Better airport scanners delayed by ACLU

By JOELLE TESSLER


The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — High-tech security scanners that might have prevented the Christmas Day attempt to blow up a jetliner have been installed in only a small number of airports around the world, in large part because of privacy concerns over the way the machines see through clothing.

The body-scanning technology is in at least 19 U.S. airports, while European officials have generally limited it to test runs.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of trying to ignite explosives aboard a Northwest Airlines jet as it was coming in for a landing in Detroit, did not go through such a scan where his flight began, at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

The full-body scanner "could have been helpful in this case, absolutely," said Evert van Zwol, head of the Dutch Pilots Association.

But the technology has raised significant concerns among privacy watchdogs because it can show the body's contours with embarrassing clarity. Those fears have slowed the introduction of the machines.

Jay Stanley, public education director for the American Civil Liberties Union's Technology and Liberty Program, said the machines essentially perform "virtual strip searches that see through your clothing and reveal the size and shape of your body."

Abdulmutallab passed through a routine security check at the gate in Amsterdam before boarding, officials said. He is believed to have tucked into his trousers or underwear a small bag holding PETN explosive powder, and possibly a liquid detonator.

Because such items won't set off metal detectors, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, part of the Department of Homeland Security, has begun installing two types of advanced scanning machines that provide a more detailed picture.

These machines, which can cost six figures each, screen airline passengers without physical contact. They can reveal plastic or chemical explosives and non-metallic weapons.

Such scanners "provide the best protection for the widest range of threats," said Joe Reiss, vice president of marketing for American Science&Engineering Inc. The company makes machines for prisons, military agencies, foreign customs patrols and other customers but does not have a contract with TSA.

TSA has deployed 40 "millimeter wave" machines, which use radio waves to produce a three-dimensional image based on energy reflected back from the body.

Six of those machines, which are made by L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., are being used for what TSA calls "primary screenings" at six U.S. airports: Albuquerque, N.M.; Las Vegas; Miami; San Francisco; Salt Lake City; and Tulsa, Okla.

This means passengers go through the scans instead of a metal detector, although they can elect to receive a pat-down search from a security officer instead.

The remainder of the machines are being used at 13 U.S. airports for secondary screening of passengers who set off a metal detector: Atlanta; Baltimore/Washington; Denver; Dallas/Fort Worth; Indianapolis; Jacksonville and Tampa, Fla.; Los Angeles; Phoenix; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Richmond, Va.; Ronald Reagan Washington National; and Detroit. Travelers can opt for a pat-down instead in those instances as well.

The agency also says it has bought 150 "backscatter" machines, which use low-level X-rays to create a two-dimensional image of the body, from Rapiscan Systems, a unit of OSI Systems Inc. Those machines, which cost $190,000 each, are expected to be deployed in U.S. airports in 2010.

"The machine gives a very accurate and very precise image of things on the body that are not the body," said Peter Kant, executive vice president of global government affairs for Rapiscan.

Last June, however, because of privacy concerns, the House voted 310-118 to prohibit the use of whole-body imaging for primary screening. The measure, still pending in the Senate, would limit the use of the devices to secondary screening.

"As a society, we're going to have to figure out the balance between personal privacy and the need to secure an aircraft," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who sponsored the measure. "And there is no easy answer."

Executives at the companies that make the machines insist there are ways to strike that balance.

Kant said the technology has evolved enough to produce body images that look like chalk outlines. In addition, privacy filters can blur faces, noted Colin McSeveny, communications manager for Smiths Detection, a British company that makes millimeter wave machines that are being tested in Europe and the U.S.

For its part, TSA said it safeguards privacy by ensuring that all full-body images are viewed in a walled-off location not visible to the public. In addition, the security officer assisting the passenger cannot view the image and the officer who views the image never sees the passenger. Also, the machines cannot store, print or transmit any images they produce.

After all, McSeveny said, "all they are looking for is something that shouldn't be there."

In addition to the scanning machines in place or recently purchased by TSA, the agency says it plans to buy 300 more.

The European Union Parliament, however, voted in October 2008 for more study of privacy before authorizing the machines' full deployment in European airports.

