Danny Panzella
Truthsquad.tv
1/21/2013
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The TSA has recently announced they will be removing the naked body backscatter scanners from airports, but don’t celebrate yet; they are replacing them with millimeter wave scanners. No longer will TSA agents view passengers naked images, Instead a generic image will highlight potential hazard areas where the machine detects metal or plastics.
Some see this as a victory for privacy, even if it’s a small one.
When the Naked Body scanners were first introduced in 2010 in response to the attempted underwear bombing, it sparked a nationwide controversy for many travelers as well as privacy and health advocates. Libertarians were concerned both with the scanners invasive nature as well as the potential health threat.
TSA agents all over the country were caught ogling passengers, making lewd comments, and targeting attractive travelers for scanning, one tsa agent even printed the naked image of a celebrity and asked for an autograph, exposing the fact that the machines do in fact store and print images despite what TSA says.
The University of California issued a memo to the White House asking for a moratorium on use of the machines until more research could be done on the adverse effects of “backscatter” radiation produced by the machines. But is millimeter wave radiation any safer?
This recent change does nothing to address 4th amendment concerns about people being treated like criminals until proven innocent by a scan or pat down.
I will come back to the health dangers of both types of machines in a moment, but first there is a frightening aspect to this story that has come to light over the last several years that no one is talking about. Let’s look at the timeline of how this technology came to be adopted by the TSA which is a division of the Department of Homeland Security.
Former DHS head Michael Chertoff
According the Washington Post Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff has been advocating for the use of the naked body scanners since 2005. But Chertoff Admitted in a CNN interview that Congress refused to approve use of the machines. The Chertoff Group is a security consulting firm on retainer by Rapiscan Systems one of two approved US Government vendors for the scanners at the time.
In Nov. 2009 Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s father had reported him to the State Dept. believing he might commit an act of terrorism.
Kurt Haskell witnessed a well dressed man escort Mutallab on to the plane.
On December 25, 2009 Nigerian citizen Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear while on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253, en route from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan.
Witnesses say the “underwear bomber” was escorted onto the plane by a well-dressed man in a suit. In a short exchange the suited man tried to have Umar board the plane, but was referred to a supervisor by the airline employee at the gate because he didn’t have proper VISA documentation. Neither man was seen again by witnesses until he attempted to detonate the bomb during the flight.
On January 20, 2010, the Director of the National Counter terrorism Center (NCTC),Michael E. Leiter, made a startling admission. Leiter indicated “I will tell you, that when people come to the country and they are on the watch list, it is because we have generally made the choice that we want them here in the country for some reason or another.”
Patrick F. Kennedy, an undersecretary for management at the State Department, said Abdulmutallab’s visa wasn’t taken away because intelligence officials asked his agency not to deny a visa to the suspected terrorist over concerns that a denial would have foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaida threats against the United States.
So here we see not only a concerted effort to allow a suspected terrorist to enter the U.S. by allowing him to keep his Visa, and an agent of an unnamed agency escorting the terrorist on the plane, apparently bypassing normal security measures. Even more disturbing is that this seems to be counter terrorism policy!
According to USA Today as of Nov 23 2010 the US Government had paid 41.2 Million dollars for body scanner technology to Michael Chertoff’s client Rapiscan Systems.
What is frightening are Michael Chertoff’s comments on CNN a few weeks after the bombing.
“Gate rape” In Progress
In the years to follow the backlash produced protests and opt outs which lead to TSAs implementation of the “enhanced pat down” sometimes referred to as “gate rape” which included touching genital areas as well as agents putting their fingers inside the waist band of passengers pants.
In October 2013 TSA announced it would be removing the backscatter machines in an attempt to speed up the screening process, because they are “too slow.” They said they would replace the machines with the millimeter wave scanners and move the slower machines to smaller less travelled airports.
Naked scan as compared to the new scan.
Now just a few months later TSA has changed their tune, now they say Congress has mandated that the naked images be changed, Rapiscan, says they can’t come up with a software modification by the June deadline so the machines are being scrapped, and TSA will purchase more millimeter wave scanners from L3 Communications.
So what about the health concerns?
Numerous studies conducted by prestigious universities and health authorities, including Johns Hopkins, Columbia University, the University of California, and the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety, have warned that the devices will lead to an increase in cancers.
Despite the fact that almost every independent study has concluded that the machines will cause cancer cases to increase, the TSA routinely denies the threat, and has even claimed that the Johns Hopkins study validated the safety of the scanners, when in fact it said the opposite.
Are the millimeter wave scanners safer?
Not according to an MIT article which says that this radiation can actually weaken the bonds that hold genetic information contained in DNA strands.
Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory has concluded that effects of the radiation cause double-stranded DNA to “unzip”, “creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication.”
There is some good news. The TSA will contract with the National Academy of Sciences to see if the radiation released during the operation of the body scanners could be harmful to travelers or TSA employees, the contract outline calls for a review of previous studies and an examination into current practices.
According to the TSA the backscatter machines are being considered for other government facilities like prisons and military bases where privacy is less of a concern, but have made no comment as to the health effects.
So is all of this security really necessary? Are these measures really about security or corporations lobbying for government contracts? Should Americans be surrendering their civil liberties? What about the 4th amendment and the sacred right to be innocent until proven guilty?
When traveling it is important to know that you HAVE THE RIGHT to opt out of the body scanning machines, which will then subject you to an invasive “enhanced pat down.”
NYPD & TSA search bags in NYC Subways
It’s also important to know that the TSA has already begun using similar technology on U.S. highways(video), train and bus stations. Homeland Security Head Janet Napolitano has said sports stadiums and malls are next on the list for implementation of TSA security protocols. The TSA has already run trials at the Mall of America.
The NYPD which serves as a model for policing worldwide is also testing the technology to scan pedestrians on the street.
It’s clear that very soon these issues will be affecting a lot more than the flying public. So Americans will have to decide just how much liberty they are willing to trade for alleged security.