Full-body scanner cannot replace diplomacy but imposes indecency on billions. Law says indecent exposure is crime, doesn't it?

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infowars.com: Friday, January 8, 2010 - The full body scanners that President Obama last night authorized to be rolled out in airports across the country at a cost of over $1 billion dollars not only produce detailed pictures of your genitals, but once inverted some of those images also display your naked body in full living color. Airport screeners will have access to huge high definition images that, once inverted, will allow them to see every minute detail of your body. TV viewers have been misled by blurring of faces and genitals of people in the images. When it comes to the real thing, your sexual organs and those of your children will be on full display to officials sat alone in back rooms, and with a simple inversion trick, your daughter’s naked body in full living high definition color will be there to be enjoyed by screeners.
As we reported yesterday, claims that the body scanners did not provide details of genitals were disproven after a London Guardian journalist who was present at a trial for the machines earlier this week reported that the devices produce an image which make “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”. It is important to stress that this is a low resolution image. Airport screeners will have access to huge high definition images that, once inverted, will allow them to see every minute detail of your body.

And you don’t need to be a graphics wizard using a $600 software suite like Photoshop to pull off the trick – inverting a photo is a simple process that takes one click and is an option available even in the most basic image editing software. We were sent examples of the process by readers and then tested it for ourselves to confirm that simply inverting some of the pictures produced by the body scanners creates a near-perfect replica of a naked body in full color. It is important to stress that this is a low resolution image. Airport screeners will have access to huge high definition images that, once inverted, will allow them to see every minute detail of your body.

The inversion trick doesn’t work for all the sample images produced by body scanners, but with or without its application, every image will still show details of your sexual organs. Even without being inverted, the images already break child porn laws in the UK.
Reassurances that airport screeners won’t be able to save the images will provide little comfort to parents who know that the crystal clear image of their naked son or daughter being ogled by a TSA thug can merely be snapped with a handheld camera for their enjoyment later. Apologists for the scanners have routinely described the images they produce as “ghostly” or “skeletal” in an effort to downplay the intrusion of privacy they really represent.

As we reported yesterday, claims that the body scanners did not provide details of genitals were DISPROVEN after a London Guardian journalist who was present at a trial for the machines earlier this week reported that the devices produce an image which make “genitals eerily visible.” Indeed, as was admitted when the scanners were first being rolled out over a year ago, they don’t function properly if areas of the body are blurred out. A report from October 2008, when the naked body scanners were first being introduced at Melbourne Airport in Australia, detailed how the X-ray backscatter devices don’t work properly unless the genitals of people going through them are visible.

“It will show the private parts of people, but what we’ve decided is that we’re not going to blur those out, because it severely limits the detection capabilities,” said Office of Transport Security manager Cheryl Johnson. “It is possible to see genitals and breasts while they’re going through the machine,” she admitted.

TV news reports have been deliberately misleading viewers by blurring out faces and genitals of people in images produced by the scanners. When it comes to the real thing, your sexual organs and those of your children will be on full display to officials sat alone in back rooms, and with a simple inversion trick, your daughter’s naked body in full living high definition color will be there to be enjoyed by screeners.

Body Scanner Would Not Have Stopped Underwear Bomber

The explosive device smuggled in the clothing of the Detroit bomb suspect would not have been detected by body-scanners set to be introduced in British airports, an expert on the technology warned last night. Officials at the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Home Office have already tested the scanners and were not persuaded that they would work comprehensively against terrorist threats to aviation. The claim severely undermines Gordon Brown’s focus on hi-tech scanners for airline passengers as part of his review into airport security after the attempted attack on Flight 253 on Christmas Day. The Independent on Sunday has also heard authoritative claims that officials at the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Home Office have already tested the scanners and were not persuaded that they would work comprehensively against terrorist threats to aviation.

criminal-law-lawyer-source.com: Indecent exposure is a crime that is defined as exposing one's genitals or socially deemed "private parts" (such as behind or breasts) in a public place where others are present and may witness the act. A person who commits indecent exposure does so intentionally with an understanding that his/her conduct will likely alarm and offend others.

onlinelawyersource.com: - Indecent Exposure - Although generally considered a misdemeanor, a conviction of indecent exposure carries a social stigma that may haunt the convicted person for years to come, even a lifetime.Persons convicted of indecent exposure may be required to register as sex offenders in a national database. A conviction for indecent exposure on one's record can also prevent the accused from being able to gain or keep employment. People accused of or convicted for indecent exposure may also suffer unwarranted public disgrace and humiliation, social shunning, and may even become the targets of violence.

Huffington Post: A Northern Virginia man was arrested and charged with indecent exposure after brewing coffee naked in his own home. Eric Williamson, 29, said he did not know he could be seen. There is a school bus stop in front of his house. "Yes, I wasn't wearing any clothes but I was alone, in my own home and just got out of bed. It was dark and I had no idea anyone was outside looking in at me," Williamson told MyFoxDC.com. "I'm a loving dad-- any of my friends would tell you that," he said. "There is not a chance on this planet I would ever, ever do anything like that to a kid." Fairfax police say that, according to a witness, Williamson wanted to be seen naked. If convicted, he could be fined $2,000 and spend a year in jail.

