Documents show TSA intends to deploy body scanners at Rail, Bus, Ferry terminals

this is WAY too much.--jef

Banoosh

 

Yet more documents uncovered under the Freedom of Information Act have revealed that in the year prior to rolling out radiation body scanners in airports, the TSA was drawing up long term plans to deploy the machines at “ferry terminals, railway, and mass transit stations” as well as unspecified “other locations.”

The documents, dating from 2008 were released to engineer Jon Corbett who made headlines last year by infamously posted a video of himself demonstrating how the body scanners can easily be bypassed.

“You can expect [the scanners] at train stations, bus stations, subways, highways, cruise ships, and anywhere that “transportation” happens (i.e., everywhere).” Corbett writes. “And, where the body scanners go, so does the groping, since the body scanners have at least a 40% false positive rate which needs to be resolved by blue-gloved gestapo,” he adds.

The documents also detail the fact that the TSA refused to conduct any form of study on what effect the radiation firing scanners would have on the environments they are placed into.

Indeed, the DHS specifically issued an order “exempting” the scanners from environmental review. 

HIGHLIGHTS
Scrutiny over radiation exposure was heightened last year following apparent efforts by the TSA to cover-up a “cluster” of cancer cases amongst scanner operators at Boston-Logan airport.

According to FOIA documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), when Union representatives in Boston discovered a “cancer cluster” amongst TSA workers linked with radiation from the body scanners, the TSA sought to downplay the matter and refused to issue employees with dosimeters to measure levels of exposure. infowars.com
The documents indicated how, “A large number of TSA workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease.” 

In addition, further documents obtained by EPIC show how the TSA “publicly mischaracterized” findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in stating that the agency had positively confirmed the safety of full body scanners in tests.

Meanwhile, previous EPIC FOIA work also produced records showing that the DHS is actively moving to install radiation firing scanners in all manner of public places. 

The technologies include “intelligent video,” backscatter x-ray, Millimeter Wave Radar, and Terahertz Wave, and could be deployed at subway platforms, sidewalks, sports arenas, and shopping malls.

EPIC filed a specific lawsuit against the DHS for attempting to keep the program secret.

TSA Violated Federal Law by Not Taking Public Comments on Airport Scanners

By: Kevin Gosztola Friday July 15, 2011

Court: TSA Violated Federal Law by Not Taking Public Comments on Airport Scanners

A court has ruled, in a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Transporation Security Administration (TSA) violated federal law when it went ahead and installed airport body scanners without seeking comments from the public.

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals concluded TSA “has not justified its failure to initiate notice-and-comment rulemaking before announcing it would use AIT scanners for primary screening.” And, the court ruled that under the Administrative Procedures Act federal agencies are required to provide notice and opportunity for comment when implementing rules that affect the rights of the public.

The ruling was not a complete victory for the privacy rights group. While Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg did agree the machines produce an image of an unclothed passenger and thus the body scanner intrudes upon personal privacy “in a way a magnetometer does not,” the court did not conclude that the scanners violate the Constitution.

Marc Rotenberg, president of EPIC and lead counsel in the case, reacted, “The TSA is now subject to the same rules as other government agencies that help ensure transparency and accountability. Many Americans object to the airport body scanner program. Now, they will have an opportunity to express their views to the TSA and the agency must take their views into account as a matter of law.”

Rotenberg finds that not only does this indicate the government is obligated to begin a process for taking “public comments” on the process, but the result also indicates “travelers have a legal right to opt-out of the body scanner search” and they should be free to exercise that right “without coercion.”


The lawsuit filed in November 2010, just after TSA scanners became operational in a number of airports across the country, shows EPIC sought to demonstrate the scanners violated a Department of Homeland Security statute by “eroding privacy protections by sanctioning the nationwide development of FBS devices in tandem with a systemized collection of airline passengers’ personal information.” The lawsuit also sought to prove the scanners violated the Privacy Act by “creating an indexed system of records containing air traveler’s personally identifiable information without publishing a system of records notice,” and they also violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by “substantially burdening the free exercise of religion of those airline passengers who embrace sincerely held religious beliefs requiring preservation of modesty.”

Finally, the lawsuit argued by “systematically capturing images” of the “private area of the individual” including “the naked or undergarment clad genitals, pubic area, buttocks, [and] female breasts,” the TSA violated the Video Voyeurism Prevention.

It does not appear that the court ruled on these individual issues, although they did rule on the constitutionality of the scanners.

The ruling comes just as CBS News reports TSA’s decision to “streamline the airport security checkpoint process for frequent fliers” is “one of the most dangerous things,” according to aviation consultant Michael Boyd.

The TSA would like to make it so that “frequent fliers” can go through less rigorous screening. They may even be able to keep their shoes on and leave laptops in carry-on bags. However, they would have to be a specially selected “frequent flier” and have to pass a “background check” by Customs and Border Protection.
Boyd concludes:

The program) will give (TSA) time to focus on the untrusted travelers, which means if you don’t go through a government background check, you are going to be untrusted. … You’re going to have to go through the same security either way, but what really scares me is you’re not going to be a trusted person unless you go through a government background check — that’s scary.

The TSA is not a professionally-managed organization,” he said. “The problem with it is we have politics involved. We have go and show — the other day they announced they found a bag with 13 knives in it. I’m not impressed. The reality of this is, this is show and it’s not going to improve anything.

Here’s a recap for those of you not following along. In the last thirty days, TSA has:

• Asked a 95-year-old woman to remove her adult diaper (then denied ever asking her to do such a thing)
  
• Singled out a woman for a hair search probably because she was African-American
  
• After announcing they would try to avoid patting down children, let TSA pat down a 6-year-old boy twice
  
• Missed a man who stowed away on a flight from New York to Los Angeles
  
• Dismissed concerns about increased risk of cancer from the scanners (although these concerns have been coming from scientists since TSA began to use the scanners)
  
• Arrested a mom for refusing to let TSA search her daughter
  
• Let a stun gun get on a JetBlue flight to Boston. A cleaning crew found it.
  
• And, finally, couldn’t stop a scorpion from getting on a plane to sting a man
  

The outcome of this lawsuit isn’t just an occasion to get the public a chance to register comments on scanners in airports. It’s also a chance to get rid of TSA Chief John Pistole.

Here’s Keith Olbermann explaining why he’s got to go:

TSA, DHS plan massive rollout of surveillance vans with long-distance X-ray scanners

Sunday, March 06, 2011
by Mike Adams

Newly-released documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) reveal that the US Depart of Homeland Security has been working on plans to roll out a new wave of mobile surveillance technologies at train stations, stadiums and streets. These new technologies will track your eye movements, capture and record your facial dimensions for face-recognition processing, bathe you in X-rays to look under your clothes, and even image your naked body using whole-body infrared images that were banned from consumer video cameras because they allowed the camera owners to take "nude" videos of people at the beach.

Most importantly, many of these technologies are designed to be completely hidden, allowing the government to implement "covert inspection of moving subjects." You could be walking down a hallway at a sports stadium, in other words, never knowing that you're being bathed in X-rays from the Department of Homeland Security, whose operators are covertly looking under your clothes to see if you're carrying any weapons.

Roving vans to "track eye movements"

According to a Forbes.com article (http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenbe...), one project pursued by DHS using technology from Siemens would "mount backscatter x-ray scanners and video cameras on roving vans, along with other cameras on buildings and utility poles, to monitor groups of pedestrians, assess what they carried, and even track their eye movements."

Another project involved developing "a system of long range x-ray scanning to determine what metal objects an individual might have on his or her body at distances up to thirty feet."

We already know that the U.S. government has purchased 500 vans using covert backscatter technology to covertly scan people on the streets (http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenbe...). They're called "Z Backscatter Vans, or ZBVs."

