Feds admit storing checkpoint body scan images
news.cnet.com
news.cnet.com
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.
Airport security is probably a bad joke. But acting and talking as if that's a foregone conclusion --- or worse, that it's part of some malignant scheme --- is counterproductive. It marginalizes everyone with a more reasonable or nuanced perspective about this issue.
Take off the "Buck Fush" t-shirt and be civil to the TSA guy. Say "I'm going to opt out of the body scanner". If enough people do, it'll get easier for everyone to avoid the electronic strip search machine.
Not in the US, anyway.
Thankfully, there's Europe, which has progressed considerably further than the U.S. in terms of actually protecting people's rights.
You realize that (contrary to popular opinion) Americans don't even need to carry ID, right?
Land border crossings are even more of a non-event, you have to pay attention or you might miss them. In some countries you can indeed be IDd on the spot though. Not that it's ever happened to me (except by traffic police checking my license).
Entering or leaving the Schengen area is a slightly different story - you pass through emigration/immigration, plus some countries like the UK are slightly more draconian about air travel "security" and have body scanners. I assume your trip was before Switzerland's entry to the Schengen zone in December 2008?
Civil liberties are apparently in decline everywhere, but I would argue that the EU is somewhat better than the US in that regard and that the actual abuse of laws is better in the EU.
I think you are slightly overacting. It could be that you as a non-EU-citizen were subjected to harsher standards. May I remind you that the US isn't that nice to non-citizens?
* Can the state police demand that you open a bag for inspection on a train?
* Can you be detained at length (for instance, removed to a police station) if you're asked to identify yourself and don't have documentation?
* Are the police under any circumstances permitted to randomly stop and search cars?
* Can the police check your pockets during a pat-down search for weapons?
Each of these is something for which US jurisprudence has issued decisive and binding decisions (no, absent probable cause they can document and justify on the stand, they can't open your bag; no, unless they arrest you for an actual crime, they can't take you to a police station; no, under most circumstances the police can't even pull you over unless you've committed a "primary" offense, and cannot absent probable cause of an actual crime search your car; no, the police in the US can't demand to see the contents of your pockets).
Incidentally, you have the same protection under the 4th Amendment as a German citizen in the US as I do as someone born in Chicago. I assume that's true vice-versa in Germany as well.
The bag issue is what got me; Swiss police rifled through my bag. I was not the only person in the train car that happened to, so I'm doubting I was simply selected for it as a noncitizen --- not that that should matter.
Searches, in Germany, generally demand cause. I have no idea what laws govern searches in Switzerland.
The part with citizens vs non-citizens was mainly about borders. The US is known to be incredibly mean to non-citizens, going so far as to require a visum for transit, whereas Schengen only requires a transit visum for citizens of a small number of states.
It seems strange that Swiss police did a random search. Anyway, it seems that the US police also does random searches—at train stations for example.
Schengen requires a transit visa for citizens of 140 countries. There's only about 40 countries that don't need transit visas. The USA has visa waiver programs with more than 36 countries, and other similar arrangements with Canada, Mexico and states in the Caribbean.
Recent extra-legal actions notwithstanding, the US Constitution applies to everyone in the US equally. Citizen or not.
There likely is no plot to eliminate civil rights, however, devices like these erode privacy, increase distrust in government, and, worse, increase the time and comfort it takes to get from point A to point B.
From the late 80s to today we've gone from a time when only metal detectors were required to get back to a gate, to requiring tickets (making it more inconvenient and less safe for small children to fly alone), removing clothing in public view (shoes, belts, outer garments), unpacking/packing luggage in public view, potentially being patted down, heavily paramilitary patrolling gateways, detainment for arbitrary reasons, etc.
I worry more about running into a TSA agent in a bad mood (potentially ruining my day) than just about anything else when traveling.
officer: Don't go anywhere
friend: Am I under arrest?
officer: No, but don't go anywhere.
friend: If I'm not under arrest, then I'm leaving.
officer: If you leave, I *will* arrest you with impeding an investigation / obstruction of justice
Also, in a number of jurisdictions, you can be arrested for being 'drunk and disorderly' with only the officer's word that you were actually drunk and/or causing a scene.
