clearwater, Fla., a nurse who has done psychiatric training, said yesterday she backs the SPOT program — to a point.

“You’re telling me someone with a three-week training course is going to be able to do that?” she said. “It’s not against the TSA. I just don’t think the training they’re getting is enough.”




http://www.bostonherald.com/news/region ... id=1355725

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Re: Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

Postby hanshan » Tue Aug 02, 2011 12:14 pm

...



“Almost anything would be an improvement over the clown show we’ve got now.”

Image

crikkett wrote:Just to make sure I have this clear in my head: to board a plane, our choice is either exposure to ionizing radiation, or groping by a stranger?


ayup

LilyPatToo:

The bizarre acceptance of this outrage is really terrifying--it tells me that most Americans have been successfully mass-mind-controlled via carefully calculated traumatization and programming into passive, apathetic sheep who will now passively obey just about any command from Authority. Even completely beyond-the-bounds ones that involve genital touching! This would have been unthinkable and would have sparked national outrage pre-9/11. Again--WTF?!


Image

Image


http://davidmorehouseblog.com/the-true-adventures-of-a-psychic-spy-2/

...
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Re: Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

Postby LilyPatToo » Tue Aug 02, 2011 12:16 pm

I've been through the Israeli "interview" security screening process twice at JFK in New York and I have little to no confidence that those US TSA agents can be trained to do it properly in such a short time. Though I'm sure they'll do it improperly and cause the already almost unbearably tedious/traumatic security process to go even more slowly than it does now. The goal of the Israeli intelligence agent who interviewed us seemed to me to be to provoke anger--or at least frustration--with rapid-fire intrusive questions, then read the hapless travelers' responses. It's not pleasant and it takes a highly trained, perceptive and clever agent to do it. Dunno about you, but those 3 terms could never be applied to any of the TSA agents with whom I've been forced to interact...

In a couple of weeks, I leave on a necessary cross-country train trip that's going to take a total of a full week longer than a plane flight would have taken...just to avoid the anxiety of potentially being publicly groped by a stranger. I'm appalled that the US public has submitted so docilely to the gropes and scanning. I'd hoped that the outrage would have long since sparked a rebellion, but I suppose that was naive of me. As the months go by and the outrageous invasions of privacy continue, the only conclusion I can come to is that the US public has truly been turned into a herd of passive sheep. 9/11 was just the mass trauma that the fascists needed to disempower us, apparently.

I had a conversation this past weekend with friends who haven't flown anywhere in a while. They, just like others I've spoken to about the gropings, were barely aware that they were happening and were visibly shocked and disturbed when I told them just how intimately travelers are touched in "enhanced" pat-downs. This is the same reaction I've gotten from quite a few friends, making me wonder if one of the reasons that there's such limited outrage is that a lot of Americans simply have no clue what's happening in security lines? Also, my 2 closest women friends, both of whom were groped, were so traumatized that they were unable to speak or even to think about it for several weeks after it happened. How many other people are walking around with repressed memories of personal trauma from the experience?

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Re: Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

Postby elfismiles » Tue Nov 01, 2011 5:41 pm


U.S. Government Glossed Over Cancer Concerns As It Rolled Out Airport X-Ray Scanners
by Michael Grabell
ProPublica, Nov. 1, 2011, 1:06 p.m.

Update (11/01): This story has been updated with a comment [1] from The Chertoff Group, from which ProPublica had sought comment before publication.

Look for a PBS NewsHour story on X-ray body scanners, reported in conjunction with ProPublica, to air later this month.

Related
New Army Study Says Radiation From Airport Body Scanners Is Minor

by Michael Grabell, ProPublica, July 14

TSA Airport Scanners Wouldn’t Catch an Implant Bomber

by Michael Grabell, ProPublica, July 6

Scientists Cast Doubt on TSA Tests of Full-Body Scanners

by Michael Grabell, ProPublica, May 16
On Sept. 23, 1998, a panel of radiation safety experts gathered at a Hilton hotel in Maryland to evaluate a new device that could detect hidden weapons and contraband. The machine, known as the Secure 1000, beamed X-rays at people to see underneath their clothing.

One after another, the experts convened by the Food and Drug Administration raised questions about the machine because it violated a longstanding principle in radiation safety — that humans shouldn’t be X-rayed unless there is a medical benefit.

