The Consumer Travel Alliance feels that this effort is a step in the right direction for airport and airline security. Unlike the whole-body scanners that have not been fully tested, that admittedly cannot detect many explosives in powder form or when hidden in body cavities, and that subject Americans to the indignity of a virtual strip search, ETD provides an acceptable layer of security. It is focused on explosives, it has been tested extensively over years of use, and the method is non-invasive, protecting personal dignity.

The Consumer Travel Alliance emphasizes that this security procedure and the others utilized at airports are not the first line of defense against terrorist activity. The real guts and focus of our nation’s antiterrorist activities must be intelligence gathering and effective coordination between agencies responsible for updating and maintaining our terrorist watchlist.

Policies must be put in place to deal quickly with false positives such as from passengers who may have been fertilizing their lawn or planting shrubs prior to arriving at the airport; for anyone legitimately engaged in hunting, shooting activities or simply striking matches; for anyone taking nitroglycerin
for medical purposes or working with explosives. These are all know to produce false positives. Even a very small percentage of false positives will create a negative perception of these new security procedure.

With all of the privacy concerns being registered regarding the whole-body scanners, we don’t even know if the machines work … we’re just taking the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA’s) word. And TSA doesn’t really know if these scanners really work and can’t be circumvented.

What we have here, based on fairly basic research, is an expensive new whole-body scanner technology being deployed nationwide by TSA over the howls of numerous privacy groups, without independent testing, using the manufacturers’ claims, all being lead by the former head of the Department of Homeland Security saying, basically, trust us.
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During a House Committee on Science and Technology, Subcommittee on Technology and innovation hearing last week, Homeland Security Undersecretary Brad Buswell and Dr. Penrose Albright, Principal Associate Director for Global Security at the Livermore National Laboratory, noted that full-blown studies to create what amounts to an artificial dog’s nose are funded and underway.

The dog’s nose is the Holy Grail for bomb detection.
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Yesterday, the House Science and Technology Committee, Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation held hearings about airport screening research and development. Chaired by David Wu (D-OR), the subcommittee surprisingly focused on passenger acceptance of the of the new technology rather than on technologies themselves.
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Originally published by Edward Hasbrouck on PapersPlease.org.

Already this week the TSA was caught in a lie about what it likes to call whole body imaging (virtual strip search) machines, when the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) obtained documents showing that, despite TSA claims that “this state-of-the-art technology cannot store, print, transmit or save the image,” the TSA actually requires all of these capabilities — image storage, printing, and transmission — as part of the contract specifications for the body scanners.

But the TSA can’t seem to keep their nose from growing: the post in their official propaganda blog responding to EPIC’s analysis of TSA documents contains even more lies about what they see when they look under your clothes with these machines.

According to the TSA blog, “Below, you will see accurate examples of what our officers see while using advanced imaging technology. Anything else you see is inaccurate.”

Above, we’ve linked directly to the images on the TSA website, exactly as sized and posted by them.

In fact, it’s the images posted by the TSA that are inaccurate and misleading. The actual images seen by the people in the back room (they watch you through your clothes, but you can’t watch them) are: (1) full-screen, not thumbnail-sized like those the TSA posted in their blog, (2) higher-resolution than those on the TSA blog, and (3) capable of being zoomed even larger, on the actual TSA displays, using the magnifying-glass tool in the lower right corner of the TSA-provided thumbnails.

Accurate images are visible in the video below (although even if you click through to the full-screen version the video doesn’t have as high resolution as the displays used by the TSA, especially when they zoom in on areas of the body that attract their interest):

Note also that the video clearly demonstrates that the TSA policy for pat-down searches to be performed by a person of the same gender won’t be applied to the virtual strip-searchers.

EPIC has now filed another FOIA lawsuit against the TSA for failing to disclose what the images look like. Notably, the EPIC complaint filed in court today confirms that our experience with the ongoing TSA FOIA black hole wasn’t an isolated incident. EPIC’s request for expedited FOIA processing was made on July 2, 2009 — more than six months ago — and referred to the TSA by the DHS on July 16, 2009. On July 31, 2009, EPIC filed an administrative appeal of the constructive denial of its request. An expedited request should have been acted on within 10 days, and an appeal within twenty days. But to date, according to the complaint, the TSA has made no response whatsoever to either the request or the appeal. In our experience, this is typical of the TSA’S complete contempt for the FOIA law.