Keep in mind, that it doesn't matter much whether or not the charges stick. The police have successfully harassed you if you have to spend the night (or weekend) in prison before you are able to get out (and/or get the charges dismissed).
{update} Some corrections. Also, the 'investigation' that was being impeded was a $400 fine for littering a candy wrapper (ignoring whether or not the candy wrapper was actually littered).
That there are subjective offenses you can be arrested for and that the police could abuse strikes me as a simple fact of life. You can also file complaints, (in most jurisdictions) record the abuse with your camera phone, and (in crazy cases) sue.
Probably don't overreact if you hear a cop say "stop, get back over here!" or "no, you may not leave until I get to the bottom of this!"; they're legally authorized to do that pretty much on a whim.
If you've been handcuffed or transported or confined in a police station, you're under arrest, and yes, demand a lawyer.
No, they're being installed for profit. They have nothing to do with civil rights and even less to do with security -- I highly doubt that anyone involved actually cares about either.
What they do care about is milking money from the government by taking advantage of the asinine government contracting and acquisitions processes -- and most likely also the fact that fattening the right wallets greases the right wheels to make things very profitable for them.
Can't seem to find the article from some months ago to back this up, unfortunately.
Once a power is taken by the government, it is not likely to let it go. I hope you have better luck than we did.
Consequently, I'm not sure elections in the US really mean very much at the moment. In the grand scheme of things, the two big political parties are closely aligned on most issues. Those distinctions that do exist between them are minor disagreements, which get dramatically exaggerated in election propaganda, rather than differences of any real substance.
I hope that here in the UK, where we have never quite fallen into the trap of having only two big political parties, we have more chance of seeing real improvement. It helps that we didn't give government to any single party at the last general election, for the first time in many years. That must have been a nasty wake-up call for those old-school Conservatives who had arrogantly assumed that they were somehow entitled to form the next government just because Labour were not going to. (Labour, does anybody remember them? No? Good. :-))
Fortunately, the principles of restoring civil liberties and rolling back the nanny/surveillance state are among the major issues on which the two coalition partners now in government strongly agreed anyway, and where there are politicians from both parties in the coalition with a long track record of criticising the sorts of measures we are talking about in this discussion. They need this sort of issue of common interest in order to build a successful and lasting coalition, and it's also a politically popular stance: FUD about terrorism threats doesn't really cut it with the average voter here any more, partly because people's minds are more focussed on basics like getting/keeping a job and paying the rent/mortgage, and partly just because you can only keep a population accepting of draconian laws for so long when there is no serious bad stuff happening to convince them to Be Afraid.
In short, I like to think that we are in with a chance, because while the political system in the US seems to have other systemic concerns and little incentive to put right the abuses of the past, here in the UK it is politically expedient to do so both for the popularity of the changes themselves and as a means of strengthening the governing coalition. Time will tell...
I'd argue that has pretty much been proven by the Milgram experiment.
Nonetheless, it's a relevant link to bring up because of the chain of command and obedience to authority aspects at play here.
Proximity to the student shouldn't be ruled out, after all it would get a few more people behaving like they really should, however its these screening people's proximity to their bosses that is the biggest influence on whether they treat a person with humanity or not.
There's no objective answer to this. I believe you and I have discussed this before. Personally, the scans don't bother me at all. Being patted down doesn't bother me too much, but it does bother me at least some. So, for me, I'd rather walk through a scanner unobstructed than be patted down.
I would be embarrassed to walk around naked, of course. But there the embarrassment is mostly from violating social norms. The remaining part is, of course, exposed genitalia. The rest of my body concerns me not at all - I routinely go for runs wearing just athletic shorts.
Further, while that is the worst-worst case, I think the more realistic-worst case are a dump of images with no names associated with them. Given the process as I understand it, I don't see a plausible way for the scan-name mapping to remain.
I'm genuinely curious: why does the worst case situation bother you so much?
Hearing people approach security measures with the argument "whatever would you have to hide, citizen?" is the worst part of the ongoing "War on Terror" debacle.
I'm hoping you're playing devil's advocate here.
Removing your shoes?
Happens to me half the time I walk through a metal detector. Recently, it even beeped when I removed everything I could think of - I don't know what caused the big and small metal detectors to go off. After a simple pat-down, the security guy was satisfied.
