

Feds admit storing checkpoint body scan images - Rod
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20012583-281.html

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tptacek
I'm shocked, shocked! that electronic strip searches might be misused by the
crack team of professionals at the TSA.

This is very simple:

(a) call these things what they are: electronic strip searches.

(b) refuse to submit to them at the airport.

I just did this on a flight from Kansas City. Guess what? Not a big deal.
You'll get the same pat-down search you get when you're "randomly selected for
additional screening", which is not a big deal. It'll add 5 minutes to the
security line for you.

To those who suggest that the pat-down searches are as intrusive or more
intrusive than the electronic strip searches: no. By and large, the human
beings manning the security checkpoints are as squeamish about invading the
personal space of another actual human being looking them in the eyes as you
are about having your space invaded.

The same is not true of a series of images on a screen in an isolated room.
Images on screens are not people. There is no social conditioning that normal
human beings have that will cause people to automatically respect images on a
screen.

Step 1 in defending your rights from ludicrous invasions like this: be an
actual person, not an abstraction.

~~~
MartinCron
_To those who suggest that the pat-down searches are as intrusive or more
intrusive than the electronic strip searches: no_

I haven't been through an electronic strip search, so I can't speak to that. I
can speak to the last time I had a pat-down at the airport: I found it pretty
invasive. I've never thought of myself as a big "personal space" guy, but here
is this TSA agent, grabbing aggressively at all of my pockets, having me empty
them out for him, etc. All the while, I'm angry, but I know that I can't
complain or give him a hard time because he's in a position of power to give
me a much harder time, make me miss my flight, whatever. It's so frustrating
when you know it's just security theatre, and doesn't do anything besides make
people feel safer.

When I asked "must we do this?" he gave me the option of doing it in private
(no thank you) and told me that I consented to this by entering the
checkpoint. It's like click-wrap licensing, only with your feet.

There is no third option for people who don't want their nude photos persisted
who also don't like being groped by strangers.

~~~
swombat
I can't recall where I heard/read that, but I seem to remember some psychology
research that proposed that the psychologically damaging thing about the
search you describe is not actually the search itself, but precisely the fact
that you can't do anything about it.

IIRC, the conclusion of that research was something along the lines of: to
completely destroy someone's self-confidence/emotional stability, all you need
to do is that every day, for five minutes, at the same time, five people
appear out of nowhere and hold him down, without harming him, for five
minutes. If you do that every day for a year or two, you'll have a remnant of
a human being at the end (in most cases).

My father works with victims of "mobbing" (basically bullying at work). One of
his clients was a normal office worker who was being bullied by the security
guard at work. Every morning, the security guard would single him out for a
pat down search - every single morning. Apparently the guy was on the verge of
a nervous breakdown by the time my dad saw him.

~~~
Zak
I have to ask: why would a security guard in a normal office situation have
the authority to randomly pat down someone who is known to work in the
building?

~~~
swombat
I don't know, I never asked... I think it was a government job... there might
have been some special security. No idea, though, sorry.

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watmough
Great quote in this article:

"For its part, the TSA says that body scanning is perfectly constitutional:
"The program is designed to respect individual sensibilities regarding
__privacy, modesty and personal autonomy to the maximum extent possible __,
while still performing its crucial function of protecting all members of the
public from potentially catastrophic events."

Of course, the _weasel words_ , "to the maximum extent possible" render this a
mere sentiment, at fucking best (as Zed might say), meaning of course that
your "privacy, modesty and personal autonomy" are toast.

~~~
flipbrad
This will sound shockingly heartless and coldly rational, but is the bigger
problem with that statement not the idea that a few hundred, or even thousand
people dying in a plane-related disaster (when magnitudes more will die of,
say, bad diet, alcohol related deaths, or bad foreign policy?) is
'catastrophic'?

A catastrophe is, for example, the former, or spanish influenza. Does what I
presume is the historically minute mortality (related to true catastrophes)
associated with air travel, worth the cumulative inconvenience to millions,
daily, of stupid, irrational rules (like no liquids in containers greater than
100ml, or no exposed sharp metals even though you could probably just take
apart the hairdryer or pc cooler that you WERE allowed to take on, and have
exactly the same thing)?

Unless realistic assessment of problems is undertaken, is there any
foreseeable end to the severity of security measures that will be asked of us?
Inflation is inevitable if we allow them to print FUD without checks or ties
to the fundamentals.

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tlrobinson
The title of this submission is false, why did you change it? A federal
courthouse in Florida admits to storing the images, not TSA. TSA only admits
the machines have the capability to store images, which they say are only used
for training/testing purposes.

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zenlinux
EPIC is a reputable organization, and have filed a federal lawsuit to help
stop this practice. I just sent them a donation, and encourage others to do
the same.

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jonhohle
I am not a constitutional scholar, but this seems like a violation of the
Fourth Amendment. I would likely put random bag searches, and pat-down
searches in that category as well.

As an American citizen, without reasonable suspicion of criminal intent, why
are searches of this type legal? Has this been challenged in the Supreme
Court?