“I think this is really a slippery slope,” said Jill Lipoti, who was the director of New Jersey’s radiation protection program. The device was already deployed in prisons; what was next, she and others asked — courthouses, schools, airports? “I am concerned … with expanding this type of product for the traveling public,” said another panelist, Stanley Savic, the vice president for safety at a large electronics company. “I think that would take this thing to an entirely different level of public health risk.”

The machine’s inventor, Steven W. Smith, assured the panelists that it was highly unlikely that the device would see widespread use in the near future. At the time, only 20 machines were in operation in the entire country.

“The places I think you are not going to see these in the next five years is lower-security facilities, particularly power plants, embassies, courthouses, airports and governments,” Smith said. “I would be extremely surprised in the next five to 10 years if the Secure 1000 is sold to any of these.”

Today, the United States has begun marching millions of airline passengers through the X-ray body scanners, parting ways with countries in Europe and elsewhere that have concluded that such widespread use of even low-level radiation poses an unacceptable health risk. The government is rolling out the X-ray scanners despite having a safer alternative that the Transportation Security Administration says is also highly effective.

A ProPublica/PBS NewsHour investigation of how this decision was made shows that in post-9/11 America, security issues can trump even long-established medical conventions. The final call to deploy the X-ray machines was made not by the FDA, which regulates drugs and medical devices, but by the TSA, an agency whose primary mission is to prevent terrorist attacks.

Research suggests that anywhere from six to 100 U.S. airline passengers each year could get cancer from the machines. Still, the TSA has repeatedly defined the scanners as “safe,” glossing over the accepted scientific view that even low doses of ionizing radiation — the kind beamed directly at the body by the X-ray scanners — increase the risk of cancer.

“Even though it’s a very small risk, when you expose that number of people, there’s a potential for some of them to get cancer,” said Kathleen Kaufman, the former radiation management director in Los Angeles County, who brought the prison X-rays to the FDA panel’s attention.

About 250 X-ray scanners are currently in U.S. airports, along with 264 body scanners that use a different technology, a form of low-energy radio waves known as millimeter waves.

Robin Kane, the TSA’s assistant administrator for security technology, said that no one would get cancer because the amount of radiation the X-ray scanners emit is minute. Having both technologies is important to create competition, he added.

“It’s a really, really small amount relative to the security benefit you’re going to get,” Kane said. “Keeping multiple technologies in play is very worthwhile for the U.S. in getting that cost-effective solution — and being able to increase the capabilities of technology because you keep everyone trying to get the better mousetrap.”

Determined to fill a critical hole in its ability to detect explosives, the TSA plans to have one or the other operating at nearly every security lane in America by 2014. The TSA has designated the scanners for “primary” screening: Officers will direct every passenger, including children, to go through either a metal detector or a body scanner, and the passenger’s only alternative will be to request a physical pat-down.

How did the United States swing from considering such X-rays taboo to deeming them safe enough to scan millions of people a year?

A new wave of terrorist attacks using explosives concealed on the body, coupled with the scanners’ low dose of radiation, certainly convinced many radiation experts that the risk was justified.

But other factors helped the machines gain acceptance.

Because of a regulatory Catch-22, the airport X-ray scanners have escaped the oversight required for X-ray machines used in doctors’ offices and hospitals. The reason is that the scanners do not have a medical purpose, so the FDA cannot subject them to the rigorous evaluation it applies to medical devices.

Still, the FDA has limited authority to oversee some non-medical products and can set mandatory safety regulations. But the agency let the scanners fall under voluntary standards set by a nonprofit group heavily influenced by industry.

As for the TSA, it skipped a public comment period required before deploying the scanners. Then, in defending them, it relied on a small body of unpublished research to insist the machines were safe, and ignored contrary opinions from U.S. and European authorities that recommended precautions, especially for pregnant women. Finally, the manufacturer, Rapiscan Systems, unleashed an intense and sophisticated lobbying campaign, ultimately winning large contracts.

Both the FDA and TSA say due diligence has been done to assure the scanners’ safety. Rapiscan says it won the contract because its technology is superior at detecting threats. While the TSA says X-ray and millimeter-wave scanners are both effective, Germany decided earlier this year not to roll out millimeter-wave machines after finding they produced too many false positives.

Most of the news coverage on body scanners has focused on privacy, because the machines can produce images showing breasts and buttocks. But the TSA has since installed software to make the images less graphic. While some accounts have raised the specter of radiation, this is the first report to trace the history of the scanners and document the gaps in regulation that allowed them to avoid rigorous safety evaluation.