This is all part of the U.S. government's new wave of police state surveillance that aims to track and irradiate innocent civilians who have committed no crime. Under the new Janet Napolitano regime, all Americans are now considered potential terrorists, and anyone can be subjected to government-sanctioned radiation scanning at any time, without their knowledge or approval.

And don't think these efforts will be limited merely to backscatter technology: The TSA is now testing full-power, deep-penetrating X-ray machines (like the ones that deliver chest X-rays in hospitals) in order to check people for bombs they may have swallowed. Yes, Janet Napolitano now wants to look inside your colon! And they're willing to X-ray everyone -- without their consent -- in order to do that.

Read the documents yourself

If you have trouble believing the U.S. government is unleashing a new wave of police state covert scanning vans on to the streets of America, you can read the documents yourself -- all 173 pages. They're available on the EPIC website at: http://epic.org/privacy/body_scanne...

EPIC calls these vans "mobile strip search devices" because they give the federal government technology to look under your clothes without your permission or consent. It's also being done without probable cause, so it's a violation of the Fourth Amendment protections that are guaranteed to Americans under the Bill of Rights.

"It's a clear violation of the fourth amendment that's very invasive, not necessarily effective, and poses all the same radiation risks as the airport scans," said EPIC attorney Ginger McCall, in the Forbes article (above).

Huge health risks to the population

It's not just the privacy issues that raise red flags here, of course: It's also the fact that the U.S. government has no respect whatsoever for the health of its citizens who are being subjected to these radiation emitting devices. Even while the TSA refuses to release testing results from its own naked body scanners, DHS keeps buying more machines (and more powerful machines) that will only subject travelers to yet more radiation.

As we've already reported here on NaturalNews.com, numerous scientists are already on the record warning that the TSA's backscatter "naked body scanners" could cause breast cancer, sperm mutation and other health problems (http://www.naturalnews.com/030607_n...).

But the U.S. government doesn't seem to care what happens to your health. Their position is that their "right" to know what you're carrying under your clothes or inside your body overrides your right to privacy or personal health. All they have to do is float a couple of fabricated terrorism scare stories every few months, and then use those "threats" as justification for violating the Constitutional rights of U.S. citizens are very turn.

The real question in all this, of course, is how far will this go? The TSA is already reaching down your pants and feeling up peoples' genitals as part of the "security" measures. Will DHS soon just start subjecting people to body cavity searches as a necessary security requirement before entering a football stadium, for example? Will Americans now be X-rayed with cancer-causing ionizing radiation -- without their awareness or consent -- merely because they are walking down the street or boarding a train?

That seems to be the case. And as you can readily tell from all this, it's getting harder and harder for the fast-dwindling group of deniers to claim America isn't already a police state. The USA is fast becoming a high-tech version of the very worst police state tyrannies witnessed throughout human history. The only difference is that now they have "science" on their side with the coolest new technology that can violate your rights and irradiate your body in a hundred different ways, with high-resolution images and digital storage devices.

I suppose if all this were being done to really stop international terrorists, that might be one thing. But what has become increasingly clear in observing the government's behavior in this realm is that the U.S. government now considers Americans to be the enemy -- especially those who have the gall to defend their Constitutionally-protected freedoms or question the unjustified centralization of power taking place right now in Washington.

The DHS is America's new secret police. And their cameras are pointing inward, into the everyday lives of Americans; not outward, aimed at international terrorists.

When the price of security becomes forfeiting your liberty, the source of the "terror" is no longer the terrorists but your own government. Isn't this the lesson that history has taught us well?

TX Rep files anti-body-scanner bill

Written by: Andy Hogue - 3/4/2011

A freshman Representative filed a bill to penalize airport body scanner operators: Including TSA agents.

Can they do that to a federal agent? Bill author Rep. David Simpson (R-Longview) thinks so. And he's not alone, with 18 co-sponsors from both parties (see list below) and a few organizations.

The bill, HB 1938, makes it a civil penalty for anyone working in a locally owned airport to install or operate whole-body imaging equipment -- "including a device that uses backscatter x-rays or millimeter waves, that creates a visual image of a person's unclothed body and is intended to detect concealed objects," the bill read.

The penalty is capped at $1,000 per day per violation.

The bill is supported by the Travis County Republican Party, the Travis County Libertarian Party, ACLU-Texas, and Austin-based Texans for Accountable Government which pushed for a city of Austin resolution against the scanners.

Simpson may also have the backing of U.S. Congressman John Carter of Texas, a member of the U.S. House Appropriations and Homeland Security committees.

"On Thursday I met with U.S. Congressman John Carter ... to discuss strategies for stopping the federal Transportation Safety Administration’s implementation of unconstitutional and unreasonable searches of U.S. citizens as a condition of travel," Simpson wrote in his weekly blog post.

If it becomes law, Texas will be one of at least two states opposing the measures, including New Jersey and New Hampshire.

A press conference on the bill originally scheduled for Monday has been postponed.

Co-authors so far include: Reps. Jose Aliseda (R-Beeville), Leo Berman (R-Tyler), Joe Deshotel (D-Beaumont), Allen Fletcher (R-Tomball), Dan Flynn (R-Vann), John V. Garza (R-San Antonio), Larry Gonzales (R-Round Rock), Ryan Guillen (D-Rio Grande City), Charlie Howard (R-Sugar Land), Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola), Jason Isaac (R-Dripping Springs), Jim Landtroop (R-Big Spring), Jodie Laubenberg (R-Rockwall), Charles Perry (R-Lubbock), Debbie Riddle (R-Houston), Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston), and James White (R-Hillister).

More Body Scanners are Coming to an Airport Near You

Sunday, December 26, 2010 by The Washington Post
by Derek Kravitz

The full-body scanners in use at 78 U.S. airports can detect small amounts of contraband and hidden weapons, all while producing controversial images of travelers.

The "good catches," federal officials say, have largely gone unnoticed amid the criticism that erupted over the ghostly X-rays and "enhanced" pat-downs. The Transportation Security Administration, which intensified airport screening last month, points to several successes: small amounts of marijuana wrapped in baggies, other drugs stitched inside underwear, ceramic knives concealed in shirt pockets.

But the machines could miss something far more deadly: explosive material taped to someone's abdomen or hidden inside a cavity. Researchers and security experts question the technology's ability to detect chemical explosives that are odorless, far smaller than previous incarnations, and easily molded to fool machines and security screeners into thinking they are part of the human body.

Government testing, which has been mostly classified because of security concerns, has also raised concerns about the effectiveness of the full-body scanners.

Based partly on early successes, federal officials are planning to continue an unprecedented roll-out of the technology over the next year. By New Year's Day, about 500 machines will be in use across the country, including at the Washington area's three major airports. By the end of next year, 1,000 X-ray machines will be operational, accounting for roughly half of the nation's 2,000 lanes of security checkpoints.

Following the United States' lead, several nations have begun to test or install full-body scanners, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom. U.S. officials have also considered whether the machines could be used to enhance security at passenger rail stations.

Federal officials say the scanners represent the best technology that has passed both lab and field tests. But as with reading an X-ray, training is the most important factor in making sure that TSA officers can spot potentially dangerous items on passengers.

"The bottom line is that we are now able to detect all types of the most dangerous weapons - nonmetallic explosive devices," TSA spokesman Nicholas Kimball said. "Even in small amounts, it can be picked up."
Window dressing?

Two types of scanning machines - backscatter and millimeter wave - have been installed at airports since 2007, when they were launched as part of a pilot program at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Both machines produce the same full-body images that attracted controversy; they work by bouncing X-rays or radio waves off skin or concealed objects.

They have been installed at a quicker rate since a failed Christmas Day terrorist attempt last year in which Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab hid explosives in his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. The failed attack also prompted federal officials to use the scanners as a primary security technique at airports instead of a secondary, less frequent checkpoint feature.

