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Secret body scanners with 50 times more radiation than airport x-ray scanners to be rolled out
(NaturalNews) A growing number of Americans are already outraged over the government’s use of high-powered, ultra-revealing and potentially dangerous backscatter x-ray machines at a growing number of the nation’s airports, and as bad as that problem is, it’s about to get a whole lot worse unless Congress intervenes to stop the madness.
In the late 1990s, travel experts doubted the government would ever employ such machines in a security checkpoint role at airports or other locations. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 dramatically reversed that mentality to the point that now, no doubt afraid of being accused of doing “too little” to enhance security, lawmakers and select government agencies have done a complete reversal, permitting the use of high-powered x-ray machines to “scan” airline travelers (and perhaps, we near bus, train and other modes of travel in the future).
The all-knowing Transportation Security Administration insists the machines it is currently using – some 250 of them – are safe, but the agency relies primarily on its own in-house and government experts to support their claims.
The non-governmental experts speak
But other private-sector experts, including a bevy of health and radiation scientists cited by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, disagree. They include Read more…
Video: TSA Stopping People On US Highways Without Warrants Or Probable Cause
Major US Airport To Evict TSA Screeners
One of America’s busiest airports, Orlando Sanford International, has announced it will opt out of using TSA workers to screen passengers, a move which threatens the highly unpopular federal agency’s role in other airports across the nation.
“The president of the airport said Tuesday that he would apply again to use private operators to screen passengers, using federal standards and oversight,” reports the Miami Herald.
With Sanford International having originally been prevented by the TSA from opting out back in November 2010 when the federal agency froze the ability for airports to use their own private screeners, a law passed by the Senate last month forces the TSA to reconsider applications.
Larry Dale hinted that the move was motivated by the innumerable horror stories passengers have told of their encounters with the TSA, noting that the change was designed to provide a more “customer friendly” operation.
The agency has been slow to reissue the guidelines on the the Read more…
US No-Fly List of Terror Suspect Doubles in 1 Year
WASHINGTON — Even as the Obama administration says it’s close to defeating al-Qaida, the size of the government’s secret list of suspected terrorists who are banned from flying to or within the United States has more than doubled in the past year, The Associated Press has learned.
The no-fly list jumped from about 10,000 known or suspected terrorists one year ago to about 21,000, according to government figures provided to the AP. Most people on the list are from other countries; about 500 are Americans.
The flood of new names began after the failed Christmas 2009 bombing of a Detroit-bound jetliner. The government lowered the standard for putting people on the list, and then scoured its files for anyone who qualified. The government will not disclose who is on its list or why someone might have been placed on it.
The surge in the size of the no-fly list comes even as the U.S. has killed many senior members of al-Qaida. That’s because the government believes the Read more…
What ‘trusted traveler’ means to you
Editor’s note: Brett Snyder writes a weekly CNN.com travel column. Snyder is the founder of air travel assistance site Cranky Concierge, and he writes the consumer air travel blog The Cranky Flier.
(CNN) — You might have heard something about the Transportation Security Administration’s new known (or trusted) traveler program that will begin testing in October. For now, this will impact a very small number of travelers, but it has the potential to mean big changes in the security process in the long run.
When it comes to airport security today, everyone is treated as a potential threat when walking through the checkpoint. That’s why you still have to take your shoes off and pull your laptop out among other things. If they find something, then you might be subject to further screening.
Many have spent years arguing that the TSA is unnecessarily wasting resources and Read more…
Future TSA: Track All ‘Daily Travels To Work, Grocery Stores & Social Events’
While the TSA can’t explain why invasive patdowns without probable cause are legal, that isn’t stopping TSA from future plans to track all your daily travels, anywhere you go, from work, to stores, or even when you go out to play.
By Ms. Smith
When the TSA was asked to provide legal reasons that definitely spelled out why physically invasive patdowns are legal, without any
probable cause, not one TSA person had an answer. There was no legal documentation for enhanced patdowns other than it serves “the essential administrative purpose.”
Peep show, police state or privacy invasion, patdowns and body scans are not just in airports. EPIC said DHS is refusing to disclose details of mobile body scanner technology. In fact, in answer to EPIC’s FOIA request, DHS handed over “several papers that were completely redacted.”
Meanwhile at airports, the TSA is rolling out “less-invasive gingerbread man” body scanners to a tune of $2.7 million for 240 machines. At this point, I don’t think skinnier versions of the Pillsbury Doughboy via kinder and gentler naked body scans are going to placate people who are secretly Read more…
Airport security: You ain’t seen nothing yet
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks forever changed the way Americans fly.
