Didn't see this posted. An interesting article, do you believe this is good for the security or just another step to invasion of privacy by the government? Link Psssst. Want to see Susan Hallowell naked? Look at the Feb. 24 New York Times. She's on Page A10. Hallowell runs the Transportation Security Administration's research lab. Four years ago, she volunteered to be scanned by a backscatter X-ray machine, which sees through clothing. She was wearing a skirt and blazer. But in the picture, she's as good as nude. Now it's your turn. Last week, TSA began using backscatters at airports to screen passengers for weapons. The first machine is up and running in Phoenix. The next ones will be in New York and Los Angeles. The machines have been modified with a "privacy algorithm" to clean up what they show. But even the tempered images tell you more than you need to know about the endowments of the people seated next to you. Are you up for this? Are you ready to get naked for your country? This is no joke. The government needs to look under your clothes. Ceramic knives, plastic guns, and liquid explosives have made metal detectors obsolete. Carry-on bags are X-rayed, so the safest place to hide a weapon is on your body. Puffer machines can detect explosives on you, but only if you're sloppy. Backscatters are different. They can scan your whole surface, locating and identifying anything of unusual density—not just metals, which have high atomic numbers, but drugs and explosives, which have low ones. Why isn't this technology in lots of airports already? One reason is fear of radiation. That's a needless worry. You get less radiation from a scan than from sitting on a plane for two minutes. If that's too much for you, don't fly. The main stumbling block has been privacy. The ACLU and the Electronic Privacy Information Center have fought backscatters at every turn, calling them a "virtual strip search." It's a curious phrase. The purpose of a strip-search is the search. Stripping is just a means. Virtual inspections achieve the same end by other means. They don't extend the practice of strip-searching. They abolish it. When the manufacturer of the backscatter machines, American Science & Engineering, introduced the technology in prisons nine years ago, the whole point was to replace strip searches. "The scan requires no physical contact between the operator and the subject, thus vastly reducing the threat of assault against law enforcement personnel and the spread of communicable diseases," the company argued. The rationale, like the machine, conveyed not an ounce of human warmth, which is why the inmates preferred it. Better to be seen than touched. Better to be depersonalized than degraded. Thanks to terrorism, the rest of us now face the same choice. Under TSA policy, if you set off an airport metal detector or are chosen for secondary screening, you're subject to a pat-down inspection that "may include sensitive areas of the body" such as your chest and thighs. Unless, that is, you're lucky enough to be in Phoenix, where you can choose a backscatter instead. The impersonality of machines can also filter out racism. Five years ago, the ACLU objected to body scans because they were administered selectively, "based on profiles that are racially discriminatory." But the best way to remove selection bias is to scan everyone. In Phoenix, TSA has put the backscatter monitors in a sealed room 50 feet from the security checkpoint, so the officers who staff them can't see you. All they can see are X-ray images, which capture density, not pigment. To them, everyone is the same color. Putting a machine interface between you and the examining officer protects your visual as well as tactile privacy. In a strip search, the officer sees you exactly as you are. On a monitor, the image can be filtered. The "privacy algorithm" doesn't obscure every detail of your physique, as pictures on TSA's Web site make all too clear. But that's not essential. Look closely at the pictures. It's not the body that has been rendered indistinct. It's the face. That's the first key to reconciling airport screening with privacy: We need to see your body, not your face. For those 30 seconds, we know where you are. If your scan suggests a problem, we'll pull you aside. The second key is that the officer who sees you on the monitor never sees you in the flesh. In Phoenix, TSA hasn't just put the monitors in a separate room. It's laying cables to put them in an entirely different terminal. Likewise, the officer who sees you in the flesh never sees you on the monitor. It's like the blind men and the elephant: Nobody has the whole picture.
I did. * * * They altered the image last I saw. Looks like they used some photo processing software that converts images to a what looks more like an abstract, sepia-like painting. I don't have a problem with that.