If a scanner can even eliminate the time spent doing that, then I'm happy.
As it detects any object, as opposed to just metal ones, it dramatically increases the chance that you, or any other passenger in queue, will forget something the scan can't rule out and create further delay.
The scan itself is far slower than the metal detector and slower than even the bomb-sniffing machines. Its presence will increase your security queue time, even if you somehow become less forgetful and have hassle-free experiences with the new scanner itself.
You'll have traded a bit more of your privacy and liberty in exchange for increased delay, increased aggravation, increased travel costs, escalated privacy risks and it still won't make your plane trip any safer.
The scan pose and false-colors are so clinical that any such image wouldn't be titillating. I suppose it might reveal an embarrassing piercing/implant/deformity. ("OMG! He has a tail!")
As a mechanism for harassment of public figures, it seems less harmful than photoshopped fake nude (or other compromising position) pictures -- and you can't stop those, and they're more likely to mislead the unwary.
I'm concerned about the idea that an arbitrarily detailed personal search can be required before travel -- but that concern applies at least as much to pat-downs and carry-on-searches as body-scans. In fact, probably more, because while we all have naked bodies, an agent rifling through my carry-on sees my books and personal effects -- unique to me.
It is a shame that we as Americans are taught to be afraid of our bodies and nudity in general. Why is this? I think it is a cancer on our culture that we need to change.
I mean, if I'm poking you in the face with my finger and going 'nya-nya-nya,' and you ask me to stop, and I respond that you really shouldn't be bothered by that because it doesn't hurt you, how convincing would I be?
People don't like having their nudity exposed. Saying "it shouldn't bother them" is really not anyone else's place.
What is true is that you may end up in line behind 1 other person waiting for extended screening (if they don't have their ID, or if they got randomly selected), and you may add 5 minutes to those people's time. I have very little problem with that.
I'd refuse (politely) even if I knew I was screwing over the line, though. A strip search is a strip search. It crosses the line.
But you're right: things will improve if most people refuse the strip search; the TSA will get better at pretending to screen the opt-outs, and the machines won't matter anymore.
Just out of curiosity, did they actually turn you into 'selectee' (mark your boarding pass, etc) or was it just the extra search at the security checkpoint?
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.
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.
I'm not saying I agree - in fact I completely disagree - but as a public policy maker and politician, it probably seems illogical to do it any other way. Better to have people blame you for no privacy than blame you for death, right?
I think this is partly because they are still new at the game. In certain countries, hand-searches have been the norm for decades. And those officers don't feel quite as squeamish as you do while its going on.
Salon http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/08/04/body_... today bummed me out. They've got the right POV on it, but he's going along with the rest of the press just saying it's a new shitty reality we're going to have to get used to. fuck that!
From personal experience, that's probably not a good idea if you look South Asian or have a beard. I've been stopped a few too many times in London as part of a "random check" (everytime I hadn't shaved). I wouldn't want to increase the suspicion by being unco-operative.
"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.
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.
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?
If, on the other hand, the police pulled you over and forced you to submit to some sort of full-body scan without reasonable suspicion, that would certainly be ruled in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
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.
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.
Join a tribe: can't stab your neighbors anymore. Join a nation: not allowed to bomb buildings 500 miles from your home anymore. I'm all in favor of finding the right balance between liberty and security (usually more towards the liberty side), but the idea that you can get security without giving up liberty just doesn't work.
Now you just need to prove that the liberties being abrogated are essential and that the security being provided is temporary.
I hope we do! But an argument backstopped on the notion that we do doesn't seem very strong.
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.
Not quite :)
While many attribute the mis-quote to Jefferson, there is no written record of him making such a statement. In fact, there is actually no direct record of this coming from Franklin either. The earliest references were in an anonymously published book that referenced a letter from the Pennsylvania Assembly to their Governor from 1755 (when later re-published in Philedelphia it was Franklin who printed it...) At that time Franklin was a member of the Assembly and the quote does sound like his sort of wit, but the full quote seems useful and nuanced enough that we should remember it even if it happened to come from some other member of the Assembly that no one happened to remember.
And as for some overpaid TSA agent seeing me "naked"? You know, I really don't care.
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.