In June, the IATA unveiled a mockup of the "checkpoint of the future" that includes three sensor-lined tunnels that divide passengers into high-, medium- and low-risk threats. Ten years after the 9/11 terror attacks, security experts question whether freedom, speed and personal space -- along with continued safety -- will one day return to air travel.
Gone are the days when friends or family could kiss passengers goodbye at the gate, replaced by X-rayed shoes and confiscated shampoo bottles at security checkpoints.
Air travelers are increasingly subjected to revealing full-body scans or enhanced pat-downs — all in the name of keeping the skies safe.
As America prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks in the U.S., security experts question whether freedom, speed and personal space — along with continued safety — will one day return to air travel.
Some security analysts foresee a bumper crop of futuristic detection methods — from biometrics to electronic fingerprinting to behavioral analysis — and predict smoother, nimbler and less-intrusive airport walkthroughs in the coming years.
Still others envision Big Brother’s even Bigger Brother: chip-embedded passports that someday tell the federal transportation watchdogs all about your daily commutes to work, the mall — even to parties.
Gazing into the future
And then there are experts like Ed Daly who peer into the next two decades of public travel and forecast two possible scenarios Read more…
TSA could begin searching for explosives hidden inside you
Government intelligence officials are now warning airlines that terrorists could be using surgically implanted explosives to bypass security measures; there is no information regarding a specific plot or threat, but airlines could begin to implement additional screening procedures as the current body scanners cannot effectively detect bombs hidden inside an individual; last year, al Qaeda operatives in Iraq implanted two dogs with explosives, but the dogs died before they could loaded onto a U.S.-bound plane
Swabbing hands for explosive residue // Source: consumertraveler.com
Government intelligence officials are now warning airlines that terrorists could be using surgically implanted explosives to bypass security measures.
There is no information regarding a specific plot or threat, but airlines could begin to implement additional screening procedures as the current body scanners cannot effectively detect bombs hidden inside an individual.
According to the Los Angeles Times, U.S. officials have received new information that suggest terrorists may be seriously considering surgically implanting explosive devices to circumvent existing screening procedures.
In response, Nicholas Kimball, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), said Read more…
TSA asked 95-year-old woman to remove adult diaper
A woman has filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security over how her elderly mother was detained and searched by Transportation Security Administration officers at the Northwest Florida Regional Airport last weekend.
News Herald reported that Jean Weber filed the complaint after her wheelchair-bound 95-year-old mother, who is in the final stages of her battle with leukemia, was asked to remove an adult diaper during a pat down search.
According to Weber, her elderly mother was first taken to a glass-partitioned area and patted down before being taken to another room. As she was waiting outside of the room, officers conducting the pat down told Weber that her mother’s Depends diaper would need to be removed because it was soiled and impeding their search.
“It’s something I couldn’t imagine happening on American soil,” Weber said. “Here is my mother, 95 years old, 105 pounds, barely able to stand, and then this.”
Weber took her elderly mother to the bathroom and removed her diaper, then returned to complete the pat down. She said she did not have another clean diaper with her.
A spokesperson for the TSA said that officers must follow the same procedures for everyone to prevent terrorists from finding vulnerabilities in the security check points.
The American Civil Liberties Union received over 900 complaints in November 2010 alone from travelers subjected to the new screening procedures of the TSA.
Airports across the nation have put backscatter x-ray machines that can see beneath passengers’ clothing into use. If the ticket-holder refuses the scan due to health or privacy concerns, they’re subjected to an invasive physical pat down. The new body scanners and pat down procedure have received intense scrutiny amid reports of travelers feeling humiliated and traumatized.
Surprise! TSA Is Searching Your Car, Subway, Ferry, Bus, AND Plane
Scott Ableman/FlickrThink you could avoid the TSA’s body scanners and pat-downs by taking Amtrak? Think again. Even your daily commute isn’t safe from TSA screenings. And because the TSA is working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol, you may have your immigration status examined along with your “junk“.
As part of the TSA’s request for FY 2012 funding, TSA Administrator John Pistole told Congress last week that the TSA conducts 8,000 unannounced security screenings every year. These screenings, conducted with local law enforcement agencies as well as immigration, can be as simple as checking out cargo at a busy seaport. But more and more, they seem to involve giving airport-style pat-downs and screenings of unsuspecting passengers at bus terminals, ferries, and even subways.
These surprise visits are part of the TSA’s VIPR program: Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response. The VIPR program first started doing searches in Read more…
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