Great, now not only is my beard and long hair going to make airport security suspicious, but now they're going to be intimidated by my monstrous member as well - I may as well just wear a turban and yell 'death to America' at the checkpoints.
If your face is blurred and the person viewing it is in a different room I think it's a great idea. I have no problem with it, if it means we are safer.
Why? They are going to make it safer to fly? Why would you stop flying? How would you visit overseas? Maybe you could take one of those Taxis.... DD
It would be interesting to see a poll attached to this thread. Simply yes or no in support of this (if the screener can't see the actual screenee)
I'd be in favor of a poll. I vote YES on a poll. Seriously - U.S. Customs agents have been pulling attractive women into their offices for 'extra security' inspections ever since the 'drug war' started - even though the majority of convicted drug traffickers are men. This just seems like an extension of that. Every war is another excuse for airport personnel to look at your wife, your mother, and your daughter naked.
I think looks like screener is becoming a good job for the young and horny,based on vidio cliips on the ABC Nightly News,which I Tivo. would like to elaborate on the excitement for young and old security screeners with the new technolology, but careful son might read. ABC news is useful if for no other reason thn to see what the (now I am dating myself) the "powers to be" or the "Power Elite," (anybody remember C Wright MIlls the great socologist) want the small slice of the viewership not getting all their political input from Fox News to be exposed to. Was going to do one of those round yellow things, but despite being of course as a citizen of this God fearing great country charitable by nature, I can't always look out for those who need them or I would get OCD or something.. Privacy is definitely, a problem. "Those who give ups freedom ? for security? now I forget, but cd do when I was the age of you all, But where are Madmax and Jackie,almost forgot Fischer, but I suspect Fisher's keen interest lagging due to advanced travel addcition, et al, when we need them to discuss points and outhorities of the potential excitement of taking this to court whether to the District, the Neocons Rednecks at the 5th Circuit or the very nice intelligent, did I forget handsome and witty ?folks at the S. Ct, who I assume hang out with top Bush appointees in HOME LAND SECURITY at coffee breaks, at neiggborhood garage sales, (or at least at neighborhood courses entitled "Spanish for managing your valet, gardner, chauffeur, nanny, yard crew and all the rest of the help) . Am long been too burned out for that type of stuff. points authorities, Bar Journal type stuff. If the newspaper starts to get into it,I'm back to watching the last 8 or 9 Rocket games on TIVO for more relaxing ,pleasantly cheerful or at the minimum more interesting way to pass time.l. Neverthe less any legal egals (SAm making you can assign it to one of your law clerks, commercial whatever must get boring for even law clers, bless their hearts. Who can tell me from the current right wing law reviews etc. where is the next place the ,aside from airports where they hop to make even joking grounds for immediate arrest. Most of the following is true. I was in a Federal Building recently as I often am. I was starting an inappropriate joke while standing in front of pictures of Bush and Cheney as I like to do when a lawyer who knows of my recent phsyical problems and burn out and who I know to have been a member of a socialist group when young, tells me: "careful you can be arrested for joking in a Federal building." The cruel b*stard, thought he was funny. I was two steps to the elevator b4 he said:I am joking. Don't you read the footnotes in the ACLU reporter, I thought you used to be a member of the ACLU before you got so cheap? I plead guilty to ACLU. Hell I could even be a member now. My wife keeps up with the bills. BTW very little if any of the rest is true. It never occurred tome that that failure to to keep up with the footnotes could lead to arrest? This precipitated clinical stage burnout. I now almost need help for as even a one page letter from a client as is hard to get through. I have not lost all hope, though I fear I will be down to reading the one page letter from the client in 4 or 5 sessions. . Anybody have Bush's cell phone number, the real one that only Condi, and perhaps the kid that went to Yale have? Obviously the man could give me aid on how to cope with that type of disabilty.
you see how many celeb Mugshots make it to the internet can you imagine their body scanns Rocket RIver
Aren't similar machines already in other countries? I thought I read an article that these are already up and running in other coutries all around the world and they haven't caused any problems yet, other than speeding up and airport security and making it safer overall.