We aren’t reassured by the TSA’s further claim in the same blog post that, “These machines are not networked, so they cannot be hacked.” Apparently they’ve never heard of an inside job, or anyone hacking a computer from the keyboard. (Security hint to the TSA: The keyboard is the easy way way, compared to having to carry out an attack over a network.) That just reconfirms that the TSA’s threat model is grossly deficient and that they aren’t really even trying to rein in the temptations (can you say, “naked celebrity pix”?) that the virtual strip-searchers inevitably will face.

Finally, the TSA is still saying that “Use of advanced imaging technology is optional to all passengers.” What they don’t say is that your other “option” will be to submit to a full manual pat-down, regardless of whether you would have set off the metal detector. So if the alternative to a virtual strip-search is a non-virtual strip search, can someone explain to us how that’s a “choice” that should make us more willing to submit to either option?

If we have to be exposed to the TSA, maybe we should just expose ourselves when we get to the airport.

P.S. We forgot to mention the TSA claim that no 8-year-old is on the no-fly list, debunked today in the New York Times. Maybe 8-year-old Mikey Hicks isn’t on a watch list, but his name is, and the effect is the same: He can’t fly without getting the 3rd degree. What did that entail? We can’t show you. The TSA demands the right to look (and feel) under your clothes, but they wouldn’t let Mikey’s mother take pictures of how he was frisked.

I listened attentively to President Obama’s presentation and the discussions with Janet Napolitano, Director of Homeland Security, yesterday and sadly, I heard no different rhetoric. This speech by President Obama could have been delivered by President Bush, however, Bush would have thrown the word “terrorism” into the mix.

Americans have heard the same speeches coupled with the same knee-jerk band-aid responses that won’t make anyone safer, but will complicate travel.
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This post was first published by Edward Hasbrouck on www.papersplease.org.

There are no legally binding rules (other than those provided by the federal Privacy Act, the U.S. Constitution, and international human rights treaties, all of which the TSA routinely ignores) specifying the limits of TSA authority at checkpoints, what you do and don’t have to do, and which questions you have to answer or orders you have to obey.

So the traveling public, and public interest organizations like the Identity Project with which I work as a consultant on travel-related civil liberties issues, have been reduced to trying deduce the de facto “rules” from the TSA’s internal procedures manuals and directives to its staff, using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) — to the extent that we’ve been able to find out what documents to ask for by name, and that the TSA has been willing to release them, usually in incomplete and censored (“redacted”) form.

Now the TSA has done travelers a favor by posting an unredacted version of the document of which only portions of an earlier version were previously released in response to our FOIA requests, and the complete current version of which is the subject of one of our current FOIA requests: the TSA’s “Screening Management Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)”.

In posting the document on a federal government website (fbo.gov, for “Federal Business Opportunities”) as part of the public specifications for bidders on a TSA contract, the TSA added red outlines highlighting certain portions of the PDF document, and coded black rectangles to overlay them as a separate layer of the PDF file. But they left the complete text and images unredacted, so that they could be selected, cut, and pasted into a text editor from any PDF reading software. The Identity Project has posted a copy with the black blocks removed, but the red highlights and everything else retained, so you can see what portions the TSA might have been trying (ineptly) to hide. (Despite false TSA claims that it “was immediately taken down from the Web site”, as of yesterday the original version was still available on the same government site, although at a slightly more obscure URL.)

If, like me, you were hoping to learn the non-rules for TSA checkpoints and “screening” (search and interrogation), the Screening Management SOP is disappointing. It’s mostly about bureaucratic procedures for checkpoint supervisors. There’s been a lot of excessive commotion about whether its posting was a security breach or provides a “road map for terrorists” (it doesn’t), but little attention is being paid to some more significant things it reveals.

Here’s what I and the Identity Project think is really significant about this document, and its release, and what we’re doing next:

1. Little, if anything, in the Secreening Management SOP is really so sensitive as to justify withholding it from the public, particularly when disclosure is specifically requested under FOIA (as it has been by the Identity Project). Because the unredacted version posted by the TSA includes the portion provided (in more effectively redacted form) in response to our previous FOIA request, it’s possible to see exactly what was withhold. Here are those pages, dealing with ID checking, as posted on fbo.gov and as provided in response to our previous FOIA request. Among the more obvious redactions, for example the TSA blacked out the phrase “appears to be tampered with” from the sentence, “If the ID lacks the required Federal, State, or local government, airport, or aircraft operator ultraviolet or micro printing security features, contains inkjet dots, or appears to be tampered with, the ID is suspect.” Would any terrorist likely to be successful in bypassing TSA security really be surprised, or benefit in planning their attack, to learn that TSA agents are instructed to be suspicious of documents that appear to be tampered with? We think not. Most of the other attempted redactions similarly fall short of the criteria for exemption from disclosure in response to FOIA requests, and call into serious question whether the TSA is complying with FOIA. We look forward to receiving a similarly complete and unredacted copy of the latest version of the Screening Management SOP and its updates in response to our current request. The TSA is still sending FOIA requests into a black hole, denied our request for expedited processing and denied our appeal of that denial, and has failed to respond by the deadline for even a non-expedited request. We’ve now appealed that “constructive denial” of our request. (Ironically in light of the fact that they had already posted it themselves on the Web, one of the reasons the TSA gave for denying our request for expedited processing was that even in whatever redacted form they might release it, “The Screening SOP … cannot be posted on your website for public viewing as you intend.”) The TSA is required to act on this appeal, and to produce the documents we originally requested, within 20 business days, or we will have exhausted our administrative remedies and be entitled to file suit for violation of FOIA and to force them to release the documents.
2. The procedures are blatantly discriminatory and in apparent violation of Federal law, the U.S. Constitution, and Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a treaty ratified by and binding on the USA. One of the portions the TSA tried to hide is as follows: “If the individual’s photo ID is a passport issued by the Government of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, or Algeria, refer the individual for selectee screening unless the individual has been exempted from selectee screening by the FSD [Federal Security Director, i.e. most senior TSA supervisor for the airport] or aircraft operator.” Some discrimination at borders and against foreigners based on national origin may be legal, if reprehensible, under U.S. law (although it may not satisfy the standards for compliance with the ICCPR), but as applied to dual U.S. citizens or to permanent U.S. residents (green-card holders) from these countries traveling within the USA, this practice clearly constitutes illegal discrimination on the basis of national origin, which the TSA specifically claims not to engage in. Of course, disclosing this will do nothing to “aid terrorists”, since citizens of these countries already know that they are routinely and systematically “selected” for more intrusive interrogation and search on the basis of their national origin. We look forward to seeing both private litigation and internal government enforcement action by the DHS Office of the Inspector General and TSA Office of Civil Rights and Liberties against the TSA and the officials responsible for these clearly illegal and blatantly discriminatory procedures.
3. The Screening Management SOP for TSA supervisors reveals the existence of separate “Checkpoint Screening” and “Checked Baggage Screening” SOPs for front-line screeners, TSA screening FAQs, and several other related documents we didn’t know about before. We’ve immediately filed a new FOIA request for these additional documents, and will of course post whatever we receive in response on the Identity Project website at PapersPlease.org.
4. The TSA is claiming that “The version of the document that was posted was neither implemented nor issued to the workforce. In fact, there have been six newer versions of the document since this version was drafted.” But a side by side comparison of the comparable portion of this version with the excerpt provided to the Identity Project in response to our previous FOIA request shows that while the pagination differs slightly, the version number, date, and text are identical. And the version on fbo.gov was part of a legally-mandated process for ensuring a fair and open competition among potential bidders for TSA contracts. We didn’t ask for any specific version, and the TSA disclosed this one to us in January 2009, and posted it on fbo.gov in March 2009. Why did the TSA post this version, or provide it to us, if if had never been implemented and had already been revised? Were they trying to mislead potential bidders, mislead us, mislead the public, or all of the above? And were the TSA FOIA staff who sent us this version aware of the attempt at deception in which they were playing a part? Or was this version actually implemented, at least at one time, and the TSA is lying in its latest press releases about what happened? We hope to find out more as soon as the TSA provides us with the current version, including all updates, in response to our latest pending FOIA appeal of their failure to act on our request.

Last June, the House of Representatives, in dramatic fashion voted down using whole-body scanners as primary screening devices at airports. The voice vote was inconclusive and an actual vote count was ordered. The final tally was 310 for the amendment and 118 against. Now, TSA is merrily on its way to defying the will of the House.

This 310 to 118 June 4th vote was taken on the amendment offered by Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., to the TSA authorization bill. Evidently, TSA can’t count. Or, they just don’t give a darn about what our representatives think.

TSA feels that the choice of being strip-searched or groped is as American as apple pie. I’m sorry, but I was joking back in the early 2000s when I said that soon we we will be walking onto our planes naked. The last time I checked, there was a law about “reasonable suspicion” before subjecting someone to a strip search. Is simply the act of getting on a plane now considered “reasonable suspicion”?