Little research on cancer risk of body scanners

Humans are constantly exposed to ionizing radiation, a form of energy that has been shown to strip electrons from atoms, damage DNA and mutate genes, potentially leading to cancer. Most radiation comes from radon, a gas produced from naturally decaying elements in the ground. Another major source is cosmic radiation from outer space. Many common items, such as smoke detectors, contain tiny amounts of radioactive material, as do exit signs in schools and office buildings.

As a result, the cancer risk from any one source of radiation is often small. Outside of nuclear accidents, such as that at Japan's Fukushima plant, and medical errors, the health risk comes from cumulative exposure.

In Rapiscan’s Secure 1000 scanner, which uses ionizing radiation, a passenger stands between two large blue boxes and is scanned with a pencil X-ray beam that rapidly moves left to right and up and down the body. In the other machine, ProVision, made by defense contractor L-3 Communications, a passenger enters a chamber that looks like a round phone booth and is scanned with millimeter waves, a form of low-energy radio waves, which have not been shown to strip electrons from atoms or cause cancer.

Only a decade ago, many states prohibited X-raying a person for anything other than a medical exam. Even after 9/11, such non-medical X-raying remains taboo in most of the industrialized world. In July, the European Parliament passed a resolution that security “scanners using ionizing radiation should be prohibited” because of health risks. Although the United Kingdom uses the X-ray machine for limited purposes, such as when passengers trigger the metal detector, most developed countries have decided to forgo body scanners altogether or use only the millimeter-wave machines.

While the research on medical X-rays could fill many bookcases, the studies that have been done on the airport X-ray scanners, known as backscatters, fill a file no more than a few inches thick. None of the main studies cited by the TSA has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, the gold standard for scientific research.

Those tests show that the Secure 1000 delivers an extremely low dose of radiation, less than 10 microrems. The dose is roughly one-thousandth of a chest X-ray and equivalent to the cosmic radiation received in a few minutes of flying at typical cruising altitude. The TSA has used those measurements to say the machines are “safe.”

Most of what researchers know about the long-term health effects of low levels of radiation comes from studies of atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By charting exposure levels and cancer cases, researchers established a linear link that shows the higher the exposure, the greater risk of cancer.

Some scientists argue the danger is exaggerated. They claim low levels stimulate the repair mechanism in cells, meaning that a little radiation might actually be good for the body.

But in the authoritative report on low doses of ionizing radiation, published in 2006, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the research and concluded that the preponderance of research supported the linear link. It found “no compelling evidence” that there is any level of radiation at which the risk of cancer is zero.

Radiation experts say the dose from the backscatter is negligible when compared to naturally occurring background radiation. Speaking to the 1998 FDA panel, Smith, the inventor, compared the increased risk to choosing to visit Denver instead of San Diego or the decision to wear a sweater versus a sport coat.

Using the linear model, even such trivial amounts increase the number of cancer cases. Rebecca Smith-Bindman, a radiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, estimated that the backscatters would lead to only six cancers over the course of a lifetime among the approximately 100 million people who fly every year. David Brenner, director of Columbia University’s Center for Radiological Research, reached a higher number — potentially 100 additional cancers every year.

“Why would we want to put ourselves in this uncertain situation where potentially we’re going to have some cancer cases?” Brenner asked. “It makes me think, really, why don’t we use millimeter waves when we don’t have so much uncertainty?”

But even without the machines, Smith-Bindman said, the same 100 million people would develop 40 million cancers over the course of their lifetimes. In this sea of cancer cases, it would be impossible to identify the patients whose cancer is linked to the backscatter machines.

How the scanners avoided strict oversight

Although they deliberately expose humans to radiation, the airport X-ray scanners are not medical devices, so they are not subject to the stringent regulations required for diagnostic X-ray machines.

If they were, the manufacturer would have to submit clinical data showing safety and effectiveness and be approved through a rigorous process by the FDA. If the machines contained radioactive material, they would have to report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

But because it didn’t fit into either category, the Secure 1000 was classified as an electronic product. The FDA does not review or approve the safety of such products. However, manufacturers must provide a brief radiation safety report explaining the dose and notify the agency if any overexposure is discovered. According to the FDA, no such incidents have been reported.

Under its limited oversight of electronic products, the FDA could issue mandatory safety regulations. But it didn’t do so, a decision that flows from its history of supervising electronics.