Yakima Herald: Yakima city officials have for more than a year wrung their hands about so-called sexpresso stands, latte joints in which women in lingerie, bikinis or other saucy attire attract as much attention as the coffee. Yakima has three while Union Gap has one. "We receive complaints on a regular basis," Martinez said. Meanwhile, former Mayor Dave Edler has often spoken out against them. City Council briefly discussed regulating them as adult businesses but settled for changes in the city's indecent exposure laws that made thong underwear and see-through clothing illegal.

New York Times: Citizens of Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria, countries that are considered “state sponsors of terrorism,” as well as those of “countries of interest” — including Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen — will face the special scrutiny, officials said.

*Update Nov. 21, 2011*
Europe Bans Airport X-Ray Scanners. Should the U.S. Follow Suit?

As millions of American travelers take to the airways this Thanksgiving, they will increasingly face the new generation of full-body scanners at airport security — including the kind that Europe just banned for reasons of "health and safety."

In its new airport security policy, the European Commission announced on Nov. 14 that it would ban the controversial "backscatter" X-ray machines, which emit ionized radiation, from all airports in the European Union's 27 member nations "in order not to risk jeopardizing citizens' health and safety."

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), meanwhile, has rolled out about 250 backscatter X-ray machines across the country. It has also installed some 260 millimeter-wave scanners, which do the same job but use low-energy radio waves instead of X-rays. Millimeter-wave scanners are allowed at European airports.

Both devices display reasonably accurate images of your body, beneath your clothes, helping airport security workers to spot hidden weapons or explosives that wouldn't be caught by metal detectors. The difference is that millimeter waves don't cause cancer, while cumulative, high doses of X-ray exposure are a known carcinogen.

"What makes X-rays different is the fact that they're more energetic," says Dr. David J. Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Medical Center. "They have enough energy to knock an electron out of an atom. Basically, if that atom happened to be in DNA, [X-rays] could break strands of DNA in a way that millimeter waves simply can't because they don't have enough energy." In other words, X-rays have enough energy to cause a DNA mutation that can trigger cancer, while millimeter waves don't.

The TSA and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) maintain that backscatter X-ray scanners emit such low levels of radiation - equivalent to the radiation you'd get in about two minutes of flying, according to the TSA - that any resulting increase in cancer risk would be negligible. Some scientists say, however, that even if any one individual's risk of developing cancer from scanner radiation exposure remains low, when you consider the risks accrued over time by an entire population - say, the 100 million Americans who fly each year - the machines pose a potential public-health danger.

Brenner further points to the lack of independent and clinical data on backscatter X-ray safety as a reason not to use the devices. "By all accounts both machines are equally effective and the TSA is buying both kinds of machines, which cost about the same and have the same efficiency," says Brenner. "So it seems to me a strange decision to use the backscatter machine, where you don't really know what the risks are; the biggest issue is the uncertainty. And it's going to be 30 years before the cancers start to appear. I'm not sure why you'd want to take that risk."

The current data on radiation exposure from backscatter machines comes largely from the government and from the scanner's manufacturer. As Alice Park noted last year at the time of the devices' public debut, some scientists think the exposure hasn't been measured correctly:

"After studying the degree of detail obtained in the seconds-long scans, the scientists wondered how the [stated] radiation exposure could be so low. The answer, they concluded, lay in how the manufacturer and government officials measured the dose: by averaging the exposure from the beam over the volume of the entire body. This is how scientists measure exposure from medical X-rays, which are designed to zap straight through bone and tissue. But backscatter beams skim the body's surface. Sedat and his colleagues maintain that if the dose were based only on skin exposure, the result would be 10 to 20 times the manufacturer's calculations.

That's a huge difference, but the higher amount, TSA and FDA officials maintain, still falls within the limits of safe radiation exposure. Based on measurements conducted by the FDA as well as by technicians at Johns Hopkins University and elsewhere, says the FDA's Daniel Kassiday, 'We are confident that full-body-X-ray security products and practices do not pose a significant risk to the public health.'"

In testimony before the Senate earlier this month, TSA administrator John Pistole agreed to a request by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) for an independent analysis of the radiation emitted from the devices. Then, later, he said he had received a draft report on the scanners by the inspector general of DHS that might obviate the need for a new study.

"What I asked for - and what the administrator committed to - was an independent study on the health effects of AIT (advanced imaging technology) machines, not just a study on whether TSA is doing an adequate job of inspecting, maintaining and operating AIT machines, which I understand is the approach" of the inspector general's report, said Collins in a statement.

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Can we safely say that no technological device can keep terrorists from boarding airplanes with explosive materials? Employing diplomacy to bring peace back probably makes more sense. Really.

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