Safety, Security, Freedom

I have thought long and hard over the past several years about the above mentioned items for my writings this week and feel I should air my opinions on these matters.

Way back near the turn of the century we all remember when terrorists attacked us on our own soil. What followed amazed me and continues to this very day. The champions of freedom decided that from then on going forward, for safety and security, our freedoms should be diminished. There is and always will be an eternal tug of war that balances security with freedom but I don’t think there has to be. I must admit I think it is odd that the people who foisted this upon us would a few short years later shriek with all their might that an opposing political party was robbing the people of their God given freedoms would be the same ones who used fear to take other freedoms.

The Patriot Act allows our government to search United States citizens without approval by the courts showing cause but merely by suspecting citizens of wrongdoing. I allow our government to detain us for no predetermined amount of time and without the ability to face our accusers or the right to a speedy trial by a jury of our peers. Let this all soak in for a moment if you were unaware. Any person who is a member of the NRA or ACLU has to cringe at this loss of rights; any person who wants a return to a more constitutional way of doing things must be disgusted by these laws. Republicans say and do nothing about the Patriot Act, they thought the damn thing up, but rest assured the Democrats with a super majority will address this clearly unconstitional law, nothing, nada, squat. Both parties refuse to address it under what I am sure is the guise that it is keeping us safe and if a few citizens get unjustly labeled an enemy combatant, I am sure the government has good reason, or the guy is sleeping with the wrong guys’ wife. But be reassuered that maybe someday the supreme court will weigh in on this one.

Another dandy imposed by the newly minted Department of Homeland Security was the wonderful TSA that costs us all dearly, pays poorly, and frisks us all regularly. I object to the TSA just on a cost basis alone and I don’t think they do a whole lot to keep us safe anyway but here is what I think on the entire boondoggle. We shouldn’t have a Dept. of Homeland Security, the FBI and NSA can more than handle it, we shouldn’t have a Patriot Act that robs us of freedoms. I think the price of freedom, true freedom, is much, much higher. I think the price of freepom is higher than our young men crossing an ocean, spilling their blood, and dying on some foreign soil. I think the price of freedom demands more than just my life, the true price of freedom is the lives of my children. Security should do what it can but to truly be free we must ALL be willing to lay down our lives for it. I may very well be wrong but I would rather live a truly free life and risk it being taken by someone who hates it for me, than give them to others, including my own government. Do away with the TSA and DHS, bomb us and destroy a major city or two if you must, just know you are killing and bombing people that are free, and will always be so, until we take it away from ourselves.

In TSA You Can Trust

Maybe you can trust TSA but I hear too many stories like this one. That and growing up in Europe in the 80's when terrorism was always a real threat has made it so that my bags never leave my sight not even for the agents of TSA.

Terri Ivester says, “The TSA agent holds my backpack up, and um, says there’s a water bottle in this backpack, I’m going to have to take that.”

That’s when Ivester says the agent left the area with her bag.

Sorry, I would never have left my bag unattended with such unsavory folks like a TSA agent.

So what happened to the poor person who trusted the government agent?

She realized she was missing four pieces including a single strand of pearls and a double strand bracelet totaling $3,700.

Scared yet? It goes on.

The Transportation Security Administration recently revealed that 382 of its agents have been fired for theft in the past ten years. According to Nacara, six TSA agents have been fired from Logan out of the thousands hired. He says Logan’s high-tech security camera system closely monitors checkpoints and is often used to resolve cases of theft.

Don't trust TSA...ever.

Why I Always Opt Out From TSA's Super Scanners

This is an old story but it is the reason that I always opt out of the TSA super scanners. Always.

The bottom line is that TSA has insisted that their machines cannot store images.

As reported by Declan McCullagh of CNET at the time, "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."

The images EPIC obtained were accompanied by a letter (PDF), in which William Bordley, an associate general counsel with the Marshals Service, admits that "approximately 35,314 images" have been stored on the Brijot Gen2 machine" used in the Orlando, Fla. federal courthouse.

Brijot, the manufacturer of the body scanning equipment in question, also admits that its machine can store up to 40,000 images and records.

Whoops. Last November I had a TSA agent insist that the images are not stored by TSA...so they are still maintaining this lie.

In fact, it is mandatory to save the images.

EPIC, has filed two further lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security over the scanners, claiming that the DHS has refused to release at least 2,000 images it has stored from scanners currently in use in U.S. airports. It is believed that these images are the more detailed "naked" ones that are causing so much furor.

The group points to a further document (PDF) it has obtained from DHS showing that the machines used by the department's TSA are not only able to record and store naked body images, but that they are mandated to do so.

The TSA has admitted that this is the case, but claims that it is for training and testing purposes only, maintaining that the body scanners used at airports cannot "store, print or transmit images".

How comfortable are you going through those now?

TSA maintains that even though there is the capability (and the policy) to save the images (and not the cartoon-like images you see after you go through the machine but the detailed ones seen in the back room) there is not the ability to transmit them. But then how is it that the images are able to be distributed in the first place?

How detailed are the images? Well, I am not putting them up on the blog for one. But see if this describes it well enough.

Journalists who researched trials of the technology reported that the images made genitals "eerily visible".

German Security advisor Hans-Detlef Dau, a representative for a company that sells the scanners, admits that the machines, "show intimate piercings, catheters and the form of breasts and penises".

Images on the TSA's own website produced by backscatter devices also show that genitals are visible.

And a little more about how fuzzy or not fuzzy private areas are.

Multiple incidents over the past months have proven that the TSA and other airport security authorities worldwide have been engaging in a monumental public relations cover-up by suggesting the machine do not show crisp images of naked bodies.

In May it was reported that a TSA worker in Miami attacked a colleague who had made fun of his small penis after he passed through a scanner device. A similar controversy unfolded in March when an airport worker at Heathrow was caught ogling a a female colleague's breasts after she passed through one of the devices, commenting, "I love those gigantic tits".

That is just dealing with their story on the naked scanning capabilities of the machines. When it comes to safety their story is uniformly that the machines are safe. Given the track record through its entire history I find it highly difficult to suddenly trust that they are truthful on this one matter, the matter of safety.

If their demonstrated track record of honesty is an indication then these machines are likely to be pretty dangerous as well.

So, remember that when you are travelling you are NOT obligated to go through the scanners. You just have to tell them "Opt-out". You do NOT have to answer any question regarding your choice to opt-out. My advice, especially to women, is to have a public pat down.