The Freedom Bulletin

Craig Wilson of USA Today recently wrote a column about full-body scanners, or as I like to call them, strip search machines. Not only do I disagree with his opinion, but I find his tone offensive and disrespectful to people who believe in liberty.

Wilson writes…

“Personally, I don’t care who looks at what just as long as we’re all safe and we get to our destination without any more drama than a frazzled flight attendant telling us to sit down for takeoff.

I’m not quite sure what all the fuss is about. A momentary loss of modesty is a small price to pay to gain safety.”

First of all, being seen naked by TSA agents is arguably more than a momentary loss of modesty. To people who believe it is immoral for others to see one’s naked body, undergoing a virtual strip search may only last a few moments, but it permanently deprives you of some amount of modesty. Arguably, having your naked body exposed, even if the image is not stored or saved, is something that can never be reversed.

For me, such a permanent loss of modesty is a very high price to pay for safety. More importantly, by forcing their preferences on everyone else, people like Wilson deprive us all of our freedom – an unacceptable price to pay for anything. Wilson might not care who sees what, but I do, and as long as there is one person who does not believe in sacrificing modesty for safety, it violates that person’s rights to force them to do so.

Mr. Wilson, the fuss is about our government’s steady erosion of our liberties and our dignity. The fuss is about the fact that full-body scanners violate everyone’s rights and are blatantly contrary to the Fourth Amendment.

Then he goes on to make jokes about the saying (that I never quite understood) that you should always wear clean underwear in case you get in a car accident.

“I think the new full-body scanners work better since it looks at our underwear before something bad happens.”

I have an idea: How about people never look at our underwear? How about actually having some respect for privacy and liberty? How about making America the land of the free once more?

In yet another small but significant encroachment on our liberty, TSA agents at Boston’s Logan Airport are using a new, worse pat down procedure. Instead of using the backs of their hands when patting down people’s private parts, agents are going to use their palms over people’s entire bodies (over their clothes, but still, this is not a good thing).

Pat downs will only happen to passengers who decline full-body scanners, where they exist. At checkpoints without full-body scanners, only people who set off metal detectors or are randomly selected will undergo pat downs. The worse pat down technique is being used only in Boston and Las Vegas until a “planned national rollout.” Great.

Christopher Ott, a spokesman for the Massachusetts ACLU, says:

“We’re concerned about this seemingly constant erosion of privacy…Accepting these kinds of searches may keep people safer in some situations, but not in every situation, and we’re encouraging people to stop and think about what is the right balance between privacy and security.”

But one air traveler actually said she supports the increased violation of privacy because “security trumps niceties.” Excuse me, but since when is freedom a nicety? Freedom is the most important thing in the world and is why the United States of America were founded. Anyone who calls liberty a nicety really does not understand right and wrong or what America is all about.

Ott, of the ACLU, is completely right. When will people wake up and stop accepting the erosion of their freedom just because it increases their safety and security?

The MBTA Transit Police are searching for a man who is accused of taking pictures of a woman’s cleavage as she leaned over to pick up her bag. The title of this post may sound silly, but it raises an interesting legal and philosophical question: Is it a crime (or does it violate anyone’s rights) to take pictures of someone’s cleavage on the T?

It is unclear exactly what crime this guy would be charged with if he was arrested. Although his actions were undoubtedly creepy, I am inclined to say that they do not constitute a crime.

Taking pictures up someone’s skirt violates their privacy rights because people who wear skirts aren’t intending to reveal whatever they’re wearing under their skirt – they have a reasonable expectation that anything covered by clothing is private. Putting video cameras in bathrooms or changing rooms definitely violates people’s rights, because people justifiably expect those rooms to be private. But if you decide to wear a low-cut top on the subway, you are intentionally making your cleavage publicly visible. It’s creepy to take a picture of just someone’s bust, but if something is publicly visible, people have a right to take pictures of it.

Speaking of inappropriate pictures, if you think it’s a violation of privacy rights to take pictures of someone’s publicly visible cleavage, you should definitely think it’s a violation of privacy rights to create and store images of people’s naked bodies when they are fully clothed, like the TSA does in airports.

I don’t know how I missed this! The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is suing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over full-body scanners. On July 2, EPIC filed a petition for review and a motion for emergency stay in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to halt the use of the machines, which show pictures of people’s naked bodies underneath their clothes.

EPIC contends (in my opinion, correctly) that the use of strip search machines as a primary method of screening – all air travelers are required to undergo them or an equally invasive pat down – violates the following laws:

• Administrative Procedures Act
• Privacy Act
• Religious Freedom Restoration Act
• Fourth Amendment

In other naked machine news (or not so new news), Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced two weeks ago that full-body scanners will be coming to even more airports, “strengthening security at airports throughout the nation while creating local jobs.” And taking away everyone’s privacy and dignity…but I guess Janet doesn’t care about that.

Also, as of yesterday, it turns out that U.S. Marshals have been saving and storing tens of thousands of naked images from a full-body scanner in a Florida courthouse, and that the TSA requires all of its scanners to have the capability of storing and transmitting images! Last summer the TSA said that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.” This makes me wonder what else they could be lying about.

Between EPIC’s lawsuit, the Virginia anti-Obamacare lawsuit going forward, and Proposition C in Missouri, this is turning out to be a good week for liberty across the country.

Read all the motions and related news articles at EPIC’s website. Thank you, EPIC, for all that you do to defend liberty.

It seems like people in South Korea might have a little more sense left than people in the US when it comes to forcing people to be strip searched in order to fly. That country’s transportation ministry wants to install full-body scanners, which create images of people’s naked bodies under their clothes, in airports, but the National Human Rights Commission is opposed to this:

“The machines may violate privacy as they can generate images of the entire body including any prosthetic devices, the commission said. It also challenged the ministry’s contention that the body scanners would be a reliable and effective way of detecting bombs and preventing terrorism. ‘It is hard to understand the necessity of the device that definitely violates the privacy of passengers,’ the watchdog said in a statement.”

In other strip search machine news, it appears that in addition to taking away everyone’s freedom, privacy, and dignity and blatantly violating the Fourth Amendment, full-body scanners might also give you cancer:

“Experts say radiation from the scanners has been underestimated and could be particularly risky for children. They say that the low level beam does deliver a small dose of radiation to the body but because the beam concentrates on the skin – one of the most radiation-sensitive organs of the human body – that dose may be up to 20 times higher than first estimated.”

Can’t the whole world just abolish these things? Please?