Some Really Good News

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Maybe it’s not so hopeless after all. Prison Planet reports that:

 

Americans continue to direct concern, anger and derision toward the TSA over the agency’s aggressive presence in the nations airports, newly released records have shown.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has obtained 241 pages of passenger complaints filed with the TSA by everyday Americans, dating back to early 2010.

EPIC uncovered the documents via a Freedom of Information Act request as part of its ongoing lawsuit concerning the use of the radiation firing body scanners by the TSA.

“The documents reveal that travelers are angry and frustrated about TSA screening procedures.” EPIC states on its website.

“Travelers expressed concern about radiation risks to children, the elderly, and those with special needs.” the statement continues.

“Other travelers wrote the fact that the machines could capture naked images as unacceptable. One traveler said, “using [the full body scanners] is an extreme invasion of privacy.”

Previously, in March 2010, EPIC revealed that there had been more than 600 formal complaints about body scanners the previous year alone.

The documents revealed anger at TSA officials for refusing to offer passengers a pat-down alternative, as well as forcing children to go through machines.

The TSA attempted to downplay the issue as insignificant, claiming that over 600 complaints about body scanners, which were at the time installed in just 21 airports in the U.S., was an “infinitesimally small” number.

The agency, aided by the establishment media, suggested that the scanners were being meekly accepted by a compliant public, when the exact opposite was the case.

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Later in the year, in November 2010, the issue blew up again and the ACLU revealed that it received a monumental wave of complaints, regarding everything from gawking by TSA agents to full on groping.

The TSA continued to claim that the overall public concern over scanners and pat-downs was minimal, even suggesting that a planned nationwide “opt out” protest had been a dismal failure.

However, it soon emerged that in reality the TSA had turned off many of its naked body scanners across the country, and scaled back the invasive searches for one day in a hastily crafted PR stunt to mute the impact of the protest.

In December of last year it also emerged that TSA workers were even complaining about the agency’s procedures. Concern among workers was particularly focused on the levels of radiation they were being subjected to in having to operate the body scanners.

Further documents published by EPIC in June of this year, revealed how TSA workers became concerned over a “cancer cluster” amongst screening agents at Boston Logan International Airport, and how the federal agency tried to cover-up the complaints.

As we have tirelessly reported, the machines continue to emit radiation that respected health authorities have warned will cause cancer. Despite agency claims to the contrary, the millimeter wave machines “tear apart DNA” to produce their image, while the backscatter devices fire ionizing radiation into the body.

Numerous highly respected universities and health bodies, including Johns Hopkins, Columbia University, the University of California, and the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety, have all warned that the health threat posed by the scanners has not been properly studied and could lead to increased cancer rates.

5 COMMENTS

  1. I suspect the health worries are probably are probably along the lines as the worries about wifi sites or GMO crops. Mostly luddite concerns often repeated without scientific understanding.

    What DOES anger me however is the level of government privilege. Actions that would be classified as sexual assault if anyone else were to do them are OK for the government thugs. That display of arrogance is what I find really disturbing.

    Even more disturbing, though, is that Americans indeed DO accept this. There is a fair amount of business travel in the department where I work, and all my co-workers, male and female simply accept this, even make naked jokes about it. I see no tendency for any grassroots revolt.

    • Me either.

      TSA Gate Rape is a step forward, but the real bellwhether was the general approval, more than 20 years ago, of random “sobriety” and “safety” checks on the road – that is, of probable cause-free searches and seizures. I said then that this was the top of the water slide. If people accepted the premise – that “security” or “safety” or whatever bullshit they trot out justifies gutting the once-sacred idea that innocent people who have given no cause for anyone to suspect they may be guilty of some crime have a right to be left alone by authority – period – then we are doomed.

      Much worse is yet to come.

    • The problem with GMO is that they really don’t know what *&$! they are doing. The possibility of undesirable results is very high.

      As to the radiation of the porno scanners, I don’t see any reason to believe it to be any safer than what the US government has subjected those in the military to in the last 60+ years. The poisons, radiation, experimental vaccines, etc and so forth. The track record is very poor. Then I combine this poor track record with the type of people the TSA employes and government’s track record of maintaining non-military equipment. Then there is the quality that government contractors with a political inside track are known for.

      I give it a few years but we’ll be hearing about cancer clusters of TSA employees eventually.

  2. But complaining to the TSA is essentially useless. So people haven’t yet come to grips with what the government really is.

    I figure we got a couple three years yet before TSA employees start getting rare or bizarre cancers. Remember what happened to cops with the early radar guns? Same sort of thing. Device sold to government that likely isn’t well shielded and then not maintained or operated properly. Of course the first cases will be brushed off. After a few more years people will start fighting for medical coverage the government will deny. But never will the government admit the porno scanners caused the cancers. Just like all the problems military people have after being exposed to toxins from open pit burning, DU, experimental vaccines, and so on. And those cleaning up after the WTC when the government declared the air safe.

    It never sticks in the public’s mind long… they’ll be on to supporting the next government crackdown on raw milk or something else for our ‘health and safety’.

    • Appealing to the TSA is like asking a street criminal to respect your dignity. They’re the same thing. It’s not my intent to gratuitously denigrate anyone but any person who works for the TSA has made a decision to spend his days degrading his fellow men and helping to erect a police state and condition people to it as the New Normal. They are very possibly helping to grease the skids for much worse to come. Such people are like the block warders in NS Germany who became “Hitler’s Little Helpers.” Every tyranny needs such people to do its dirty work. And I will not mince words about what they are.

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