Pilot to TSA: ‘No Groping Me and No Naked Photos’
My name is Michael Roberts, and I am a pilot for ExpressJet Airlines, Inc., based in Houston (that is, I still am for the time being). This morning as I attempted to pass through the security line for my commute to work I was denied access to the secured area of the terminal building at Memphis International Airport. I have passed through the same line roughly once per week for the past four and a half years without incident. Today, however, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents at this checkpoint were using one of the new Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) systems that are currently being deployed at airports across the nation. These are the controversial devices featured by the media in recent months, albeit sparingly, which enable screeners to see beneath people’s clothing to an extremely graphic and intrusive level of detail (virtual strip searching). Travelers refusing this indignity may instead be physically frisked by a government security agent until the agent is satisfied to release them on their way in what is being touted as an “alternative option” to AIT. The following is a somewhat hastily drafted account of my experience this morning.
As I loaded my bags onto the X-ray scanner belt, an agent told me to remove my shoes and send them through as well, which I’ve not normally been required to do when passing through the standard metal detectors in uniform. When I questioned her, she said it was necessary to remove my shoes for the AIT scanner. I explained that I did not wish to participate in the AIT program, so she told me I could keep my shoes and directed me through the metal detector that had been roped off. She then called somewhat urgently to the agents on the other side: “We got an opt-out!” and also reported the “opt-out” into her handheld radio. On the other side I was stopped by another agent and informed that because I had “opted out” of AIT screening, I would have to go through secondary screening. I asked for clarification to be sure he was talking about frisking me, which he confirmed, and I declined. At this point he and another agent explained the TSA’s latest decree, saying I would not be permitted to pass without showing them my naked body, and how my refusal to do so had now given them cause to put their hands on me as I evidently posed a threat to air transportation security (this, of course, is my nutshell synopsis of the exchange). I asked whether they did in fact suspect I was concealing something after I had passed through the metal detector, or whether they believed that I had made any threats or given other indications of malicious designs to warrant treating me, a law-abiding fellow citizen, so rudely. None of that was relevant, I was told. They were just doing their job.
And now… the rest of the story. …..
Harold
Does TSA Threaten The Health Of Pilots and Passengers Repeatedly X-Raying Them?
Government expanding its X-raying of U.S. Citizens, recently ordered hundreds’ of new X-Ray Vans that will be traveling our streets, without warrants secretly x-raying Americans, peering though Citizens’ homes and vehicles, exposing Americans and their families to X-rays. X-ray vans are an affront to privacy, literally allowing government/police to view Citizens in their bedrooms. Americans need to ask Obama if independent studies were conducted to determine if Citizens could develop Cancer if (repeatedly exposed) to X-raying by police when in their vehicles on roadways and in their homes? Continued Low Radiation Exposure is Accumulative and believed to cause Cancer. Police intend to use the X-Ray Vans to search for drugs and weapons.
X-Ray Vans can ALSO be positioned to secure perimeters by the military or police to control civil unrest and instances of revolt, to screen and stop Citizens carrying weapons, any item. Why did the government order hundreds X-Ray Vans?
See:
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010/10/03/privacy-america-feds-xray-vans-watch-home-6252/
TSA’s scheme to uncover Terrorists before boarding flights, using the new technology “Spot–Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques” is believed by many to be a scam. Government paid millions of dollars for this alleged technology and to train hundreds of TSA personnel to implement it. The new Screening Techniques include TSA security at airports tracking and monitoring a “Set Of Involuntary Physiological Reactions” to detect when a person “harbors malicious intent” as opposed to when someone is late for a flight or annoyed by something else. It should have been apparent to TSA/Homeland Security that few humans even trained psychiatrists, have the capability to differentiate-sets of involuntary physiological reactions in Americans and different ethic groups and cultures to determine when someone is harboring malice intent; for example certain Asian cultures do not always show emotion; other cultures might overly express emotion. Any American salesman boarding a flight may harbor malice to smash his business competition upon arriving at his business destination and could show “A Set Involuntary Physiological Reactions” that appear to harbor malicious intent.” More recently it was reported TSA is considering buying a new technology that supposedly can analyze body-odor from a distance at airports to determine whether a potential passenger is under a certain kind of stress that signals hostility. This idea it isn’t worth discussing.
Could TSA’s new technology “Spot–Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques” help sophisticated terrorists escape detection at airport checkpoints? Could TSA’s training narrow the observation of TSA trained security personnel at airports to uncover terrorists, by conditioning TSA observers to over rely on specific techniques to Spot–Screen Passengers? It may be relevant to mention that Russian KGB Agents and (spies) were reportedly trained to monitor their own physiological reactions under stress and to pass lie detector tests when lying. U.S. Homeland Security recently was quoted in the LA Times as having said they stop people that show no emotion. For the most part that could be a wasted effort, considering millions of Americans are medicated, many for psychological issues and often don’t show normal or emotion at all.
Russian KGB agents were apparently taught not only to “monitor” their body language, but copy and implement other people’s’ body language including mannerisms while on a mission to prevent their own body language being read; KGB training included covertly filming their agents’ “body language” during a mission, then providing the film to the agent so he or she could repeatedly review the film and modify their body language to avoid detection. It is foreseeable sophisticated terrorists could copy and emulate other people’s non-threatening body language and portray different character types, just like actors to avoid detection by TSA airport and other government security. It is also a concern whether U.S. Government can keep their so-called passenger observation techniques secret when they provide that training information to so may trainees. It is foreseeable sophisticated terrorists could use that training information to implement verbal and non-verbal elements (body language) to work around TSA’s security personnel training observation techniques to avoid detection.