Regulation of electronic products in the United States began after a series of scandals. From the 1930s to the 1950s, it was common for a child to go to a shoe store and stand underneath an X-ray machine known as a fluoroscope to check whether a shoe was the right fit. But after cases arose of a shoe model’s leg being amputated and store clerks developing dermatitis from putting their hands in the beam to adjust the shoe, the practice ended.

In 1967, General Electric recalled 90,000 color televisions that had been sold without the proper shielding, potentially exposing viewers to dangerous levels of radiation. The scandal prompted the creation of the federal Bureau of Radiological Health.

“That ultimately led to a lot more aggressive program,” said John Villforth, who was the director of the bureau. Over the next decade, the bureau created federal safety standards for televisions, medical X-rays, microwaves, tanning beds, even laser light shows.

But in 1982, the FDA merged the radiological health bureau into its medical-device unit.

“I was concerned that if they were to combine the two centers into one, it would probably mean the ending of the radiation program because the demands for medical-device regulation were becoming increasingly great,” said Villforth, who was put in charge of the new Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “As I sort of guessed, the radiation program took a big hit.”

The new unit became stretched for scarce resources as it tried to deal with everything from tongue depressors to industrial lasers. The government used to have 500 people examining the safety of electronic products emitting radiation. It now has about 20 people. In fact, the FDA has not set a mandatory safety standard for an electronic product since 1985.

As a result, there is an FDA safety regulation for X-rays scanning baggage — but none for X-rays scanning people at airports.

Meanwhile, scientists began developing backscatter X-rays, in which the waves are reflected off an object to a detector, for the security industry.

The Secure 1000 people scanner was invented by Smith in 1991 and later sold to Rapiscan, then a small security firm based in southern California. The first major customer was the California prison system, which began scanning visitors to prevent drugs and weapons from getting in. But the state pulled the devices in 2001 after a group of inmates' wives filed a class-action lawsuit accusing the prisons of violating their civil liberties.

The U.S. Customs Service deployed backscatter machines for several years but in limited fashion and with strict supervision. Travelers suspected of carrying contraband had to sign a consent form, and Customs policy prohibited the scanning of pregnant women. The agency abandoned them in 2006, not for safety reasons but because smugglers had learned where the machines were installed and adapted their methods to avoid them, said Rick Whitman, the radiation safety officer for Customs until 2008.

Yet, even this limited application of X-ray scanning for security dismayed radiation safety experts. In 1999, the Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors, a nongovernmental organization, passed a resolution recommending that such screening be stopped immediately.

The backscatter machines had also caught the attention of the 1998 FDA advisory panel, which recommended that the FDA establish government safety regulations for people scanners. Instead, the FDA decided to go with a voluntary standard set by a trade group largely comprising manufacturers and government agencies that wanted to use the machines.

“Establishing a mandatory standard takes an enormous amount of resources and could take a decade to publish,” said Dan Kassiday, a longtime radiation safety engineer at the FDA.

In addition, since the mid-1990s, Congress has directed federal safety agencies to use industry standards wherever possible instead of creating their own.

The FDA delegated the task of establishing the voluntary standards to the American National Standards Institute. A private nonprofit that sets standards for many industries, ANSI convened a committee of the Health Physics Society, a trade group of radiation safety specialists. It was made up of 15 people, including six representatives of manufacturers of X-ray body scanners and five from U.S. Customs and the California prison system. There were few government regulators and no independent scientists.

In contrast, the FDA advisory panel was also made up of 15 people — five representatives from government regulatory agencies, four outside medical experts, one labor representative and five experts from the electronic products industry, but none from the scanner manufacturers themselves.

“I am more comfortable with having a regulatory agency — either federal or the states — develop the standards and enforce them,” Kaufman said. Such regulators, she added, “have only one priority, and that’s public health.”

A representative of the Health Physics Society committee said that was its main priority as well. Most of the committee’s evaluation was completed before 9/11. The standard was published in 2002 and updated with minor changes in 2009.

Ed Bailey, chief of California’s radiological health branch at the time, said he was the lone voice opposing the use of the machines. But after 9/11, his views changed about what was acceptable in pursuit of security.

“The whole climate of their use has changed,” Bailey said. “The consequence of something being smuggled on an airplane is far more serious than somebody getting drugs into a prison.”

Are Inspections Independent?

While the TSA doesn’t regulate the machines, it must seek public input before making major changes to security procedures. In July, a federal appeals court ruled that the agency failed to follow rule-making procedures and solicit public comment before installing body scanners at airports across the country. TSA spokesman Michael McCarthy said the agency couldn’t comment on ongoing litigation.