Still, many security experts say the machines are expensive window dressing meant to put the traveling public at ease.

A recent paper published in the Journal of Transportation Security by two former University of California-San Francisco physicists said that images produced by the backscatter scanners would probably fail to show a large pancake-shaped object taped to the abdomen because it would be "easily confused with normal anatomy." As a result, a third of a kilo of PETN, a type of malleable explosive, which could be discovered by a pat-down, would be missed, the scientists said.

"It's not an explosives detector; it's an anomaly detector," said Clark Ervin, who runs the Homeland Security Program at the nonprofit Aspen Institute. "Someone has to notice that there's something out of order." Ervin was the first inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security.

PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, is hard to detect. Odorless and similar to a white crystal powder, it was used in both package bombs shipped to the United States in October and the Christmas airliner attempt last year. Those who plotted the cargo attack hid the explosive in toner cartridges and "clearly" tried to trick baggage screening technologies, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Brian Michael Jenkins, director of the Transportation Security Center at the Mineta Transportation Institute in San Jose, Calif., said he was unsure whether an advanced scanner would have discovered the explosives in Abdulmutallab's underwear. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has said it "remains unclear" whether he would have been caught by a full-body scanner. But a random assortment of security measures - and not the reliance on one technology or method - is key, Jenkins said.

"It's the mystery that drives our adversaries crazy," he said. "We need the unknown."
Drawbacks, advances

The Transportation Security Laboratory, a federal Homeland Security testing site created in 1992 at New Jersey's Atlantic City International Airport, began testing on full-body scanners in 2007. The detailed results of the testing performed in Atlantic City are classified because of security concerns, but interviews with more than a dozen former and current government officials and the limited release of its findings found:

- The detection of weapons and contraband varied by who was evaluating the images, indicating that some transportation security officers were less adept at spotting unusual or dangerous items.

- The "backscatter" rays can be obscured by body parts and might not readily detect thin items seen "edge-on."

- Objects hidden inside the body, in cavities, might be missed by both types of the scanning machines altogether.

"If you have someone who is rather fat or who has large breasts or buttocks, that's a factor, too," said Anthony Fainberg, a physicist and former program manager for explosives and radiation detection at Homeland Security.

Fainberg has lobbied for hand-held swabbing of hands and luggage for trace detection of explosives, especially on international flights.

"If you have something hidden behind flaps of flesh, it can be missed," he said. "I'm not worried about the safety of it at all, but I am concerned about what could be missed."

Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University, said that the technology expands the TSA's security toolbox.

"It is not going to solve the problem, but it certainly comes a long way from where we were before," Cilluffo said. 'These things take time'

To address the litany of security and privacy concerns over the full-body scanners, federal officials are testing several new technologies that will probably make their way into airports in the coming months.

Homeland Security's research and design division, the Science and Technology Directorate, is testing a software patch being developed by the two companies behind the scanning technology - Rapiscan Systems and L-3 Communications - that would produce only a generic outline of a human body accompanied by a box or colored squares indicating a hidden anomaly or specific substance. An alarm might also be used to alert screeners to potential threats.

But TSA Administrator John S. Pistole said that the software, called automated target recognition, is not scoring well in lab tests, producing too many false-positive errors.

"It is a relatively complex math problem, but we're confident we're going to solve it and solve it soon," said Peter Kant, executive vice president of Rapiscan Systems. "But these things take time."

Meanwhile, federal researchers are testing systems that would scan passengers' shoes without having to take them off; a new generation of carry-on baggage equipment, such as conveyor systems; and smaller and faster baggage scanning machines, which could check 1,500 bags per hour, up from an average of 300 to 400 per hour. Technology developed at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory could identify liquids through opaque containers, such as a soda can or juice pouch.

TSA has no regular testing system for its naked body scanners

Cory Doctorow  -- Thursday, Dec 23, 2010

Many experts are skeptical that the TSA's new backscatter pornoscanner machines are safe, but even the experts who endorse them are careful to bracket their reassurances with certain caveats: the safety of the machines depends heavily on their being properly maintained, regularly tested, and expertly operated. Whether or not you're comfortable with the intended radiation emissions from the scanners, no one in their right mind would argue that a broken machine that lovingly lingers over your reproductive organs and infuses them with 10,000 or 100,000 times the normal dosage is desirable.

But when Andrew Schneider, AOL's public health correspondent, contacted the TSA to find out what maintenance and testing is in place to ensure the safe operation of the scanners, he discovered that the TSA appears to have no regime at all to ensure that they are functioning within normal parameters. While the TSA claims that entities like the FDA, the US Army and Johns Hopkins all regularly inspect their machines, none of these groups agrees, and they all disavow any role in regularly maintaining and testing the TSA's equipment (the Army has tested machines in three airports, but has not conducted any further testing). And Johns Hopkins denies that it has certified the machines as safe for operation in the first place -- let alone taking on any ongoing testing and certification program.

For example, the FDA says it doesn't do routine inspections of any nonmedical X-ray unit, including the ones operated by the TSA.

The FDA has not field-tested these scanners and hasn't inspected the manufacturer. It has no legal authority to require owners of these devices -- in this case, TSA -- to provide access for routine testing on these products once they have been sold, FDA press officer said Karen Riley said...

Two-person teams from the Army unit performed surveys of the Advance Image Technology X-ray scanners at just three airports -- in Boston, Los Angeles and Cincinnati, she said. And that was all that the TSA asked the Army to do this year...

"APL's role was to measure radiation coming off the body scanners to verify that it fell within [accepted] standards. We were testing equipment and in no way determined its safety to humans," Helen Worth, head of public affairs for the Johns Hopkins lab, told AOL News.

"Many news articles have said we declared the equipment to be safe, but that was not what we were tasked to do," she added.

Moreover, the study said APL scientists were unable to test a ready-for-TSA scanner at their lab because the manufacturer would not supply one. Instead, the tests were performed on a scanner cobbled together from spare parts in manufacturer Rapiscan Systems' California warehouse.

Austin's Airport Advisory Commission Opposes ABIA Body Scanners

(Way to go, Austin!--jef)

***

TSA hopeful scanners in place sometime in 2011

by Josh Hinkle
Tuesday, 14 Dec 2010, 10:24 PM CST

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Austin's Airport Advisory Commission approved a resolution on Tuesday night advising the city council to oppose airport body scanners and invasive body searches.

The Transportation Security Administration said it is hopeful advanced imaging technology or “body scanners” will be in the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport sometime next year. Already, March has been thrown out as a possibility, though the TSA said it would likely be late 2011 or even 2012.

"I think people in the United States area little bit spoiled, I think, to quick travel and having everything instantaneous,” said Paula Tye, on her way to a flight to Orlando.

Tye flies out of Austin on business every three weeks to many cities that already have body scanners for extra security. The TSA said 70 airports already have the devices.

"It's like an upright tanning bed actually,” Tye said. “They just scan you, and it really takes two seconds. It's not very long at all. You step out and you're done."

Along with radiation concerns, critics said the machines don't work as well as proponents would like. There are also groups like Texans for Accountable Government saying it is an invasion of privacy.

"What we need to do is let them know it is not acceptable in Austin,” said TAG’s Heather Fazio. We don't have body scanners here. We don't want body scanners here. We don't need them here."

That group was among many people testifying before the commission, trying to convince members to oppose the scanners. In the past, TAG has put up privacy fights against the APD blood draw program, private data concerns at Austin's Fusion Center, and even accountability for toll roads.

Beyond the commission, TAG is planning to meet with Austin City Council members on Friday to further discuss the issue. The group is also planning a protest in the airport terminal on Saturday.

