Friday, March 4, 2011

TSA: Totalitarian Scanning Authority

If porno-scanners and legalized sexual assault weren't enough for you, now come reports that the TSA has been planning unwarranted body scans of train passengers and unsuspecting folks on public streets.

According to newly uncovered documents, the Department of Homeland Security has been planning since 2006 to deploy scanning units in order to search unsuspecting pedestrians on city streets. Using the same untested backscatter imaging technology currently used in American airports, the TSA has been studying the use of scanners and cameras at the entrances to special events, in roving vans, or mounted on buildings and utility poles, to monitor groups of pedestrians, assess what they carried, and even track their eye movements.

A TSA official responded in a statement that the “TSA has not tested the advanced imaging technology that is currently used at airports in mass transit environments and does not have plans to do so.” It is likely that the studies were never funded due to budget constraints. And as we all know, bureaucracies have very long memories. Once the government gets an idea for something and is not explicitly barred from doing it, it will inevitably happen.

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