TSA gets personal with security screens Joe Miller knew that airport security measures were changing before he arrived at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport en route to Louisiana. But he didn't feel the full effect until he declined to go through a full-body scanner and ended up in a private room with an airport security worker touching his genitals. "I know it sounds extreme, but if someone had done that to me in public, I would have been screaming and hollering for police to help," said Miller, of Sandy Springs. Miller is among the millions of Americans who are experiencing new and very personal airport security measures as they travel this year. The measures, which include full-body scans that produce highly accurate three-dimensional body images, as well as "enhanced" pat-downs instituted last month, are igniting a backlash over privacy.
On Monday U.S. "It's all about security," Napolitano said. Several people interviewed at Atlanta's airport said they welcomed the more stringent security measures. Homeland Security's laptop seizures: Interview with Rep. Sanchez - Glenn Greenwald. For those who regularly write and read about civil liberties abuses, it’s sometimes easy to lose perspective of just how extreme and outrageous certain erosions are. One becomes inured to them, and even severe incursions start to seem ordinary. Such was the case, at least for me, with Homeland Security’s practice of detaining American citizens upon their re-entry into the country, and as part of that detention, literally seizing their electronic products — laptops, cellphones, Blackberries and the like — copying and storing the data, and keeping that property for months on end, sometimes never returning it.
Worse, all of this is done not only without a warrant, probable cause or any oversight, but even without reasonable suspicion that the person is involved in any crime. It’s completely standard-less, arbitrary, and unconstrained. When you really think about it, it’s simply inconceivable that the U.S. But this is happening to far more than people associated with WikiLeaks. Clinton: I'd Avoid Airport Pat-Down if Possible - Face The Nation. A man undergoes a pat-down during TSA security screening, Friday, Nov. 19, 2010, at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) AP Photo/Ted S. Warren Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she would not want to submit to an airport security pat-down, one of the new "enhanced" measures instituted by the Transportation Safety Administration ahead of the holiday season to screen airline passengers.
"Not if I could avoid it. Clearly, as Secretary Napolitano has said, we're doing this because the terrorists keep getting more creative about what they do to hide explosives. President Barack Obama has asked security officials to find a less intrusive way to screen passengers than the pat-downs and body scans that are causing uproars. Obama: I Understand Rage Over Enhanced Screening TSA Modifies Screening Rule for Pilots TSA Makes Cancer Victim Remove Prosthetic Breast GOP's Mica: Ditch TSA, Hire Private Contractors Copyright 2010 CBS. The Uproar Over Pat-Downs. At the Airport, Security vs. Privacy. Re “Too Close for Comfort: T.S.A.’s Pat-Downs Prompt a Flood of Complaints” (Business Day, Nov. 19): As the debate rages over the Transportation Security Administration’s new air travel security methods, we should bear in mind that an essential ingredient of a free, democratic society is the ability and willingness to balance competing principles.
America has struggled for years to strike the proper balance between securing our safety and respecting our precious constitutional freedoms. The new T.S.A. rules, however, in effectively favoring the principle of unfettered freedom from discrimination over the invasion of personal privacy, have shifted the balance in a fashion that is offensive to the common sense of most Americans. We should rethink our objection to “profiling” of passengers to restore a proper balance. Matthew J. To the Editor: The practice of mandatory pat-downs or full-body screenings for all airline passengers is absurd, wasteful and insulting.
John San Diego, Nov. 19, 2010. Airport screening, security: TSA exempts U.S. airline pilots from pat-downs and body scans - latimes.com. An airline passenger is patted down by a TSA officer after passing through… (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles…) Reporting from Washington — After weeks of pressure from pilot unions over controversial new airport screening measures, the Transportation Security Administration agreed Friday to exempt pilots from enhanced pat-downs and full-body scans. Pilots flying for U.S. carriers and traveling in uniform will immediately start going through expedited screening after two forms of their identification are checked against a secure database, TSA Director John Pistole said in a statement. Airline pilots had complained when the agency refused to exempt them from pat-downs, seen as too intrusive, and full-body scans, which union leaders said would put pilots at risk for increased exposure to radiation.
"Allowing these uniformed pilots, whose identity has been verified, to go through expedited screening at the checkpoint just makes smart security and an efficient use of our resources," Pistole said. Another Hacker’s Laptop, Cellphones Searched at Border | Threat Level. A well-known and respected computer-security researcher was detained for several hours Wednesday night by border agents who searched his laptop and cellphones before returning them to him.
The researcher, who goes by the hacker handle Moxie Marlinspike, was met by two U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at the door of his plane when he arrived at JFK airport on a Jet Blue flight from the Dominican Republic. The agents escorted him to a detention room where they held him for 4 1/2 hours, he says. During that time, a forensic investigator arrived and seized Marlinspike’s laptop and two cellphones, and asked for his passwords to access his devices. Marlinspike refused, and the devices were later returned to him. “I can’t trust any of these devices now,” says Marlinspike, who prefers not to divulge his legal name. Three months later, PayPal froze his account with $500 in it because the company objected to the use of its logo on his website, where visitors could download the free tools.