Back in March, I
posted my two cents about the body scanning technology in airports. With the recent experience of
John Tyner and the growing
controversy backlash, I decided to add another two cents.
1) If you don't already think that this is a serious invasion of privacy, read this quote from
Andy Greenberg's article on the same technology available (and by the way, is
currently used) in moving vans:
"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.)"
2) All that scanning is a safety issue, and not for transportation security but a health risk for passengers, and more so for the TSA agents and airport employees. The exposure to all that radiation has long-term consequences, which no one in TSA seems to have addressed. The current technology used in airports deals with radiation. It is not in as high doses as the Hiroshima bomb (duh!), but seriously, do you want to be exposed to radiation that is scattered? When you get an X-ray, why do you think the technicians ask if you are pregnant (if you are female), or why they stand behind a lead wall ,or why they put a lead "armor" on you, depending on what you are getting X-rayed? It's RADIATION, folks! Doesn't matter whether it is millimeter wave or backscatter technology -- they are both radiation. Persons most at risk (listed in order of amount of exposure): TSA agents, airport employees, vendors in the terminal, pilots (note that pilots' unions have urged a boycott of body scanners), flight attendants, frequent fliers, children and pregnant women.
3) Apparently the TSA policy of alternative options to body scanning (supposedly optional) is not available in all locations -- the ability to opt out apparently depends on the TSA agent you get. There are a number of reports of people threatened with legal consequences, as well as being dished emotional trauma and mistreatment, and at least one report of a pregnant woman who was coerced into going through the body scanner. Among the arguments used was "You get ultrasounds, don't you?" Ignoramus maximus! First of all, ultrasound is not radiation. Totally different! Even if it were the same, radiation is not a good thing for anybody! Secondly, doctors limit ultrasounds to a minimum for the sake of the baby because it's not good for the babies either!
4) By the way, TSA has acknowledged this in the most limited sense: those body scanning images can be (and sometimes are) stored. Surprised?
5) As I have said before, there are alternative technologies out there. (Funny how the media doesn't really report on them... but that's another post) One such technology is thermal imaging. In a nutshell, you take a thermal read of the person. Our body temperature is afterall hotter than room temperature. Anything that blocks that heat from radiating from the body to the scanner shows up on the image. Left your iPhone or extra small notebook in your pocket? No problem, they'll see the heat signature blocked and have you empty your pocket... without seeing all of you.
There are many articles out there decrying the use of the current body scanners in airports, venting public frustrations with TSA, and so on and so forth. Here are just a handful for your reading pleasure.
My personal take: I do not approve of having my privacy violated beyond what my primary doctor can see/do and I most certainly do not agree with a government-sanctioned molestation in the form of over-zealous pat-downs. With that being said, I am probably not flying for a long time.
Quoting part of the Declaration of Independence (bold mine):
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security...He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance...He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power."
I am not advocating any sort of physical revolt or anything violent or what not, but Big Brother, I highly recommend you look at the alternative technologies and use smart screening or you could have a revolt on your hands for being an oppressive government.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety".
~Benjamin Franklin