The TSA asserts there is no need to take additional precautions for sensitive populations, even pregnant women, following the guidance of the congressionally chartered National Council on Radiation Protection & Measurements.

But other authorities have come to the opposite conclusion. A report by France’s radiation safety agency specifically warned against screening pregnant women with the X-ray devices. In addition, the Federal Aviation Administration’s medical institute has advised pregnant pilots and flight attendants that the machine, coupled with their time in the air, could put them over their occupational limit for radiation exposure and that they might want to adjust their work schedules accordingly.

No similar warning has been issued for pregnant frequent fliers.

Even as people scanners became more widespread, government oversight actually weakened in some cases.

Inspections of X-ray equipment in hospitals and industry are the responsibility of state regulators — and before 9/11, many states also had the authority to randomly inspect machines in airports. But that ended when the TSA took over security checkpoints from the airlines.

Instead, annual inspections are done by Rapiscan, the scanners’ manufacturer.

“As a regulator, I think there’s a conflict of interest in having the manufacturer and the facility inspect themselves,” Kaufman said.

Last year, in reaction to public anger from members of Congress, passengers and advocates, the TSA contracted with the Army Public Health Command to do independent radiation surveys. But email messages obtained in a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a civil liberties group, raise questions about the independence of the Army surveys.

One email sent by TSA health and safety director Jill Segraves shows that local TSA officials were given advance notice and allowed to “pick and choose” which systems the Army could check.

That email also suggests that Segraves considered the Rapiscan inspectors a valuable public-relations asset: “They are our radiation myth busters,” she wrote to a local security director.

Some TSA screeners are concerned about their own radiation exposure from the backscatters, but the TSA has not allowed them to wear badges that could measure it, said Milly Rodriguez, health and safety specialist for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA officers.

“We have heard from members that sometimes the technicians tell them that the machines are emitting more radiation than is allowed,” she said.

McCarthy, the TSA spokesman, said the machines are physically incapable of producing radiation above the industry standard. In the email, he said, the inspections allow screeners to ask questions about radiation and address concerns about specific machines.

The company’s lobbying campaign

While the TSA maintains that the body scanners are essential to preventing attacks on airplanes, it only began rolling them out nine years after 9/11.

After the attempted shoe-bombing in December 2001, the federal government conducted a trial of a Rapiscan backscatter at the Orlando International Airport. But the revealing images drew protests that the machines amounted to a virtual strip search.

The TSA considered the scanners again after two Chechen women blew up Russian airliners in 2004. Facing a continued outcry over privacy, the TSA instead moved forward with a machine known as a “puffer” because it released several bursts of air on the passengers’ clothes and analyzed the dislodged particles for explosives. But after discovering the machines were ineffective in the field and difficult to maintain, the TSA canceled the program in 2006.

Around that time, Rapiscan began to beef up its lobbying on Capitol Hill. It opened a Washington, D.C., office and, according to required disclosures, more than tripled its lobbying expenditures in two years, from less than $130,000 in 2006 to nearly $420,000 in 2008. It hired former legislative aides to Rep. David Price, D-N.C., then chairman of the homeland security appropriations subcommittee, and to Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.

It started a political action committee and began contributing heavily to Price; Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., then head of the homeland security committee; Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., also on that committee; and Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., the top Republican on the Senate appropriations committee.

In addition, it opened a new North Carolina plant in Price’s district and expanded its operations in Ocean Springs, Miss., and at its headquarters in Torrance, Calif., in Harman’s district.

“Less than a month after U.S. Senator Trent Lott and other local leaders helped officially open Rapiscan Systems’ new Ocean Springs factory,” Lott’s office announced in a news release in late 2006, “the company has won a $9.1 million Department of Defense contract.”

But Rapiscan still hadn’t landed a major contract to roll out its X-ray body scanners in commercial airports. Indeed, in 2007, with new privacy filters in place, the TSA began a trial of millimeter-wave and backscatter machines at several major airports, after which the agency opted to go with the millimeter-wave machines. The agency said health concerns weren’t a factor.

But with the 2009 federal stimulus package, which provided $300 million for checkpoint security machines, the TSA began deploying backscatters as well. Rapiscan won a $173 million, multiyear contract for the backscatters, with an initial $25 million order for 150 systems to be made in Mississippi.

Three other companies — American Science & Engineering, Tek84 Engineering Group and Valley Forge Composite Technologies — make X-ray scanners, but none are used by the TSA.Peter Kant, executive vice president for Rapiscan, said the company expanded its lobbying because its business was increasingly affected by the government.