Tye said people who do not like the scanners might just have to live with them. Regardless of any resolutions passed by the commission or city Council, the TSA has the final say.
"I like to think it makes things safer, so we do all we can do. And I hope that's enough,” Tye said.
ABIA has not yet received the scanners, because some thought they might be too heavy for the floors there. The TSA said a new report, set for release next month, shows the machines are actually lighter than originally thought.

Inside TSA scanners: How terahertz waves tear apart human DNA

by Terrence Aym - 12-15-10

While the application of scientific knowledge creates technology, sometimes the technology is later redefined by science. Such is the case with terahertz (THz) radiation, the energy waves that drive the technology of the TSA: back scatter airport scanners.

Emerging THz technological applications

THz waves are found between microwaves and infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum. This type of radiation was chosen for security devices because it can penetrate matter such as clothing, wood, paper and other porous material that's non-conducting.

This type of radiation seems less threatening because it doesn't penetrate deeply into the body and is believed to be harmless to both people and animals.

THz waves may have applications beyond security devices. Research has been done to determine the feasibility of using the radiation to detect tumors underneath the skin and for analyzing the chemical properties of various materials and compounds. The potential marketplace for THz driven technological applications may generate many billions of dollars in revenue.

Because of the potential profits, intense research on THz waves and applications has mushroomed over the last decade.

Health risks

The past several years the possible health risks from cumulative exposure to THz waves was mostly dismissed. Experts pointed to THz photons and explained that they are not strong enough to ionize atoms or molecules; nor are they able to break the chains of chemical bonds. They assert—and it is true—that while higher energy photons like ultraviolet rays and X-rays are harmful, the lower energy ones like terahertz waves are basically harmless. [Softpedia.com]

While that is true, there are other biophysics at work. Some studies have shown that THZ can cause great genetic harm, while other similar studies have shown no such evidence of deleterious affects.

Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico recently published an abstract with colleagues, "DNA Breathing Dynamics in the Presence of a Terahertz Field" that reveals very disturbing—even shocking—evidence that the THz waves generated by TSA scanners is significantly damaging the DNA of the people being directed through the machines, and the TSA workers that are in close proximity to the scanners throughout their workday.

From the abstracts own synopsis:

"We consider the influence of a terahertz field on the breathing dynamics of double-stranded DNA. We model the spontaneous formation of spatially localized openings of a damped and driven DNA chain, and find that linear instabilities lead to dynamic dimerization, while true local strand separations require a threshold amplitude mechanism. Based on our results we argue that a specific terahertz radiation exposure may significantly affect the natural dynamics of DNA, and thereby influence intricate molecular processes involved in gene expression and DNA replication."

In layman's terms what Alexandrov and his team discovered is that the resonant effects of the THz waves bombarding humans unzips the double-stranded DNA molecule. This ripping apart of the twisted chain of DNA creates bubbles between the genes that can interfere with the processes of life itself: normal DNA replication and critical gene expression.

Other studies have not discovered this deadly effect on the DNA because the research only investigated ordinary resonant effects.

Nonlinear resonance, however, is capable of such damage and this sheds light on the genotoxic effects inherent in the utilization of THz waves upon living tissue. The team emphasizes in their abstract that the effects are probabilistic rather than deterministic.

Unfortunately, DNA damage is not limited only to THz wave exposure. Other research has been done that reveals lower frequency microwaves used by cell phones and Wi-Fi cause some harm to DNA over time as well. ["Single- and double-strand DNA breaks in rat brain cells after acute exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation."]

Fears Mount on TSA Body Scanners

Insiders Say New Machines Have Poor Detection
By PAM MARTENS

Over the past month, in the face of unprecedented airport screening procedures that left human dignity, radiation concerns, privacy and the Constitution in shambles on the tarmac, Americans have been repeatedly counseled by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) that the new body scanner machines and humiliating pat downs are necessary to make air travel secure. Now documents have emerged, on the government’s own web sites, raising questions as to whether the machines are little more than overpriced metal detectors with a “beam me up Scotty” futuristic design.

A scientist associated with one of the body scanner manufacturers, Ronald J. Hughes, has submitted patent documents to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for various devices involved in airport screening of passengers to detect terrorist threats. In those documents, Mr. Hughes details serious failings of the x-ray body scanning equipment, including its lack of reliability to detect plastics or ceramics used in bomb making.

Mr. Hughes is not just any inventor. His patents have been regularly assigned to Rapiscan Systems, Inc., one of the companies which currently has over 200 body scanners in airports throughout the U.S.

The problems are explained as follows in Mr. Hughes’ patent documents. While metal objects (like guns and knives) can be easily visualized in the body scanner images, there is “poor detection capability for a wide range of dangerous objects composed of low atomic number elements, such as plastics or ceramics, which are often masked by the low atomic number elements which comprise the human body.”

Mr. Hughes goes on to note that “conventional image processing techniques for protecting privacy… tend to diminish non-body images as well, and thus, degrade the image presented to the viewer. For example, but not limited to such example, employing a traditional combination of increased brightness and contrast to diminish anatomical features may also result in the washing out of smaller and thin threat objects, such as plastic explosives, because they have properties similar to human skin…When a filter is applied to the resultant images, using conventional image processing methods, almost all objects that are at the person's side or located inside of loose clothing tend to disappear.”

In a detailed report delivered to Congress on March 17, 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) further revealed the limitations of the body scanner machines in use in U.S. airports, originally called “Whole Body Imager” but now rebranded as the more spiffy sounding Advanced Imaging Technology or AITs. The GAO stated in its report (GAO-10-484T): “The AIT produces an image of a passenger’s body that a screener interprets. The image identifies objects, or anomalies, on the outside of the physical body but does not reveal items beneath the surface of the skin, such as implants.” Hiding potentially dangerous objects in body cavities will not be detected by these machines, raising questions as to why our government is spending $170,000 each for the units at an increased staffing cost of $2.4 billion over the 7-year anticipated life of the machines according to the GAO. (Each machine costs $369,764 in staffing costs for operation annually.)

In another GAO report delivered to Congress in October 2009 (GAO-10-128), researchers found that “TSA has not assessed whether there are tactics that terrorists could use, such as the placement of explosives or weapons on specific places on their bodies, to increase the likelihood that the screening equipment would fail to detect the hidden weapons or explosives.” GAO went on to note in the same report: “TSA has relied on technologies in day-to-day airport operations that have not been demonstrated to meet their functional requirements in an operational environment. For example, TSA has substituted existing screening procedures with screening by the Whole Body Imager even though its performance has not yet been validated by testing in an operational environment… Furthermore, without retaining existing screening procedures until the effectiveness of future technologies has been validated, TSA officials cannot be sure that checkpoint security will be improved.” In a footnote to this passage, GAO notes that the specifics of what it’s talking about here has been classified by the TSA.

One of the individuals who has been widely quoted as disputing the effectiveness of the body scanners is Rafi Sela, an expert on Israeli airport security. Mr. Sela has over 30 years experience in security and defense technologies, was a special advisor to the Israeli security agencies for counter terrorism and is a Managing Partner in AR Challenges, a consulting firm for advanced security technology. According to the company’s web site, it has “participated in applied strategic design of the operations and security at the Ben Gurion airport [in Israel], which is now a standard for many other high security airports.”

I wanted to hear directly from Mr. Sela. These are his emailed remarks: “The whole security system used in North America is wrong. The body scanners are just one more obsolete technology that does not provide any more security…it can be circumvented not only in body cavities but in other ways that I do not want to share with the public. This has been a great lobbying-marketing effort on behalf of the manufacturers.” Between 2005 and 2009, Rapiscan spent $1,678,500 on lobbying, according to data compiled at the Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org). Michael Chertoff, former head of the Department of Homeland Security, has been a paid consultant to Rapiscan. On January 26, 2010, Congresswoman Jane Harman wrote to Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security, noting that Rapiscan was a company in the Congresswoman’s district. She urged Ms. Napolitano to “expedite installation of scanning machines in key airports.” Congresswoman Harman closed with: “If you need additional funds, I am ready to help.”

