The ACLU is reporting on the TSA announcement that they will be installing 150 of their body scanners in major airports across America. As you can see above the scanners produces images no different then if you were actually naked.
The TSA has been using it’s press machine to prep America for this stripping of dignity for a while and apparently they think that American are now ready to accept this virtual strip search:
Very quickly we as American are going to have decide if we’re going to accept this gross violation which our government has decided to push forward with. I for one will not be walking through one of these machines or accepting a pat down search.
You have to draw the line somewhere.
Update:
I’ve been seeing a lot of comments about some of pictures being fake. I did take one down that I confirmed was fake but the one that people mention with the hair I’m not sure on. I found all these pics on Google’s image search when I originally wrote this post and I can not verify that any of them are 100% authentic but I will say that they are a good representation of the images produced by these machines.
That said the point of this article was not to examine the detail of the images taken by these body scanning machines. The point was to address the gross violation of privacy and human rights these machines represent. Unfortunately my writing skills really aren’t up to par enough to fully express that so I leave you with an image from the past to provide some perspective:
The Daily Times Herald is reporting that the Carroll National Guard is planning a 4 day exercise April 2nd through April 5th 2009.
From the article:
The purpose of the April 2-5 drill will be to gather intelligence, then search for and apprehend a suspected weapons dealer, according to Sgt. Mike Kots, readiness NCO for Alpha Company.
Citizens, law enforcement, media and other supporters will participate.
Troops will spend Thursday, April 2, staging at a forward operations base at Carroll. The next day company leaders will conduct reconnaissance and begin patrolling the streets of Arcadia to identify possible locations of the weapons dealer.
The primary phase will be done Saturday, April 4, when convoys will be deployed from Carroll to Arcadia. Pictures of the arms dealer will be shown in Arcadia, and soldiers will go door to door asking if residents have seen the suspect.
Soldiers will knock only at households that have agreed to participate in the drill, Kots noted.
I’m really curious to know how they’re going about getting permission. Are they asking everyone if they want to or telling them they’re coming and accepting objections? What kind of pressure are they coming?
“Once credible intelligence has been gathered,” said Kots, “portions of the town will be road-blocked and more in-depth searches of homes and vehicles will be conducted in accordance with the residents’ wishes.
In accordance with the residents’ wishes? Because the people or Arcadia actually voted on this and then directed the mayor to invite the national guard to come hang out.
“One of the techniques we use in today’s political environment is cordon and knock,” Kots explained. “We ask for the head of the household, get permission to search, then have them open doors and cupboards. The homeowner maintains control. We peer over their shoulder, and the soldier uses the homeowner’s body language and position to protect him.”
YAY!! You get to help the military search your house for illegal (any) guns. I hate being left out of all the fun.
During this phase of the operation, troops will interact with residents and media while implementing crowd-control measures and possibly treating and evacuating injured persons.
The unit will use a Blackhawk helicopter for overhead command and control, and to simulate medevacs.
The drill will culminate in the apprehension of the suspected arms dealer.
Because that’s what the military is for, chasing down suspected arms dealers in American cities.
In addition to surveillance, searching and apprehension, the exercise will also give the troops valuable experience in stability, support, patrol, traffic control, vehicle searches and other skills needed for deployment in an urban environment.
“This exercise will improve the real-life operational skills of the unit,” said Kots. “And it will hopefully improve the public’s understanding of military operations.”
Wow, you’d think the military is getting ready to spend a lot of time in American cities in the future, I wonder why?
The pre-drill work with residents is as important at the drill itself.
“It will be important for us to gain the trust and confidence of the residents of Arcadia,” said Kots. “We will need to identify individuals that are willing to assist us in training by allowing us to search their homes and vehicles and to participate in role-playing.”
Yes, going in pre-invasion and doing intel/recon is a great military tactic.
“We really want to get as much information out there as possible, because this operation could be pretty intrusive to the people of Arcadia.”
Ok, I really hope that I’m wrong on this but it looks like the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that any evidence found from a search that was a mistake but not an intentional violation of your 4th Amendment rights still bears evidence that can be used in court.
Issue: Whether the exclusionary rule should apply to evidence seized incident to an arrest unlawful under the Fourth Amendment due to erroneous information negligently provided by another law enforcement agency.
And here’s the Argument Preview:
In Arizona v. Evans (1995), the Supreme Court held that the exclusionary rule did not apply to evidence seized incident to an arrest that was unlawful under the Fourth Amendment because it was based on erroneous information negligently provided by a court employee. The question now before the Court is whether the exclusionary rule also applies when the erroneous information is negligently provided by law enforcement personnel.
So, there goes the 4th Amendment, nice knowing you.
And here comes the PR blitz announcing it:
This is the opening paragraph to EVERY STORY INDEXED IN GOOGLE. Talk about a direct message.
Just click it to see the google results. Here’s a screenshot right now for history:
The exclusionary rule is the reason police get warrants. If they don’t have a valid search any evidence would be excluded since it would have been obtained illegally. Now that effect is gone as long as it was ‘a mistake’.
A mistake
Oops, we searched you illegally but you’re fucked anyways.
This isn’t freedom. I really can’t think anything yet as this is a serious direct blow. It’s over, we lost and they’re announcing it.
I mean wow. Seriously? I’m at a loss of where to start on this quote from Rep Henry Waxman……
Why would you be nervous about people protecting their rights with weapons unless you were one of the people trying to take away those rights?
If people are arming themselves to defend they’re rights from the government (which they should be) shouldn’t Rep Waxman and his fellow Congressmen question how well they’re carrying out their sworn duty to uphold and defend the Constitution?
What about the militarized local and federal law enforcement? That makes me pretty nervous and I’m a law abiding citizen. Anyone who reads Reddit.com knows these guys accidentally kill, assault, taser, or otherwise harm people daily, not to mention all the people they frame and falsely arrest.
The Mayor of Cleveland has decided that even though he believes that cracking down on drug-dealers withguns will cause more violence in the streets, it will be worth it in the long run.
Mayor Frank Jackson doesn’t want to see more deadly car chases and shootouts between cops and suspects, but under his new police plan, he expects them.
Jackson told the police this week to be more aggressive in targeting gun-toting drug dealers. He has said repeatedly that he expects there to be violent, perhaps deadly, run-ins between police and criminals.
“This is not a game,” Jackson said Wednesday. “People are killing each other. We expect more confrontations.”
In comments made by Cleveland Mayor Frank G. Jackson during a press conference announcing his lawsuit against major New York banks for creating a public nuisance. The banks sued include institutions such as Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo.
The mayor contends the companies irresponsibly bought and sold high-interest home loans to people who had “no realistic means of keeping up with their loan payments,” resulting in widespread defaults that depleted the city’s tax base and left entire neighborhoods in ruins, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer reported.
City officials hope to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, including lost taxes from devalued property and money spent tearing down or boarding up thousands of abandoned houses.
“To me, this is no different than organized crime or drugs,” Jackson said in an interview with Plain Dealer reporters and editors. “It has the same effect as drug activity in neighborhoods. It’s a form of organized crime that happens to be legal in many respects.”
I think the central banks have finally outplayed their hand making our banking and monetary system a real issue again.