Amsterdam's airport has been running a test project with full-body scanners for three years, mainly for a few European flights. One machine being tested there for the past five weeks, made by L-3, is designed to enhance passengers' privacy by having software, rather than a human, analyze the image generated by the scanner. If the software detects an anomaly — something strapped to a leg, for instance — it alerts a human screener to look at the person's leg directly.

"So nobody sees any images," said Ron Louwerse, the airport's chief of security. "The results are very, very good. I'm very confident about it."

In May, TSA abandoned "puffer machines" made by General Electric Co. and Smiths Detection, which blew air onto passengers to dislodge trace amounts of explosives. The government said the machines cost too much to maintain and regularly broke down when exposed to dirt or humidity. There are still 18 puffer machines deployed at U.S. airports.

___

Arthur Max reported from Amsterdam. Associated Press writer Natasha T. Metzler and AP Television Producer Faryl Ury in Washington contributed to this report.

ACLU and CAIR Subverting Rights and PROTECTING ISLAMIC TERRORISM!

May 29, 2008 http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/021215.php

ACLU, CAIR ask for Congressional hearings on monitoring of California mosques

CAIR's Corey Saylor asks: "Has faith moved from a personal choice to probable cause?" He asks this, mind you, about apparent surveillance of The Islamic Center of San Diego, where, according to the article, "two of the 9/11 hijackers worshiped in early 2000."
He asks this, mind you, as a member of a "civil rights" group that was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas jihad terror funding case in 2007, and which has had several of its officials arrested and convicted on various terror-related charges.

He asks this, mind you, in the context of protesting against the surveillance of several Southern California mosques, suggesting that there is no probable cause here despite the testimony of the Muslim Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, as far back as 1999, that 80% of American mosques were controlled by "extremists," and the findings of the Center for Religious Freedom in 2005, that hatred of Jews and Christians and Islamic supremacism were widely taught in American mosques."Reports concern Muslims: Alleged checks on San Diego, L.A. mosques spark calls for hearings," by H.G. Reza for the Los Angeles Times, May 29 (thanks to Twostellas):A report that mosques in Los Angeles and San Diego are under federal surveillance has resurrected fears in the Muslim community about government monitoring and led two civil rights groups Wednesday to call for congressional hearings.
The request for public hearings followed a newspaper article last week that cited FBI and Defense Department files pertaining to surveillance of mosques and Muslims in Southern California.

Corey Saylor, Washington spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the article in the San Diego Union-Tribune "has again raised concerns that our community is being watched."

"We've heard about this in the past, but this article appears to be the first confirmation that surveillance is taking place," Saylor said. "Has faith moved from a personal choice to probable cause?"

Council chapters in Anaheim and San Diego joined the American Civil Liberties Union and Islamic Shura Council of Southern California in asking the U.S. House and Senate judiciary committees and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for hearings. In a letter to the committee chairmen and ranking minority members, the groups said hearings are needed to determine the extent of the surveillance and whether people are being monitored because they are Muslim.


The civil rights groups also want the hearings to determine if the U.S. military has engaged in domestic surveillance in violation of federal law. The Islamic Center of San Diego, where two of the 9/11 hijackers worshiped in early 2000, was the only mosque mentioned in the San Diego Union-Tribune article. The report did not specify which other mosques in Los Angeles and San Diego were allegedly under surveillance. But Saylor said it would not be surprising if mosques in Orange County were also monitored.

Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, members of the Islamic Center of Irvine and other local mosques have complained about FBI agents questioning them about imams' sermons and how often they attend services. In 2006, J. Stephen Tidwell, then-FBI assistant director in Los Angeles, met at the Irvine mosque with about 200 people who questioned him about government monitoring.

The meeting was prompted by media reports that the FBI was monitoring Muslim students at UC Irvine and USC. Tidwell denied that monitoring was taking place, telling the audience that "we still play by the rules."

Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said the congressional hearings would compel the government "to say why they're amassing this information." "There's a lot of suspicion of the Muslim community," she said.

ACLU lawyers regularly go to mosques to advise worshipers that they do not have to answer questions from FBI agents about how long they have been in the United States, how often they attend services and what they get out of the sermons, Ripston said.


Why can't they answer questions like that? Which side is the ACLU on? As if we didn't know already.

IS IT NOW A "CIVIL RIGHT" TO PREACH THE OVERTHROW OF THE US CONSTITUTION? WAKE UP AMERICA!!