Another security expert, Bruce Schneier, says what the TSA is increasingly looking for these days is pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN). Writing recently at The Atlantic, Mr. Schneier explains PETN is “the plastic explosive that both the Shoe Bomber and the Underwear Bomber attempted but failed to detonate…The problem is that no scanners or puffers can detect PETN; only swabs and dogs work.” (Puffers were the TSA’s last fiasco. Officially called Explosives Trace Portal or ETP, they puff air at the passenger in hopes of sniffing the air for traces of explosives. A highly critical GAO report found they were rolled out without proper testing.)

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC.org) has filed a Federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security over the use of the machines as the primary screening device in U.S. airports, charging they violate the Fourth Amendment, the Privacy Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act. In past statements, EPIC had this to say about the limited utility of the devices. “Keeping the radiation dose low enough to skim the skin's surface means that backscatter cannot detect weapons hidden in body folds. Nor is the technology the functional equivalent of a body cavity search.”

Rapiscan Systems Inc. is a subsidiary of the NASDAQ traded company, OSI Systems Inc., (symbol OSIS). It manufactured a little more than half of the 385 body scanners in use at 68 airports nationwide as of mid November. The Rapiscan machines, called the Secure 1000, use X-ray radiation, which reflects off the front and back of the body, producing separate images of each. This is called the backscatter system. The other highly visible system in airports, produced by L-3 Communications (New York Stock Exchange symbol LLL), is the ProVision, which uses a millimeter wave. This system emits beams of radio frequency energy. Both systems generate nude images of airline passengers, showing private body parts and highly personal details like colostomy bags.

According to the 2010 GAO report, the TSA projects that a total of 1,000 AIT systems will be deployed to airports by the end of December 2011. In fiscal year 2014, TSA plans to reach full operating capacity with a total of 1,800 units. TSA officials stated that the cost of $170,000 per unit excludes training, installation and maintenance. That would mean a total of $306 million for just the machines, tens of millions more for the peripheral costs, and $2.4 billion for the required increase in staff through the extremely limited anticipated life of 7 years.

Dr. Steven Smith’s name appears on the original patent for the body scanning technology currently in use by Rapiscan. Dr. Smith explained the history in an email: “I invented the technology in about 1990 and sold it to IRT in 1991, where I became an employee until 1997. In 1997, IRT divested the technology to Rapiscan, and I left to start Spectrum San Diego. Last year, Spectrum San Diego became Tek84 Engineering Group, which I still run. Rapiscan purchased the product and all associated items from IRT, including the patent, existing inventory, marketing information, and so on…I worked as a consultant for Rapiscan on the SECURE 1000 until about 2002. The products I have developed since that time (CastScope, CarScan, AIT84) are competitive with Rapiscan, so I don't have much contact with them.”

That this technology has been in existence for two decades and is just now being rolled out to airports deserves a few moments of equally intense probing. Under what societal norms would there be a market for routinely taking nude pictures of airline travelers via scientifically challenged skin radiation that reveal genitalia; with a necessary back up plan of hand inspections of the buttocks and genitalia for opt outs. This 20-year old technology could only be massively deployed because of a long line of images since 9/11 which has desensitized the American psyche to human rights through a bombardment of human degradations: the images of thumbs up torture at Abu Ghraib; the televised pictures of the hooded prisoners on their knees at Guantanamo or in monkey cages; the endless columns of typeset devoted to waterboarding, renditions, kidnappings and assassinations – all in the name of making us more secure.

It is apparently not enough that we as a nation are devolving. We now seek to export our devolution devices (ostensibly because that’s all we have to show for the past decade). Accompanying President Obama on his recent trip to India was Deepak Chopra (not that Deepak Chopra) the Chairman and CEO of OSI Systems Inc., parent of Rapiscan and the glorified disrobing machine. Rapiscan has a joint venture with the Electronics Company of India, an Indian government enterprise, called ECIL-Rapiscan. Rapiscan insiders, including Mr. Chopra and his first cousin, Ajay Mehra, who is Executive Vice President of OSI Systems, Inc., own 15 percent of the joint venture.

This has the familiar ring of Maurice “Hank” Greenberg’s company within a company at AIG. Hank became enormously wealthy from C.V. Starr while taxpayers bailed out a collapsing AIG. For the record, I think it is a decidedly bad idea for the U.S. government to give contracts to companies with crony conflicts of interest. According to SEC documents filed by OSI, the company has “contracted with entities owned by members of our Board of Directors and/or their family members to provide messenger services, auto rental and printing services. Included in cost of sales and selling, general and administrative expenses for the fiscal 2008, 2009, and 2010, are approximately $40,000, $54,000 and $64,000, respectively, for messenger service and auto rental; and $42,000, $45,000 and $60,000, respectively, for printing services.”

The ECIL-Rapiscan web site says it manufactures “the same equipment as that of Rapiscan U.K. and U.S.A with the same state of art technology. Requisite technology is supplied by Rapiscan and the final product is manufactured at ECIL facility.” If this body scanning equipment was a genuine matter of national security, would the U.S. let the technology be handed over to a foreign government enterprise?

From John Tyner’s warning to the TSA agent not to touch his “junk” or he’d have him arrested that went viral on YouTube around mid November, the TSA has ignored the public outrage over a policy that was not properly vetted or allowed public input at open hearings.

Now serious financial damage is looming for the nation’s airlines with Zogby International reporting in a poll taken between November 19 and 22 that 61 per cent of the 2,032 individuals polled oppose the use of body scanners and pat downs. The use of the backscatter x-ray machines and the more aggressive pat down procedures will cause 48 percent of individuals to seek an alternative means of travel. In addition, 52 per cent of respondents think the new security procedures will not prevent terrorist activity, 48 per cent consider it a violation of privacy rights and 32 per cent consider it to be sexual harassment, according to the Zogby poll.

At ACLU.org, the nonprofit organization reports it has received 900 complaints and has posted over 38 graphic accounts that can only be described as sexual molestation. Brief examples include: “The TSA agent used her hands to feel under and between my breasts. She then rammed her hand up into my crotch until it jammed into my pubic bone.” “I cried throughout the groping and have had intrusive thoughts since. It was humiliating.” “The procedure was violating, degrading, invasive and humiliating.” “It was so rough that I felt the effects of it throughout the day.” “I do not feel safer. I feel violated.”
Is this any way to run an airline – or a democracy?

The Bizarre Tale of Graft and Sleazy Political Opportunism That Brought Us the 'Porno Scanners'

How we got to the point of full body scans, the massive personal intrusion that represents, and the tens of millions spent for machines that irradiate us. 

By Michael Collins, Smirking Chimp
November 18, 201

How did we get to the point of full body scans at airports, the massive personal intrusion that represents, and the tens of millions spent for machines that irradiate us as a consequence of merely flying from here to there?

The proximate cause is the attempted bombing of a December 25, 2009 Northwest airlines flight. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, an engineering student, attempted to mix, then detonate a bomb as Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam made its descent to Detroit's Metropolitan Airport. Mr. Abdulmutallab somehow got on the flight with the chemicals undetected, hidden in his underwear. (Image)

There was furor followed by calls for tighter airport security. Specifically, Michael Chertoff, former Bush Homeland Security chief, claimed full body scanners were the solution. One thing led to another and here we are today. Full body scanners are in 68 airports and planned for 1,000 across the United States by the end of 2011. Those who refuse the full body scans will be subject to "pat-downs, which include searches of passengers' genital areas."

