Infowars.com
December 16, 2010
The TSA has once again denied that the crisp naked images produced by x-ray imaging machines can be captured and stored, a claim already shown to be false by documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
In response to reports that former “Baywatch” star Donna D’Errico’s body scan image may be leaked into the public domain, a TSA spokesman told AOL News that it would be impossible:
“The scanners that we use are not equipped to save the images,” Nico Melendez insisted.
“There are similar scanners used by the U.S. Marshals’ office, but not the TSA.” Melendez added.
This claim has been repeated several times by TSA officials, as well as by Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano.
“The imaging technology that we use cannot store, export, print or transmit images.” Napolitano wrote in a propaganda piece last month.
As we have previously detailed, the images that show in detail the naked genitals of men, women and children that have passed through the scanners can indeed be transmitted and printed.
As reported by Declan McCullagh of CNET earlier this year, “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 proof comes in the form of a letter (PDF), obtained by The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), 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.
EPIC says it has also obtained more than 100 images of electronically stripped individuals from the scanning devices used at federal courthouses. The disclosures come as part of a settlement of an EPIC Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the U.S. Marshals Service.
Brijot, the manufacturer of the body scanning equipment in question, also admits that its machine can store up to 40,000 images and records.
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.
EPIC’s lawsuit argues that the body scanners violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits “unreasonable” searches, as well as the Privacy Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, referencing religious laws about modesty.
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”.
This was confirmed in a letter sent to Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, at approximately the same time the government initially claimed the machines are safe and cannot save images. In fact, this ability is a government requirement.
“TSA requires AIT machines to have the capability to retain and export imagines (sic) only for testing, training, and evaluation purposes,” states a Homeland Security letter dated February 24, 2010 and signed by Gale D. Rossides, Acting Administrator.
Read the entire article
No comments:
Post a Comment