As the disclosure of the true capabilities of body scanners trickles in, the lies and deceptions of TSA are revealed.
Trying to downplay the intrusion of privacy, the TSA has routinely claimed that the body scanner produces a "ghostly" or "skeletal" electronic image as TSA spokeswoman Kristin Lee puts it: "resembles a fuzzy negative."
However, readily available prints of the body scanning images clearly show high quality detail of naked male and female bodies. In fact, backscatter machines produce images on the TSA's website that make genitals distinctly visible.
In addition, TSA spokesperson Sari Koshetz said, "The equipment sent by the manufacturer to airports CANNOT store, transmit, or print, and operators at airports do not have the capability to activate any such function."
But, CNET reported that a full body millimeter device in a Florida federal courthouse did store more than thirty thousands of images for the U.S. Marshal Service - a division of the Department of Justice.
In fact, Department of Homeland Security's 70-page document (PDF) , obtained by the EPIC in a lawsuit against the U.S. Marshals Service, reveals that the TSA body scanners are not only able to record, send, and store naked body images, but that they must be made to do so.
In defense, Koshetz declares, "TSA has not, will not, and the machines cannot store images of passengers at airports."
Considering that the TSA being so reluctant in revealing the full capabilities of body scanners to the public and that lurking around the body scanners are military men and intelligence operatives, can anyone really TRUST what the TSA say and do?
4. What laws has TSA's body scanner program violated?
The TSA's body scanner program violates fundamental privacy laws, not to mention backscatter device threatens a large human population with health risks of cancer or death and endangers the human race with genetic mutation.
The TSA's body scanner program assaults all individuals - young and old, male and female - and strips personal freedom protected by the Privacy Act, the Fourth Amendment, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act.
The Privacy Act protects the privacy of individuals. The constitutional Fourth Amendment prohibits "unreasonable" searches that the body scanners perform as "virtual strip" searches. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act protects individuals or groups against government actions that unreasonably interfere with religious practices, such as Muslims have the right to refuse body scanning. The Video Voyeurism Prevention Act prohibits the intentional "capture [of] an image of a private area of an individual without their consent".
5. Who profits from the Naked Full-Body Scanner Boom?
Of course, the military industrial complex defense contractors are the ones making huge profits from the sale of thousands of the naked imaging scanners.
Michael Chertoff, who is the former DHS secretary under President George W. Bush and co-author of the USA Patriot Act (stripping individual rights), now heads the Chertoff Group that represents the defense contractor, Rapiscan Systems. In fact, Chertoff ordered the government's first batch of the backscatter devices from Rapiscan in 2005.
Not surprisingly, Chertoff, one of Bush's point men responsible for bringing America down to its present police state, pushes for body scanners that violate human rights and human decency. Days after the failed Christmas bombing attempt in 2009, Chertoff made the rounds on the media promoting the scanners.
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