The Missing Link

Right after the Christmas 2009 bombing attempt, two United States citizens, frequent world travelers, spoke up about what they'd both witnessed prior to the flight departing from Amsterdam's Schiphol International Airport. Kurt Haskell and his wife Lori, attorneys from Taylor, Michigan, were sitting near the ticket counter waiting to board Flight 253. They saw two men approached the counter and speak with the agent on duty. One of the men was later identified as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who would later haplessly try to blow up the Northwest flight. The other was a well dressed man in his 50s (the sharp dressed man) who they took to be an Indian national:

"While Mutallab was poorly dressed, his friend was dressed in an expensive suit," Haskell said. He says the suited man asked ticket agents whether Mutallab could board without a passport. "The guy said, 'He's from Sudan and we do this all the time.'"

Mutallab is Nigerian. Haskell believes the man may have been trying to garner sympathy for Mutallab's lack of documents by portraying him as a Sudanese refugee.

The ticket agent referred Mutallab and his companion to her manager down the hall, and Haskell didn't see Mutallab again until after he allegedly tried to detonate an explosive on the plane.

The Haskell's told their story to U.S. agents investigating the bombing attempt while they and other passengers were held at the Detroit airport. Shortly after being released from the airport, Kurt Haskell posted a comment on a MILive.com news thread. This was the first of a number of media encounters where the story was told consistently.

A summary article in Wikipedia provides the narrative of the official response to the Haskell's story. "The Dutch counter terror agency" reviewed 200 hours of airport security tapes and announced their conclusion that Abdulmutallab had no "accomplices," effectively questioning the accuracy of the Haskells' report. Security officials claimed  the Haskells' report by claiming that the video tape at Schiphol showed no one assisting Abdulmutallab at the ticket counter or anywhere else. The Haskells responded by saying, Show us the tape. At that point, "Federal agents" spoke to ABC's Brian Ross and said, Well, maybe there was a sharp dressed man and here's what he did.

This rejoinder by "Federal agents" is an endorsement of the reasonableness of the account by Kurt and Lori Haskell and, by implication, an admission that their account is correct.

Would Scanners Have Stopped Abdulmutallab?

We know that federal law enforcement quietly allowed the Haskell's story to stand through the statement to Brian Ross. Since key elements of the story have not been formally investigated, we don't know if Abdulmutallab went through normal check-in or if, as witnessed and indicated, he somehow bypassed normal security requirements. We don't know who the sharp dressed man is. We don't know the full extent of the system breakdown that allowed all of this to happen.
We do know that the bomber's father, Umaru Mutellab, one Africa's wealthiest individuals, told U.S. intelligence authorities that his son was a terrorist a month before the bombing. We also know that Abdulmutallab's name was placed in a terrorism database a month before the Christmas flight. However, his name was not transferred from that database to a watch list of 14,000 essentially nominated for the no-fly database, nor was the name transferred to the 4,000 member official no-fly list.

In the furor over the event, a clear voice emerged with a solution to future problems like that presented by the underwear bomber. Michael Chertoff, long time Bush national security official offered these unqualified assertions on December 27 in the Washington Post and December 28 in the New York Times:

Washington Post, Dec 27: "This plot is an example of something we've known could exist in theory, and in order to be able to detect it, you've got to find some way of detecting things in parts of the body that aren't easy to get at," Chertoff said. "It's either pat-downs or imaging, or otherwise hoping that bad guys haven't figured it out, and I guess bad guys have figured it out." 

New York Times, Dec. 28, 2009: "In recent days, Kip Hawley, the former T.S.A. director, and Michael Chertoff, the former homeland security secretary, have called for the rapid installation of a new generation of whole-body scanners that can look underneath clothing to search for hidden weapons or explosives, which officials consider the single most significant aviation threat today..."

From that point forward, the focus on preventing future terror threats to air travel focused on full body scanners. On January 15, 2010, the New York Times appended the December 28, 2009 article with this statement:

"Articles on Dec. 28, 29 and 30, about the apparent bombing attempt on a flight to Detroit, discussed the use of full-body scanners for airport security. They cited Michael Chertoff, the former secretary of homeland security, as supporting wider use of the scanners. Mr. Chertoff has confirmed in several recent interviews that a manufacturer of the devices is a client of his consulting company. That connection should have been noted in the articles."

Chertoff was caught red handed shilling for full body scanners in behalf of a company that was a client of Chertoff's consulting company. He was busted in public by the New York Times editor.
What was the outcome? Chertoff's original, self-interested assertion prevailed. We have full body scans headed for 1,000 airports and, for those who don't want the radiation, the national security grope, invasive searches of the passenger's genital area.

Never mind the first hand eye witness accounts by Kurt and Lori Haskell. Never mind the report by one of the most prominent public figures in Nigeria, the bombers father, that his son was a terrorist and the lack of decisive action on that tip off. Never mind the never released 200 hours of Dutch security footage that could have proven without a doubt the existence of a facilitator, the sharp dressed man who accompanies the bomber.

All of this reveals a systemic defect in anti-terrorism activities, one that, if corrected, could have more efficiently and effectively prevented future terror threats everywhere by logical changes in policies and practices. Instead of decisive action on this clearly documented problem, we now have full body scanners proposed by a Bush era security official with a clear conflict of interest.

Perpetual 9/11

The underwear bomber incident is, in some ways, 9/11 writ small. A credibly identified terrorist is allowed to board U.S. commercial airliner with little scrutiny. There is a tragic outcome. Clear breakdowns in security are exposed, breakdowns that make no real sense to citizens -- failure to put Abdulmutallab on the no-fly list, for example. Congress and others fail to truly examine any of this, while the public is whipped into a fury. Instead of a real solution, a serious, unflinching investigation into who was responsible and why crazy policies are in place that appear to coddle identified threats, we end up with a solution that makes little, if any sense -- full body scanners.

Full body scanners share a common trait with the misdirected solutions to avoid a future 9/11 -- the Patriot Act, illegal wiretapping, suspension of habeas corpus, torture, etc. The scanners represent a major intrusion into our lives, a violation of our rights, a likely health hazard, and a major diversion from the real issue at hand -- incompetence and/or deception in the handling of identified threats to the nation, individuals who somehow bypass the very security protections put in place to stop their attacks.

TSA and Airport Body SCanners

National Opt-Out Day
Nov 12 2010 by James Fallows

Items on security, security theater, a proper climate of caution, and an excessive climate of fear:

1) A very powerful column by Salon's Patrick Smith, in his "Ask the Pilot" series, explaining why media, politicians, and the public have collectively magnified potential terrorists' powers, by treating attacks on airliners as the worst imaginable threat to the nation. The column begins with surprising historical perspective. You'll be glad to have read it. Smith goes systematically through most of the justifications that have been advanced for airport-based security theater and lays out how extreme our reactions have become.

2) On the general climate of excess fearfulness, Fabius Maximus has an angry, trenchant article, here, about the media and internet (over) reaction to the purported missile contrail seen earlier this week in Southern California. Summary:

>>It's a serious weakness for America, since panic and fear are contagious. Someone with a bomb in his shoe, someone sending a few bombs in printer cartridges -- no matter how small the threat, each provokes extreme reactions. Large expenditures of funds, inconvenience to millions of people, loss of civil rights. On a larger scale, pointless foreign wars (WMD in Iraq!), torture of prisoners, and now Presidential orders to assassinate US citizens...It's hardly the behavior of a confident superpower.<<

For more on the "missile" launch, see AVweb, here.