~~~
tptacek
<http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1265662.html>

_We have held that airport screening searches, like the one at issue here, are
constitutionally reasonable administrative searches because they are
“conducted as part of a general regulatory scheme in furtherance of an
administrative purpose, namely, to prevent the carrying of weapons or
explosives aboard aircraft, and thereby to prevent hijackings.” United States
v. Davis, 482 F.2d 893, 908 (9th Cir.1973); see also United States v.
Hartwell, 436 F.3d 174, 178 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 945, 127 S.Ct.
111, 166 L.Ed.2d 255 (2006); Marquez, 410 F.3d at 616._

The unanimous opinion of the 9th (en banc); extremely unlikely to be
overturned. Net-net: you concede the reasonableness of TSA searches by opting
to get on a commercial airliner, where your personal safety impacts the safety
of hundreds of other people. There are plenty of other ways to effect
interstate travel without entering into the same risk equation; they're just
less convenient.

~~~
inferno0069
It seems worth pointing out that you can affect the safety of as many or more
people by walking into a skyscraper, stadium, festival, &c., or by walking
near train tracks when a train or two is due to come by, a major bridge during
rush hour, &c. The searches may be easiest to do for air travel, but the same
thing _could_ be done nearly as easily for any tall building.

~~~
Groxx
A little bit less so though, as planes fall quite easily (and quite quickly)
from what would be relatively minor disturbances at those other locations.

It's kind of like saying walking on a wood-bottomed rope bridge is the same as
walking on a suspension bridge. Except the rope bridge is a couple miles in
the air. Essentially perfectly safe, but if one person cuts the ropes, you all
go down. If someone decides to take out a chunk of a road's bridge, there's
more danger to the people nearby than to the bridge as a whole; it's _much_
closer to the same risk you run by simply standing near someone else.

Then, there's always those pesky squirrels deciding the rope looks tasty (ie,
geese + engine). That's a different problem entirely, though.

------
runjake
Every time the TSA rambles on about how giving up this little bit of freedom
saves your life from terrorism, I wonder why a journalist doesn't hit them up
for comment on the (perhaps apocryphal) quote "Those who would give up their
liberty for security deserve neither".

~~~
evgen
Perhaps you should learn the quote first: Those who would give up _essential_
liberty to purchase a little _temporary_ safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety.

Now you just need to prove that the liberties being abrogated are essential
and that the security being provided is temporary.

~~~
tptacek
And since the liberty (privacy) that's being abrogated here isn't even
mentioned in the Constitution --- and reasonable, experienced Constitutional
Law scholars can argue that we aren't guaranteed it --- that's a tough row to
hoe.

~~~
jambo
If it "isn't even mentioned in the Constitution," (and it's not), then it's
protected. The U.S. Constitution enumerates the powers of the U.S. Government.
A right does not have to be mentioned in the constitution to be a
constitutionally protected right by virtue of a lack of authorization for the
government to take it away.

~~~
tptacek
From everything I've read about the "Right To Privacy", starting with Alderman
and Kennedy's book in '96 (which got me to start paying attention to what
SCOTUS and SCOTUS nominees were saying about privacy as an actual right
implied by the 4th amendment), it is _very much_ up for grabs as to whether we
have a _Constitutionally inviolable_ right to privacy.

I hope we do! But an argument backstopped on the notion that we do doesn't
seem very strong.

~~~
kragen
There are those — including some of the authors of the constitution you're
talking about — who believe that rights do not come from written constitutions
or governments, but rather that it is to defend the rights that we naturally
possess that governments are erected by the peoples of the earth, with written
constitutions or without them.

Perhaps this is a naïve view of governments and of rights. But it is this view
upon which everything you are discussing is contingent. The alternative would
seem to be that might makes right.

~~~
evgen
Rights are not absolute out in the real world. There are always tradeoffs,
especially when various rights come into conflict with one another. The second
amendment clearly states that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms
shall not be infringed." Does that mean that it is unconstitutional for me to
be prevented from bringing an Uzi onto an airplane? The various political and
judicial processes that have been established are how we balance these various
rights to achieve some condition that most of us are satisfied with. Rights
may not come from written constitutions or governments, but those creations
are what we use to negotiate amongst ourselves when various rights appear to
be in conflict.

------
gojomo
If there any substance -- for example, a deodorant or lotion with a specific
ingredient -- which would allow drawing a picture or words on your body for
the scan-reviewers to see?

~~~
nitrogen
I believe I read somewhere that research into tHz-blocking clothing was done
along with the development of these devices. However, I doubt we'll soon see a
booming market for metalized underpants in the duty-free zone. I too have
thought about sending a harmless message through the scanner, but came to the
conclusion that it wouldn't be worth the inevitable harassment.

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vl
All hope for is that they will design a scanner that scans me and my backpack
instantly as I walk through it so I can arrive at the airport 20 minutes
before the flight and not to wait in line to take out my laptop and remove my
shoes. I can even pay $10 every time I go though such device to get to my
plane faster.

And as for some overpaid TSA agent seeing me "naked"? You know, I really don't
care.

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pi314
In the brave new USA, you can tell they are lying when their lips are moving.
They can make claims like this, that the machines' scans cannot be stored,
with no basis in fact whatsoever and suffering no real consequences for the
lying. I wish this were the only recent example of this sort of pathological
lying by the government's corporate mercenaries.

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agentultra
they can justify any security measure imaginable.

i wonder if there's a defense to this intrusion and if it would constitute a
crime to bear one.

this is where things start to get a little scary.