“There’s a lot of misinformation about the technology; there’s a lot of questions about how various inspection technologies work,” he said. “And we needed a way to be able to provide that information and explain the technology and how it works, and that’s what lobbying is.”

The lawmakers either declined to comment or said the lobbying, campaign contributions and local connections had nothing to do with the TSA’s decision to purchase Rapiscan machines. The TSA said the contract was bid competitively and that the winning machines had to undergo comprehensive research and testing phases before being deployed.

While the scanners were appearing in more and more airports, few passengers went through them, because they were used mostly for random screening or to resolve alarms from the metal detector.

That changed on Christmas Day 2009, when a Nigerian man flying to Detroit tried to ignite a pouch of explosives hidden in his underwear.

Following the foiled “Great Balls of Fire” suicide bombing, as the New York Postdubbed it, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano ramped up plans to roll out body scanners nationwide. Members of Congress and aviation security experts also pushed heavily for the TSA to install more machines that could detect explosives on passengers.

Harman sent a letter to Napolitano, noting that Rapiscan was in her district.

“I urge you to expedite installation of scanning machines in key airports,” Harman wrote in the letter, which was first reported by the website CounterPunch. “If you need additional funds, I am ready to help.”

Michael Chertoff, who had supported body scanners while secretary of Homeland Security, appeared frequently on TV advocating their use. In one interview, he disclosed that his consulting firm, Chertoff Group, had done work for Rapiscan, sparking accusations that he was trying to profit from his time as a government servant.

Despite the criticism, little has been revealed about the relationship. Rapiscan dismissed it, asserting that the consulting work had to do with international cargo and port security issues — not aviation.

“There was nothing that was not above board,” Kant said. “His comments about passenger screening and these machines were simply his own and was nothing that we had engaged the Chertoff Group for.”

In a statement, the Chertoff Group said it “played no role in the sale of whole body imaging technology to TSA” and that Chertoff “was in no way compensated for his public statements.”

A public records request by ProPublica turned up empty: The Department of Homeland Security said it could not find any correspondence to or from Chertoff related to body scanners. DHS also said Chertoff did not use email.

The TSA plans to deploy 1,275 backscatter and millimeter-wave scanners covering more than half its security lanes by the end of 2012 and 1,800 covering nearly all the lanes by 2014.

According to annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, OSI Systems, the parent company of Rapiscan, has seen revenue from its security division more than double since 2006 to nearly $300 million in fiscal year 2011.

Miles O’Brien and Kate Tobin of PBS NewsHour contributed to this report.


http://www.propublica.org/article/u.s.- ... port-x-ray

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Re: Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

Postby elfismiles » Tue Feb 07, 2012 11:54 am

I know some folks have tried to tie the Anti-TSA activism to folks shilling for corporate contracts (to compete / replace fed employees) so I'm not sure if this is for the better but I like the "eviction" headline.


Senate Passes Bill Allowing Airports To Evict TSA Screeners
Legislation could lead to despised federal agency being marginalized from aviation security

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Tuesday, February 7, 2012

The Senate has passed legislation that includes a provision allowing airports to replace TSA screeners with private security, opening the door for the widely loathed federal agency to be marginalized from aviation security altogether.

The bill was primarily concerned with how the Federal Aviation Authority would be funded for the next four years, but also included measures that would force the TSA to reconsider applications from airports to replace TSA workers with their own privately hired screeners.

“Security companies would have an easier time winning contracts to operate airport checkpoints,” reports Businessweek.

Following a massive nationwide backlash against the TSA’s invasive groping policies and its use of radiation-firing naked body scanners, linked by many prestigious health bodies to cancer, an increasing number of airports attempted to take responsibility for their own screening procedures by replacing TSA workers with privately hired personnel.

However, in January 2011, when the number of airports attempting to opt-out of the TSA had risen to 16, TSA head John Pistole put a freeze on the process, refusing to consider new applications from airports.

The newly approved legislation “would require the TSA to reconsider applications for private screeners that it had rejected.”

Should airports choose to replace TSA screeners with their own private security, it would not only mean the screeners were better trained and more responsible for their actions, alleviating the problems of thefts and abuse by TSA workers, but it would also create tens of thousands of much needed jobs for the private sector.