3) Jeffrey Goldberg has given one perspective on the TSA "intimate pat-down" procedures that are the alternative to new "enhanced imaging" machines. A group of scientists from UCSF has offered their own reasons for concern. (PDF here; main issue is extra radiation risk.) So has the Libertarian Party of America, here. Just today I heard about "National Opt-Out Day" -- the proposal that on Nov 24, perhaps the busiest travel day of the year, passengers "opt out" of the new imaging systems and ask for the pat-down instead. Details here; images from the new scanners below, and here.

4) Go read Patrick Smith's column again. And, below, while this isn't really "serious," and has been previously publicized, why not (something similar is here):

Airport Body Scanners may be Dangerous According to Scientists

By Agence France-Presse
Friday, November 12th, 2010

WASHINGTON — US scientists warned Friday that the full-body, graphic-image X-ray scanners that are being used to screen passengers and airline crews at airports around the country may be unsafe.

"They say the risk is minimal, but statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays," Dr Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at Johns Hopkins University school of medicine, told AFP.

"No exposure to X-ray is considered beneficial. We know X-rays are hazardous but we have a situation at the airports where people are so eager to fly that they will risk their lives in this manner," he said.

The possible health dangers posed by the scanners add to passengers and airline crews' concerns about the devices, which have been dubbed "naked" scanners because of the graphic image they give of a person's body, genitalia and all.

A regional airline pilot last month refused to go through one of the scanners, calling it an "assault on my person" and a violation of his right to privacy.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) began rolling out full-body scanners at US airports in 2007, but stepped up deployment of the devices this year when stimulus funding made it possible to buy another 450 of the advanced imaging technology scanners.

A group of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) raised concerns about the "potential serious health risks" from the scanners in a letter sent to the White House Office of Science and Technology in April.

Biochemist John Sedat and his colleagues said in the letter that most of the energy from the scanners is delivered to the skin and underlying tissue.

"While the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high," they wrote.

The Office of Science and Technology responded this week to the scientists' letter, saying the scanners have been "tested extensively" by US government agencies and were found to meet safety standards.

But Sedat told AFP Friday that the official response was "deeply flawed."

"We still don't know the beam intensity or other details of their classified system," he said, adding that UCSF scientists were preparing a rebuttal to the White House statement.

Some 315 "naked" scanners are currently in use at 65 US airports, according to the TSA.

Full-Body Scan Technology Deployed In Street-Roving Vans

Andy Greenberg | Aug. 24 2010  | Forbes

As the privacy controversy around full-body security scans begins to simmer, it’s worth noting that courthouses and airport security checkpoints aren’t the only places where backscatter x-ray vision is being deployed. The same technology, capable of seeing through clothes and walls, has also been rolling out on U.S. streets.

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.

Here’s a video of the vans in action.



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.

It would also seem to make the vans mobile versions of the same scanning technique that’s riled privacy advocates as it’s been deployed in airports around the country. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is currently suing the DHS to stop airport deployments of the backscatter scanners, which can reveal detailed images of human bodies. (Just how much detail became clear last May, when TSA employee Rolando Negrin was charged with assaulting a coworker who made jokes about the size of Negrin’s genitalia after Negrin received a full-body scan.)

“It’s no surprise that governments and vendors are very enthusiastic about [the vans],” says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC. “But from a privacy perspective, it’s one of the most intrusive technologies conceivable.”

AS&E’s Reiss counters privacy critics by pointing out that the ZBV scans don’t capture nearly as much detail of human bodies as their airport counterparts. The company’s marketing materials say that its “primary purpose is to image vehicles and their contents,” and that “the system cannot be used to identify an individual, or the race, sex or age of the person.”

Though Reiss admits that the systems “to a large degree will penetrate clothing,” he points to the lack of features in images of humans like the one shown at right, far less detail than is obtained from the airport scans. “From a privacy standpoint, I’m hard-pressed to see what the concern or objection could be,” he says.

But EPIC’s Rotenberg says that the scans, like those in the airport, potentially violate the fourth amendment. “Without a warrant, the government doesn’t have a right to peer beneath your clothes without probable cause,” he says. Even airport scans are typically used only as a secondary security measure, he points out. “If the scans can only be used in exceptional cases in airports, the idea that they can be used routinely on city streets is a very hard argument to make.”

The TSA’s official policy dictates that full-body scans must be viewed in a separate room from any guards dealing directly with subjects of the scans, and that the scanners won’t save any images. Just what sort of safeguards might be in place for AS&E’s scanning vans isn’t clear, given that the company won’t reveal just which law enforcement agencies, organizations within the DHS, or foreign governments have purchased the equipment. Reiss says AS&E has customers on “all continents except Antarctica.”

Reiss adds that the vans do have the capability of storing images. “Sometimes customers need to save images for evidentiary reasons,” he says. “We do what our customers need.”

Airport Insecurity

A Whole New Level of Creepiness
By BETSY ROSS

I'm a 1K flyer, meaning I fly over 100,000 miles a year with United, and I consider myself fairly inured to the indignities of travel by now. But, going through my first Whole Body Back-Scatter X-ray at the Denver airport recently took frequent flying to a whole new level of creepiness.

The Homeland Security people obviously put a lot of thought into the implementation of this latest supposed "advance" in aircraft terror prevention.

Before the entrance to the X-ray chamber there was a little sign depicting fuzzy, colorless images of a stripped-down man and woman, which I suppose were meant to put us at ease by suggesting that what the examiners see is not the least bit personal or prurient.

If so, it didn't work. The depersonalized photos of the little nudes just reminded me of those grisly photos of concentration camp survivors, their bodies wasted by starvation, gaunt faces devoid of expression.

I could have refused, of course. But from what I’ve read, X-ray resisters risk penalties like extended, detailed grilling by Transportation Security Agency personnel and even police, plus a full-body pat-down. For all I know you could wind up being held for questioning and missing your flight, and I wanted to get home for the weekend.

As I entered the tall white chamber, with its automatic doors on front and back, a short, unobtrusive honey-haired female agent, clearly selected and trained for the task, approached me and gently showed me how to form a diamond with my fingers and raise my hands overhead.

The process itself was quick and painless. While I waited in the chamber, she chatted me up about the nature of my visit, keeping one eye fixed for the signal from whoever was inspecting my naked image that I was cleared to go.

A colleague who followed after me emerged from the chamber shaking her head like a cat with wet whiskers. "I never went through that before," she said.

She'll get used to it.

On the other hand, I happen to know that this young woman is hoping to start a family. What happens then? Obviously she cannot safely be X-rayed. But how do TSA agents know whether a young woman who claims to be two months pregnant know whether to believe her? Will they be handing out pregnancy test kits? (If claiming pregnancy means you get to skip the X-ray, doesn’t this just mean the next terrorist, instead of an underpants bomber, will be a comely young bra-or-panty bomber?

And how safe are these X-rays anyway? For my part, I’m already paranoid enough about exposure to free radicals (not to be confused with my editor) up in the stratosphere caused by the higher ambient radiation at that altitude. Now, I have to worry about getting zapped by what has to be a pretty powerful dose of radiation at zero elevation just to get on board. Sometime I’d like to see the actuarial stats on dying of “terminal” cancer versus from a terrorist attack on a plane.

Ironically, what is supposed to make us safer may actually be upping our risk of illness or death.

Plus, although it’s been a while, I haven't forgotten my high school Orwell. This security stuff is really getting out of hand, and it’s not just about airport X-rays.

Going the Brits, who are installing video surveillence cameras all over London, one better, the Chinese are installing cameras virtually everywhere to monitor the populace. This week the New York Times reports, under the subhead, "Explosion in surveillance helps China fight crime and also control dissent," that by the end of the year there will be 60,000 cameras in "restive" Urumqi, 479,000 video cameras in Beijing, 500 cameras in Chongding, and an incredible 1 million cameras installed in Guangdong. I wonder, can mass Whole Body Back-Scatter X-rays be far behind?