Unfortunately, even these $100,000 strip-search machines won’t stop a dedicated terrorist who might find ways to hide explosives inside his body, like this jihadist who hid explosives in his anus. I’m afraid to imagine the operation of TSA’s next “in-body scanner” that is surely being designed as I protest the less-irritating current iteration of search.

Fellow blogger, Jason Barger noted:

So, the naked truth for air travel in the future just may come down to this choice for each passenger – pass through the peep hole or let the wandering hands get frisky? Either way, air travel may just become X-Rated.

I better get a tan.

TSA is using undirected stimulus money to buy these x-rated, x-ray machines, ironically bypassing the House of Representatives, the very place where such funding is normally initiated. In fact, the House has clearly directed that they don’t want money spent on these contraptions as primary scanning gizmos.

Hopefully, Sen. Lieberman, who controls the Senate side of Homeland Security and TSA, will see his way to allowing the Senate to vote on a version of the TSA Authorization Act that has already been debated and passed by the House of Representatives.

If there was ever an agency that needed control, it is TSA. This behemoth has been virtually strip-searching us, collecting travel data, making us walk in socks, confiscating toothpaste and shampoo, rummaging through our luggage and more without any Congressional oversight since its inception.

Someone needs to wallop TSA and Homeland Security with a dose of common sense and a bit of respect for our elected representatives, and remind them who is paying their salaries.

(Photo: Quasimondo/Flickr Creative Commons)

From Tripso.com

For the past year, TSA has been testing full-body scanners at airports across America. Though they claim that 90 percent of the passengers who have the option to use them agree, Congress and privacy advocates are not so sure.

In fact, the TSA is so happy with the results of the whole-body scanner testing at test airports, they are planning to roll them out to all the airports in the nation and start retiring the current inventory of metal detectors.

Not so fast.

The first vote on limiting whole-body scanners is scheduled for the House tomorrow. If the U.S. Congress goes the same way as the European Parliament, whole-body scanners will be banned.

This would be a good time to let your Congressman know how you feel about basically being strip searched whenever you want to board an airplane. Though TSA has instituted controls on the system such as keeping the “watchers” in closed cabins where they can not physically see the person being scanned, electronically blurring the face of each passenger and deleting the images right after viewing (how long after viewing, is probably secret).

The TSA says it protects privacy by blurring passengers’ faces and deleting images right after viewing. Yet the images are detailed, clearly showing a person’s gender. “You can actually see the sweat on someone’s back.”

The last time I checked, there was a law about “reasonable suspicion” before subjecting someone to a strip search. Is simply the act of getting on a plane now considered “reasonable suspicion”?

TSA goes to great pains to tell the public that passengers are comfortable with this technology. Heck, they don’t complain and they choose to use it.

“Over the course of testing this technology as the primary screening procedure in six airports, 99.6 percent of passengers choose this technology over other screening options,” a TSA spokesman said. “Passengers who do not wish to receive millimeter-wave screening can use the walk-through metal detector and undergo a pat-down procedure.”

Now there is a choice — do I want to be x-rayed or groped? What happened to the choice of merely walking through the metal detector like passengers at hundreds of other airports without getting groped.

I’ll bet that the screeners did not clearly explain what was happening and probably did not have sample scan photos available for passengers to see what was being revealed before they made this decision.

It will only be time before some of these screen shots start making their way to the Internet and some of the videos show up on YouTube. Already, when joking with TSA personnel, they say volunteers are lining up to be the “watchers” in the remote cubicle. That tells me a lot.

Let your congressman and senator know you have no interest in being strip searched whenever you travel. If you don’t mind yourself, perhaps you are not particularly interested in having your daughter or wife strip searched and visually groped.

The current bill, H. R. 2027, states, “Whole-body imaging technology may not be used as the sole or primary method of screening a passenger under this section. Whole-body imaging technology may not be used to screen a passenger under this section unless another method of screening, such as metal detection, demonstrates cause for preventing such passenger from boarding an aircraft.”

Click here to find an easy way to send a message to your representative.
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(Springfield, VA, June 3, 2009) TSA has alerted me that the photo above is taken with a different technology — backscatter technology and not millimeter wave. They claim that backscatter is more revealing than millimeter wave. Here is the photo that TSA has released.

TSA public affairs has said that they will try to set up a demonstration of the millimeterwave whole-body scanner at DCA later this week. More to come.