“Some airport executives have argued that contract security personnel are more courteous than government workers,” reports CNN. “It was felt that a private contractor would provide friendlier customer service to the traveling public,” the head of a Roswell, New Mexico, airport wrote to Congress.”

A November 2010 poll found that the TSA’s “enhanced pat downs,” some of which include touching genitalia, angered 57% of regular adult fliers.

West Yellowstone Airport in Montana has already replaced its TSA screeners with private security. Bert Mooney Airport, also in Montana, and Orlando Sanford International Airport in Florida will also be able to have their rejected applications to evict the TSA reconsidered under the new law.

Resentment towards the TSA has raged over the last two years amongst Americans, primarily as a result of the rampant criminality in which TSA workers habitually engage. The latest example concerns TSA agent Alexandra Schmid, who stole $5,000 in cash from a passenger’s jacket as he was going through security at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The TSA’s habit of never admitting wrongdoing even when caught has also riled the traveling public. Even when the agency was forced to apologize for strip-searching two women in their 80′s just before Christmas, the TSA claimed its agents had merely violated protocol, when in fact they had sexually molested the women by forcing them to undress.

http://www.infowars.com/senate-passes-b ... screeners/


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Re: Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

Postby elfismiles » Thu Mar 01, 2012 11:33 am


The TSA Is Coming To a Highway Near You

By Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)

One of the great honors of my service to Tennessee is having the opportunity to represent Ft. Campbell which is home to the storied 101st Airborne, the 5th Special Forces Group and the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment which piloted Navy SEAL Team Six during the raid on Osama Bin Laden.

Each soldier who calls Ft. Campbell home has gone through some of the most intensive training on the planet which pushed their minds and bodies to their physical limits. In the end, those who make the cut have earned the right to be part of our United States military, are honored to wear its uniform, and are serving on the frontlines in the fight against global terrorism.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for our nation’s Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) who Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano contends are our nation’s last line of defense in fighting domestic terrorism. Unlike “hell week” which faces potential Navy SEALs, becoming a TSO requires a basic level of classroom and on the job training. In many cases this rigorous training is less severe than the requirements of becoming a security guard in most states.

Believe it or not, only 7 years ago, TSOs went by a more deserving title, “airport security screeners.” At the time, their title and on the job appearance consisted of a white shirt and black pants. This was fitting because airport security screening is exactly what’s required of the position. However, this is no longer the case.

In the dead of night, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) administratively reclassified airport security screeners as Transportation Security Officers. The TSA then moved to administratively upgrade TSOs uniforms to resemble those of a federal law enforcement officer. They further completed the makeover with metal law enforcement badges. Not surprisingly, government bureaucrats at the TSA left out one crucial component during the artificial makeover – actual federal law enforcement training as is required of Federal Air Marshalls.

While TSOs may have the appearance of a federal law enforcement officer they have neither the authority nor the power. If a passenger brings a loaded gun or an explosive device into an airport screening area there is nothing a TSO can do until the local police step in to save the day.

If TSOs are truly our nation’s last line of defense in stopping an act of terrorism, then the TSA should immediately end the practice of placing hiring notices for available TSO positions on pizza boxes and at discount gas stations as theyhave done in our nation’s capital. Surely, this is not where our federal government is going to find our brightest and sharpest Americans committed to keeping our traveling public safe. I would contend that we can surely strive for a higher standard and may want to look first to our veterans returning home from the battlefield.

Interestingly enough, as TSA officials like to routinely point out, their agency’s acronym stands for Transportation Security Administration, not the Airport SecurityAdministration. This fact has extended the TSA’s reach has far beyond the confines of our nation’s airports. Many of my constituents discovered this first hand this past fall as those familiar blue uniforms and badges appeared on Tennessee highways. In October Tennessee became the first state to conduct a statewide Department of Homeland Security Visible Intermodal Prevention andResponse (VIPR) team operation which randomly inspected Tennessee truck drivers and cars.

VIPR teams which count TSOs among their ranks, conduct searches and screenings at train stations, subways, ferry terminals and every other mass transit location around the country. In fact, as the Los Angeles Times has detailed, VIPR teams conducted 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year alone. The very thought of federal employees with zero law enforcement training roaming across our nation’s transportation infrastructure with the hope of randomly thwarting a domestic terrorist attack makes about as much sense as EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s Environmental Justice tour.

In order to help rein in the TSA I introduced H.R. 3608, the Stop TSA’s Reach in Policy Act aka the STRIP Act. This bill will simply overturn the TSA’s administrative decision by prohibiting any TSA employee who has not received federal law enforcement training from using the title “officer,” wearing a police like uniform or a metal police badge. At its most basic level the STRIP Act is about truth in advertising.