Anyway, the least Homeland Security could do is let us see our pictures. Maybe next time I’ll work up the courage to ask.

Coming Soon: Body Scanners at JFK, Newark, LaGuardia

By MARIA EUGENIA MIRANDA | Sat, Aug 7, 2010

Full body scanners that have stirred controversy for producing virtually naked images of airline passengers are coming to airports near you next month.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced that the hotly debated machines will be installed at Newark Liberty, John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia international airports in September. TSA officials contend that the technology allows security screeners to see non-metal weapons like explosives that go undetected by existing metal detectors.

In March 2010, the agency started sending out 450 machines, which were bought with funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Forty-one airports across the country already have the imaging technology installed at security checkpoints, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

While the TSA calls the technology less invasive than a pat-down, the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center is suing theDepartment of Homeland Security to stop the use of the machines, charging that the scanners are unconstitutional.

“Body scanners produce detailed, three-dimensional images of individuals,” the group states on its Web site. “Security experts have described whole body scanners as the equivalent of ‘a physically invasive strip-search.’”

Only passengers that are flagged for extra security screenings are asked to go stand in the machines for imaging.

The TSA has tried to allay the public’s privacy concerns by stating that the scanners cannot store naked images of travelers, but through a Freedom of Information Act request EPIC found that one of these machines at a courthouse in Florida had stored 35,314 images.

Acting director of the TSA, Gale Rossides, said in a letter to EPIC, “It seems that though the machines at airports are manufactured with the capability to store images, that capability is used in ‘testing mode’ only – and not at airports."

Feds admit storing checkpoint body scan images

by Declan McCullagh | August 4, 2010

TSA's X-ray backscatter scanning with "privacy filter"

For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they're viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that "scanned images cannot be stored or recorded."

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

(Credit: TSA.gov)

This follows an earlier disclosure (PDF) by the TSA that it requires all airport body scanners it purchases to be able to store and transmit images for "testing, training, and evaluation purposes." The agency says, however, that those capabilities are not normally activated when the devices are installed at airports.


Body scanners penetrate clothing to provide a highly detailed image so accurate that critics have likened it to a virtual strip search. Technologies vary, with millimeter wave systems capturing fuzzier images, and backscatter X-ray machines able to show precise anatomical detail. The U.S. government likes the idea because body scanners can detect concealed weapons better than traditional magnetometers.

This privacy debate, which has been simmering since the days of the Bush administration, came to a boil two weeks ago when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that scanners would soon appear at virtually every major airport. The updated list includes airports in New York City, Dallas, Washington, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle, and Philadelphia.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, has filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to grant an immediate injunction pulling the plug on TSA's body scanning program. In a separate lawsuit, EPIC obtained a letter (PDF) from the Marshals Service, part of the Justice Department, and released it on Tuesday afternoon.

These "devices are designed and deployed in a way that allows the images to be routinely stored and recorded, which is exactly what the Marshals Service is doing," EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg told CNET. "We think it's significant."

William Bordley, an associate general counsel with the Marshals Service, acknowledged in the letter that "approximately 35,314 images...have been stored on the Brijot Gen2 machine" used in the Orlando, Fla. federal courthouse. In addition, Bordley wrote, a Millivision machine was tested in the Washington, D.C. federal courthouse but it was sent back to the manufacturer, which now apparently possesses the image database.

The Gen 2 machine, manufactured by Brijot of Lake Mary, Fla., uses a millimeter wave radiometer and accompanying video camera to store up to 40,000 images and records. Brijot boasts that it can even be operated remotely: "The Gen 2 detection engine capability eliminates the need for constant user observation and local operation for effective monitoring. Using our APIs, instantly connect to your units from a remote location via the Brijot Client interface."

TSA's millimeter wave body scan

(Credit: TSA.gov)

This trickle of disclosures about the true capabilities of body scanners--and how they're being used in practice--is probably what alarms privacy advocates more than anything else.

A 70-page document (PDF) showing the TSA's procurement specifications, classified as "sensitive security information," says that in some modes the scanner must "allow exporting of image data in real time" and provide a mechanism for "high-speed transfer of image data" over the network. (It also says that image filters will "protect the identity, modesty, and privacy of the passenger.")

"TSA is not being straightforward with the public about the capabilities of these devices," Rotenberg said. "This is the Department of Homeland Security subjecting every U.S. traveler to an intrusive search that can be recorded without any suspicion--I think it's outrageous." EPIC's lawsuit says that the TSA should have announced formal regulations, and argues that the body scanners violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "unreasonable" searches.

TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz told CNET on Wednesday that the agency's scanners are delivered to airports with the image recording functions turned off. "We're not recording them," she said. "I'm reiterating that to the public. We are not ever activating those capabilities at the airport."

The TSA maintains that body scanning is perfectly constitutional: "The program is designed to respect individual sensibilities regarding privacy, modesty and personal autonomy to the maximum extent possible, while still performing its crucial function of protecting all members of the public from potentially catastrophic events."

Airport body scanners deliver radiation dose 20 times higher than first thought, warns expert

By Daily Mail Reporter | 30th June 2010

Full body scanners at airports could increase your risk of skin cancer, experts warn.

The X-ray machines have been brought in at Manchester, Gatwick and Heathrow.

But scientists say radiation from the scanners has been underestimated and could be particularly risky for children.

They say that the low level beam does deliver a small dose of radiation to the body but because the beam concentrates on the skin - one of the most radiation-sensitive organs of the human body - that dose may be up to 20 times higher than first estimated.



Dr David Brenner, head of Columbia University's centre for radiological research, said although the danger posed to the individual passenger is 'very low', he is urging researchers to carry out more tests on the device to look at the way it affects specific groups who could be more sensitive to radiation.

He says children and passengers with gene mutations - around one in 20 of the population - are more at risk as they are less able to repair X-ray damage to their DNA.

Dr Brenner, who is originally from Liverpool but now works at the New York university, said: 'The individual risks associated with X-ray backscatter scanners are probably extremely small.

'If all 800 million people who use airports every year were screened with X-rays then the very small individual risk multiplied by the large number of screened people might imply a potential public health or societal risk. The population risk has the potential to be significant.'

Following trials, the airport scanners were officially introduced at Manchester Airport in January, at Heathrow Terminal 4 in February and at Gatwick in May this year.

The most likely risk from the airport scanners is a common type of skin cancer called basal cell carcinoma, according to the academic.

The cancer is usually curable and often occurs in the head and neck of people aged between 50 and 70. He points out it would be difficult to hide a weapon on the head or neck so proposes missing out that part of the body from the scanning process.

'If there are increases in cancers as a result of irradiation of children, they would most likely appear some decades in the future. It would be prudent not to scan the head and neck,' he added.

He recently aired his concerns to the Congressional Biomedical Caucus in the US - members of Congress who meet to exchange ideas on medical research.

Dr Brenner urged them to look at his concerns but said it was important to balance any health issues against passengers' safety when flying.

He said: 'There really is no other technology around where we're planning to X-ray such an enormous number of individuals. It's really unprecedented in the radiation world.'

The Civil Aviation Authority, Department for Transport and Health Protection Agency insist that the technology is safe and say their tests show it would take 5,000 trips through the scanner to equal the dose of a single chest X-ray.

They said in the climate of high security, it is essential that security staff use 'all means possible' to minimise risks to airline security.

The CAA said: 'The device has been approved for use within the UK by the Department for Transport and has been subjected to risk assessments from the Health Protection Agency.

'To put the issue in perspective, the radiation received from the scanning process is the equivalent to two minutes radiation received on a Transatlantic flight.

'Recent press publications have been a little alarmist and may have heightened concern in frequent travellers who may worry about their repeated exposure.

'Under current regulations, up to 5,000 scans per person per year can be conducted safely.'