Archive
Microwave Camera Could Aid TSA Traveler Scanning
The media is in a tizzy over recent information found in Homeland Security documents suggesting the TSA might have planned to scan people outside of airports using covert mobile X-ray units (TSA denies testing of this technology, in a Forbes update). As a result, a host of hairy ethical and policy issues related to body screening and privacy are back in center stage.
Technologically speaking, however, scientists at the Missouri University of Science and Technology have at least some good news for the disheartened. They’ve developed a new portable camera that operates like the airport scanners, but which uses Read more…
Documents Reveal TSA Research Proposal To Body-Scan Pedestrians, Train Passengers
A sample streetside scan image from American Sciences & Engineering.
Updated with the TSA’s response below, which denies implementing airport-style scans in mass transit.
Giving Transportation Security Administration agents a peek under your clothes may soon be a practice that goes well beyond airport checkpoints. Newly uncovered documents show that as early as 2006, the Department of Homeland Security has been planning pilot programs to deploy mobile scanning units that can be set up at public events and in train stations, along with mobile x-ray vans capable of scanning pedestrians on city streets.
The non-profit Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) on Wednesday published documents it obtained from the Department of Homeland Security showing that from 2006 to 2008 the agency planned a study of of new anti-terrorism technologies that EPIC believes raise serious privacy Read more…
Highlights of the $3.73 Trillion Budget Request for 2012
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama released a $3.73 trillion budget for fiscal-year 2012 Monday where he sought to balance two competing and conflicting agendas: dramatic cuts to federal spending while also investing in programs to improve U.S. competitiveness.
A look at what President Barack Obama has requested in his $3.73 trillion budget for the 2012 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
Summary: Homeland Security gets $44 Billion with a priority on naked body scanners. The Transportation Department gets over a half Trillion dollars for new highway and rail construction, including $53 billion for high-speed trains. $500 million will go to the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Enforcement (See my article on LOST.) and NIST, the group that dropped the ball on the Sept. 11th investigation will be getting $764 million, roughly a 17% increase from last year.
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Agency: NASA
Spending: $18.7 billion
Percentage Change from 2011: 0.9 percent decrease
Discretionary Spending: $18.7 billion
Highlights: Obama’s space budget is about the same as the previous year, avoiding the major proposed cuts other agencies are facing, partly because of the long planned Read more…
TSA limits private screeners to 16 U.S. airports
Transportation Security Administration Chief John Pistole said over the weekend that the agency will limit private screeners to just 16 U.S. airports.
D.C., Washington, United States (AHN) – Transportation Security Administration Chief John Pistole said over the weekend that the agency will limit private screeners to just 16 U.S. airports.
Pistole explained the policy that the agency does not see any advantage to the use of private screeners.
The Screening Partnership Program permitted gateways to replace government screeners with private contractors who are attired in similar uniforms as those worn by TSA personnel, follow TSA standards and are supervised by the agency.
The TSA previously adopted a neutral standard toward private screeners, but changed its stand after more airports opted out of tapping private groups because of the public furor created by the TSA’s enhanced pat downs, criticized by many air travelers as intrusive. Read more…
Inventor creates TSA-proof underwear to shield private parts from x-ray machines, prying eyes
Philip Caulfield
While holiday travelers may not get through this week without a Transportation Security Administration agent touching their junk, a man in Colorado has a new invention he says will prevent anyone from looking at it.Jeff Buske has created a special kind of underwear with strategically placed fig-leaf designs he says will shield TSA scanners from viewing fliers’ private parts and keep travelers safe from radiation emitted from the notorious “backscatter” x-ray machines.
Buske, an engineer, said his briefs, bras and inserts, which he’s marketing under the name Rocky Top Gear, use a special metal that protects people’s privacy when undergoing medical or security screenings.
“The object is…to protect the public, educate people and ultimately see these X-ray machines put in the Dumpster,” Buske told CBS4 Denver.
The undergarments come in designs featuring a pair of women’s hands modestly clasped together and inserts shaped like shields and stop signs.
The gear is currently for sale online at some ominously cryptic prices.
A pair of fig-leaf themed tighty-whiteys is available for a “special” offer of $19.84, while a women’s bra insert costs $9.11 and women’s briefs costs $17.76.
While the gear won’t protect fliers from a TSA frisking, Buske says his undies should achieve a happy medium between what travelers want to keep hidden and what security officials need to see.
“If someone is trying to hide something large under the thing, it’s going to show up as a bulge, visible to the eye,” Buske told CBS4.
The TSA had no comment about the underwear.
TSA Now Forcing Opt-Outs To Walk Through Body Scanners
Agency claims machines are “switched off,” traveler says policy is part of psychological ploy to coerce subservience from other passengers
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
If the experience of a man traveling through Baltimore Washington International Airport last night is anything to go by, the TSA is now forcing people who opt out of the naked body scanner to walk through the machine as part of a psychological ploy to coerce subservience out of other travelers.
Alexander Petersen was passing through security to board a domestic flight to Florida with his wife and three children. After the backscatter x-ray machines were turned on, TSA staff started corralling passengers to go through the naked body scanners. Petersen’s family escaped selection but when he was told to submit to a scan, Peterson declined and opted for the invasive pat down instead.
“They then called for an “opt-out” pat down and still told me I had to go through the machine,” writes Petersen. “I said no, and reiterated that I opt for the pat-down. They said that I just have to walk through the machine and that they won’t turn it on. I said “how do I know it’s not on, just because you say so?” Then, one of the other workers stood inside of the machine where the footprints were and waived for me to go through. With that, I assumed that it was indeed off, and proceeded through the machine for my enhanced pat-down molestation.”
After receiving his advanced grope down, during which a TSA worker felt his crotch and backside, much to the confusion of Peterson’s young son who asked, “what is that man doing to you?,” Petersen reflected on being forced to walk through the machine with assurances that it was “switched off,” even though he had declined to be body scanned.
Mobile Body Scanners :Backscatter Vans
X-Ray “Backscatter Vans” Can See in your Car and Home, Feds are Radiating Americans “And not only are you no longer secure in your home but they can see your hidden guns in the wall or in the floor along with your precious metals. American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Massachusetts, has sold U.S. and foreign government agencies more than 500 backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that can be driven past neighboring vehicles to see their contents, Joe Reiss, a vice president of marketing at the company told me in an interview. While the biggest buyer of AS&E’s machines over the last seven years has been the Department of Defense operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Reiss says law enforcement agencies have also deployed the vans to search for vehicle-based bombs in the U.S.
“This product is now the largest selling cargo and vehicle inspection system ever,” says Reiss.
The Z Backscatter Vans, or ZBVs, as the company calls them, bounce a narrow stream of x-rays off and through nearby objects, and read which ones come back. Absorbed rays indicate dense material such as steel. Scattered rays indicate less-dense objects that can include explosives, drugs, or human bodies. That capability makes them powerful tools for security, law enforcement, and border control. Read more…
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