Not long at all…
by CmdrFenix on Feb.09, 2010, under General
I hate to say “I told you so”, but I can’t resist here. Let me be brutally clear about my feelings on this. I do NOT trust anything the TSA is saying about this scanning technology. I do not trust the TSA at all. What about my friend’s 7 yr old kid? IMHO the TSA officers on duty and their supervisors should be brought up on charges of child porn for even introducing this technology.
Claims on behalf of authorities that naked body scanner images are immediately destroyed after passengers pass through new x-ray backscatter devices have been proven fraudulent after it was revealed that naked images of Indian film star Shahrukh Khan were printed out and circulated by airport staff at Heathrow in London.
This is a flagrant violation of the 4th amendment of the US Constitution, which protects us from unreasonable search and seizure. Metal detectors? OK. Chemical sniffing machines? OK. Dogs? OK. I am not saying we need to eliminate all security measures, but I’m sorry a strip search to fly every time? Where does the line get crossed between protecting ourselves and doing the work of the terrorists ourselves? Seriously? You can’t protect this country by destroying our freedoms and rights. When nobody can be safe on their own person, we’ve lost and they win.
If this ever came down as a mandate in the US like it is abroad I will totally boycott air travel and I would hope others would join me. If it did come down about mandating this, it would be a VERY sad day indeed.
February 9th, 2010 on 3:20 pm
Agree 100%, those scanners are scary. What they represent is even worse still.
February 10th, 2010 on 10:09 am
Should I point out that Heathrow is not in the US, and thereby isn’t in the jurisdiction of the US Constitution? Also, the TSA is a department of the US Department of Homeland Security, and probably doesn’t have jurisdiction in Heathrow either.
Basically, I wouldn’t fly off the handle saying the TSA lied to us over an incident in an airport that they have no control over.
February 11th, 2010 on 10:13 pm
Of course its not. The concern is the technology, which has been rolled out in this country, but for the moment we have a choice. The point to this article was to say, “Hey if this technology, which is also used in the UK is used here, how do we know they can’t save the pictures here?” I never said the TSA lied about this incident. To sum it up. I said I do no trust them to administer this form of evasive technology. I consider the scanner itself to be a violation of our constitution. You can of course read into it how ever you wish, but that was my intent.