As TSOs continue to expand their presence beyond our nation’s airports and onto our highways, every American citizen has the right to know that they are not dealing with actual federal law enforcement officers. Had one Virginia woman known this days before Thanksgiving she may have been able to escape being forcibly raped by a TSO who approached her in a parking lot in full uniform while flashing his badge.

Will the STRIP Act solve every problem facing the TSA? Absolutely not. The STRIP Act seeks to expand upon the work of my colleagues by chipping away at an unnoticed yet powerful overreach of our federal government. If Congress cannot swiftly overturn something as simple as this administrative decision there will be little hope that we can take steps to truly rein in the TSA on larger issues of concern.

Furthermore, if Congress fails to act do not be surprised if the TSA gives TSOs another administrative makeover in the future. Only this time it won’t be a new uniform. It will be the power to make arrests as some TSOs are already publicly calling for.

Congressman Blackburn is a Republican serving Tennessee’s 7th district.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/20 ... -near-you/


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Re: Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

Postby Simulist » Thu Mar 01, 2012 2:59 pm

The TSA Is Coming To a Highway Near You

Well, it only makes sense — if this were a REAL "War on Terror," the highways would be being bombed, train tracks, supermarkets, stadiums, even neighborhood fruit stands.

Of course none of that is happening, or really has happened. Not because the feds are just "that good," but because the War on Terror simply isn't real.

Maybe if enough drivers get harassed by these phonies, Americans will wake up.

(No, forget it; that'll never happen.)
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Re: Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

Postby elfismiles » Wed Mar 07, 2012 11:42 am


YouTube Restricts Video Of Engineer Proving How Useless TSA Scanners Are
Man walked through radiation firing machines with metal objects knowing he would not be stopped

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
March 7, 2012

Google/YouTube has placed restrictions on yet another video that exposes the fraudulent claims of the TSA and highlights how the federal agency’s security theatre is part of a wider social manipulation agenda.

Engineer Jon Corbett of the popular blog TSA Out of Our Pants! posted a video yesterday that demonstrates how the TSA’s radiation firing body scanners can easily be bypassed.

The video shows Corbett carrying a metal case through the scanner, away from his body in his side pocket. Corbett explains that because metallic objects appear as black on the image the scanners produce, the machines do not pick up such objects if they are obscured by the background, which is also black.

Watch the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olEoc_1ZkfA

Corbett has been rallying against the TSA for some time and has had several run ins with agents at airports. Corbett was also the first person in the country to sue the TSA for invasion of privacy. His case is still ongoing and is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The scanners are now effectively worthless, as anyone can beat them with virtually no effort.” Corbett writes on his blog. “The TSA has been provided this video in advance of it being made public to give them an opportunity to turn off the scanners and revert to the metal detectors. I personally believe they now have no choice but to turn them off.” he adds.

Within hours of the video being uploaded, blogs and news sites, including Yahoo News and the Mail Online had begun to pick up an the video, saying it was sure to go viral.

Now, despite the fact that the video contains no nudity, violence, abuse or other explicit content, YouTube has placed it behind an age restriction wall, meaning anyone who wants to view it on YouTube has to login or sign up for an account and verify their age.

“This video is not intended to teach anyone how to commit criminal acts, nor is intended to help “the terrorists” — if I could figure this out, I’m sure they’ve long figured it out, and by exposing it to the public, we now have an opportunity to correct it.” Corbett writes on his blog.

This means that the video has been restricted for no reason other than the fact that it is critical of the TSA and the government.

Corbett also explains in the video that multiple experts have already pointed out that the scanners can be easily bypassed and are next to useless at detecting explosive material and even metallic objects, meaning that standard metal detectors are more effective than the costly and potentially health threatening radiation firing scanners that are being rolled out in greater numbers across the country.

The same type of censorship has previously been applied by YouTube to other videos that have been critical of the TSA.

Last month, Mike Adams of Natural News produced an animated video that highlighted how the TSA is using invasive enhanced pat downs, even on children, purely as a show of power and even a form of punishment for those opting out of the body scanners. Within hours the video had been restricted by YouTube.

http://www.infowars.com/man-demonstrate ... -purposes/

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Re: Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

Postby Nordic » Wed Mar 07, 2012 3:26 pm

That just got picked up by Rawstory this morning. A good sign.
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