What Do You Think?

[jerrys1960]

The Transportation Security Administration says it plans to expand the use of a controversial screening technology that captures naked images of people's bodies, which critics have likened to "digital strip searches."

The TSA says the Advanced imaging technology cannot store, print, transmit or save the image.

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Does this strike anyone else as another bold face lie by the U.S. Government?

We all know if they stop/arrest someone because of the picture displayed by this device (especially If the incidence ends up being taken to court), they are going to present the evidence of why the person was stopped (especially if the images help to clear The Agencies of any wrong doing), which means that the image has to be printable, downloadable, stored or in some other way recoverable and/or displayable in a court room.

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[loosebelly]

Looks like you were right.

But an even more important question if the people with guns are not willing to follow the rules what choices are left for the rest of us?

copied from:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/11/giz-scans/?pid=8


At the heart of the controversy over "body scanners" is a promise: The images of our naked bodies will never be public. U.S. Marshals in a Florida Federal courthouse saved 35,000 images on their scanner. These are those images.

A Gizmodo investigation has revealed 100 of the photographs saved by the Gen 2 millimeter wave scanner from Brijot Imaging Systems, Inc., obtained by a FOIA request after it was recently revealed that U.S. Marshals operating the machine in the Orlando, Florida, courthouse had improperly — perhaps illegally — saved images of the scans of public servants and private citizens.

We understand that it will be controversial to release these photographs. But identifying features have been eliminated. And fortunately for those who walked through the scanner in Florida last year, this mismanaged machine used the less embarrassing imaging technique.

Yet the leaking of these photographs demonstrates the security limitations of not just this particular machine, but millimeter wave and X-ray backscatter body scanners operated by federal employees in our courthouses and by TSA officers in airports across the country. That we can see these images today almost guarantees that others will be seeing similar images in the future. If you’re lucky, it might even be a picture of you or your family.

While the fidelity of the scans from this machine are of surprisingly low resolution, especially compared to the higher resolution “naked scanners” using the potentially harmful X-ray backscatter technology, the TSA and other government agencies have repeatedly touted the quality of “Advanced Imaging Technology,” while simultaneously assuring customers that operators “cannot store, print, transmit or save the image….” According to the TSA — and of course other agencies — images from the scanners are “automatically deleted from the system after it is cleared by the remotely located security officer.” Whatever the stated policy, it’s clear that it is trivial for operators to save images and remove them for distribution if they choose not to follow guidelines or that other employees could remove images that are inappropriately if accidentally stored.

To the point, these sample images were removed from the machine in Orlando by the U.S. Marshals for distribution under the FOIA request before the machine was sent back to its manufacturer — images intact.

We look forward to seeing your next vacation photos.

[loosebelly]

This is even more scary the people broke the rules/law to:

[loosebelly]

[atlamansa]

I was just re-reading and thinking about your statement about they have to be able to store the images for court cases.

This would seem to be true if they arrest someone . . . but also if they do a pat-down of someone who later files a suit against security if security does what is perceived as an unnecessarily aggressive pat down by security of the entire body rather than just one or two areas which the machine should have told the security people to check.

But regardless of why or how the case gets to court, the image displayed to the jury cannot be some blurry image that could be anyone. In order to eliminate the appearance (in court) of unjust procedures against a person the image of the weapons (or whatever) not only needs to be clear enough for the jury to see that there was the possibility of a weapon the images must also be able to clearly identify the person involved.

Otherwise you have the potential of the defense saying that the image is of someone else and that the security planted the weapon on the person. Which as was posted here

http://www.infowars.com/tsa-admits-placing-cocaine-in-womans-luggage/

http://www.tstsy.com/2010/10/03/ggn-tsa-admits-placing-cocaine-in-womans-luggage/


Tsa security has already done.

In the above example it was reported as a (not so funny) joke that got the s-o-b fired (I would have liked a much worse punishment to be handed down).

But really scary part that everyone seems to be overlooking is the fact that the security person was able to bring a questionable substance into a supposedly secure area. If that can happen they could easily say they found anything they managed to bring in on any traveler they do not like or the government tells them to stop.

The images and recordings of what happened would have to be very clear, probably with a standard photo of the person attached (as in the photos from the court house in the link

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/11/giz-scans/?pid=8

from above)

and storable in order to clear the security people of wrong doing, planting evidence or whatever.

[Jojoking]

Reading the link in your post about tsa planting drugs on a passenger.

hopefully the tsa has increased security on the security people to keep them from being able to bring in “questionable” items to plant on people.

But the problem is, it is dirt simple to get around most any measures implemented. In short the security people can still get something (most anything actually) to plant on someone else.

For example:

Suppose the security person has a friend that is flying out of the airport bring whatever item they want to plant on someone else. The friend goes through that the security line their partner is working. The security person pulls the “questionable item” from the friend during a “random” bag search or even a simple hand-off. Then later “finds” that item on some other person or in some other person’s luggage.

So easy to do and so difficult to prove especially if the “questionable item(s)” were to be hidden someplace inside the secure area for several days only to be pulled when the “items” are “needed” to stop / harass someone.