Security officials have been struggling to assure travelers that full-body scans at airports are completely private and that records are destroyed immediately. Those claims were undermined this week with allegations that airport employees copied and distributed pictures of Indian film star Shahrukh Khan in his naked body scanner at Heathrow. Just last week, UK Transport Secretary Lord Adonis said “it is very important to stress that the images which are captured by body scanners are immediately deleted after the passenger has gone through the body scanner.”
That is easy for a guy named Adonis to say. For the rest of us endomorphic slobs, the idea of full body scans being reviewed are enough to force you into a fetal position in the security line. Right is a picture of Adonis, which probably explains the lax concern over such copying of images.
Khan warned fans about the detail of the images: “I was in London recently going through the airport and these new machines have come up, the body scans. You’ve got to see them. It makes you embarrassed – if you’re not well endowed.”
Khan said that copies were made “I was a little scared. Something happens [inside the scans], and I came out. Then I saw these girls – they had these printouts. I looked at them. I thought they were some forms you had to fill. I said ‘give them to me’ – and you could see everything inside. So I autographed them for them.”
There has been no confirmation of the allegations, but here is a piece of advice for Khan: in the future, when presented with illicit pictures of yourself, do not autograph them for adoring security staff.
What will be fascinating is the possibility of litigation for such abuses once this technology is used in the United States. The scans raise serious privacy concerns without publication or distribution of the pictures. It could raise interesting questions of the Disclosure of Private Embarrassing Facts (not a reference to Khan’s concerns over his endowment) and intrusion upon seclusion. The person is revealing the image to security staff but under an understanding that only security staff would view the image briefly — much like a doctor’s observation.
I am personally concerned about security staff handing me a brochure for exercise equipment and gyms when I pass through. It was bad enough that I had to get rid of all of my socks with holes in them once they started making me take off my shoes (I am still convinced the shoe rule was a conspiracy by sock manufacturers to force people to purchase new socks).
For the full story, click here
This is why the airlines are going bankrupt and will continue to do so until this mad paranoia ends. The airlines fail to do their job, and in response they continue to punish their customers. And in response, their customers will continue to leave them in droves. Who wants to fly anymore? Only those having to fly for work, or some emergency bother. Pleasure flights are a thing of the past. Now its one big paranoid circus of undertrained Burger King rejects posing as security agents who spend their days harassing decent people.
Bin Laden said this was what he wanted right after 911, but they don’t play that tape anymore.
Because they know he won. They let him win.
He didn’t want to kill us.
He wanted to scare us.
Scare us into spying on, arresting and killing ourselves.
He wanted us to become a paranoid police state that chokes itself on its own fear, thus stealing the one real thing he knew we liked to talk about, but not live.
Freedom.
We don’t have it anymore.
We don’t even remember what it looks like.
The airport denies the story completely and asserts that the machines do not have the capability to print out images.
On the other hand, these pictures could be the basis for requiring a passenger to pay for two seats. Maybe a measuring tool could be superimposed on the picture and an attached ATM machine to allow quick processing of the additional fare.
The linked article does not say anything about Khan’s situation (although other sites do: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/bollywood/7203872/Airport-denies-body-scanner-photo-claim-by-Bollywood-star-Shahrukh-Khan.html )
Has there been any actual confirmation of this story? It seems dubious to me that after the scan is made, several printouts are made and distributed in such a short time.
Speaking of not being well-endowed, mentally or physically, is anyone surprised that fascist whore and fear monger Michael Chertoff has a vested interest in the company that makes these scanners?
“What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines. The relationship drew attention after Chertoff disclosed it on a CNN program Wednesday, in response to a question.”
From the article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123102821.html
One article I read stated that some female passenger were looking at hers. He asked for one and he was given his own by security. When asked about it he responded if you aren’t endowed it might be embarrassing. So much for these scanners.
1. These machines don’t work in the EXACT circumstance for which they are being deployed: the Christmas Day incident.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/23/full-body-scanner-fails-t_n_433286.html
2. Obama is asking for $750 million plus for these scanners, all the while the total budget for the entire air marshal service is approximately $700 million for the year, ensuring that only a FRACTION of planes in the air have marshals on them. I guess Chertoff isn’t a lobbyist for the air marshals.
It’s a computer.
The removal process could be automated and printing/storage forbidden without administrative passkeys.
The operative part of that phrase is “could”.
The operative question is “why isn’t it”?
Tools can only be abused as limited by their design.