The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal (1995)
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Might as well be phrenology otherwise.
The sort of group psychology and doublethink that allows us to ridicule this dated pseudoscience on one hand, while walking right into a similar situation in every American airport today, is inherently fascinating.
Sure, it's not at the level of secret Plutonium injection, but still...
It's certainly preferable to have consent before gathering clinical data, but I wouldn't make too big of a deal out of this. In the annals of things done without proper consent, this barely registers.
Its actually amusing; these captains of industry were such sheep when they were young. Makes you wonder when they grew a backbone, if at all.
Will you also tell me that employees can't sue for unpaid overtime, hazardous work environment, sexual harassment etc. because nobody held a gun and they could always quit? Such sheep, those common workers.
Yup, from 1995: http://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/15/magazine/the-great-ivy-lea...
Now I really feel old.
"As I thumbed rapidly through box after box to confirm that the entries described in the Finder's Aid were actually there, I tried to glance at only the faces. It was a decision that paid off, because it was in them that a crucial difference between the men and the women revealed itself. For the most part, the men looked diffident, oblivious. That's not surprising considering that men of that era were accustomed to undressing for draft physicals and athletic-squad weigh-ins.
"But the faces of the women were another story. I was surprised at how many looked deeply unhappy, as if pained at being subjected to this procedure. On the faces of quite a few I saw what looked like grimaces, reflecting pronounced discomfort, perhaps even anger."
Frankly, the suggestion that women have more power in this sort of situation is so wrong-headed that I honestly can't imagine how anyone familiar with Western culture could come up with it.
Whereas the women now had:
- a bunch of male scientists leering at them [1];
- some photos in the hands of those scientists that could be embarrassing;
- the possibility of those photos being stolen and distributed;
- a strong sense that they have no right to privacy or dignity in the highly male-dominated Ivy League world.
That last one would count as an educational bonus, at least.
[1] I'm only guessing that the scientists were male here, but I think it's a safe bet. Even nowadays, but more so then.
When it is better for men to do what they are told than otherwise, you classify it as a benefit. When it is better for women to do what they are told than otherwise, you call it oppression. I'm trying to draw attention to this double standard.
To be clear: neither the men nor women gained directly from having their photographs taken.
maybe I missed this part. what do I do?
Also, why are we linking to this blogspam rather than the original?
In this case, it makes complete sense. The original was intentionally inflammatory leading with a line about nude pictures of Hilary Clinton, and was based on the NYT article to begin with.
It seems that wasn't what you meant. Maybe you would like to rephrase?
The news reports on this switch are all over the place in terms of quality, and you happened to pick one of the worse ones. I'm not the only one asking these questions: http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/29/travel/tsa-backscatter
"We'd like to see clearer rules about the collection of the images," Rotenberg said. "Are they deleted? Are they saved? Is some analysis being done and can they be linked to passengers?"
Not to mention the enormous waste of money it must have been to install and then remove the old machines. And what now happens to all the pictures they took, which are probably accumulating dust on some DHS subcontractor's hard disk somewhere in America?
The first step is to define what acceptable is. As I do not understand why nudity is unacceptable in the first place, I will not attempt to do so, and will instead employ the time honored tradition of hand waving.
In the new system, a reasonable implementation would be to discard the original image imidietly. Quality control can be done by putting the machine into debug mode and using consenting individuals as test subjects (or seeing if the cartoon image detects when the target things are present). There is also no guaranteed that the old pictures were ever stored. Although in both cases, I suspect they would store the data, in some form, for at least the short term to assist in a post-hoc analysis if their is a security failure.
Also, I think it was a software update only, the machines are still the same.
And some medical looking photos of men, all easily explainable so long as your workplace permits you to browse HN.
During working hours: no.
We're mammals. Despite our large cerebrums and ability for abstract reasoning, we're still primates. Of course we're drawn to sex, food, and emotion.
I think it's more interesting that we're surprised by this. Sure, it's good to try to overcome your bestial nature, but pretending it isn't there at all seems a bit silly.
What's the statute of limitations on something like this? I'm guessing since this occurred so long ago, nothing can be done.
"Because copyrights are governed by federal law, there is only one statute of limitations for copyright claims. Copyright infringement claims are rights of the copyright owner of the photograph and have a three-year statute of limitations from the date of the infringement. See 17 USC 507(b). Some courts start counting the three years when you had a reasonable chance to discover the infringement."
There are certain violations that will be exempted from the statute of limitations, but a moderate scandal/invasion of privacy isn't going to qualify. Wikipedia lists fraud against the court, international crimes, and heinous crimes, e.g. heinous violence
slap "No!"
"I am an authority figure. I have <good> reasons."
"Oh, well then that's fine."
strips
Humans. We're funny sometimes.
Repeat ad nauseum.