Last year the Identity Project was one of more than 30 organizations that filed a joint petition with the DHS requesting a formal rulemaking on use of virtual strip-search machines or “body scanners”, then being referred to by DHS and TSA as “whole body imaging” machines and since re-euphemized as “advanced imaging technology”, as though […]
After years of having our complaints ignored, we were pleased to be invited by the TSA to participate in the ongoing “Multi-Cultural Coalition” organized by the Office of Traveler Specialized Screening and Outreach of the TSA Office of Civil Rights and Liberties, under the direction of the TSA Office of the Special Counselor. In response […]
Even as the TSA continues to claim that virtual strip-search machines (body scanners, “whole body imaging”, or in the latest TSA euphemism “advanced imaging technology”) at airport and other checkpoints don’t reveal excessively intimate physical detail of subjects’ bodies, and that the images can’t be captured, and less than two months after similar scanners were […]
With some British airports introducing “No scan, No fly” policies, we’ve been seeing renewed questions about what you can do if a government agency or agent, airline, or private third party won’t let you into or through an airport or onto a flight on a common carrier. A would-be traveler holding a valid ticket and complying […]
The Obama Administration announced their fiscal year 2010 budget proposal today. Under the administration’s proposal for DHS appropriations, the TSA’s annual budget would increase by more than a billion dollars from 2009 to 2011, with most of that going toward the purchase of “up to 1,000” new virtual strip-search (“Whole Body Imaging” or, in the […]
Already this week the TSA was caught in a lie about what it likes to call whole body imaging (virtual strip search) machines, when the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) obtained documents showing that, despite TSA claims that “this state-of-the-art technology cannot store, print, transmit or save the image,” the TSA actually requires all of […]
Don’t like being stripped naked by “whole body imaging” machines or “body scanners”, and then groped to determine whether what they see under your underwear is a padded bra, a mastectomy prosthesis, a menstrual pad, an adult diaper, … or plastic explosives? You could sign this petition … and/or you could organize your own “fleshmob” […]
We’ve been having a hard time keeping up with events over the last few weeks. Every time we think the keystone cops from the Department of Homeland Security can’t come up with anything dumber to do, they prove us wrong. At this point we’re not sure who is most deserving of derision: (1) the would-be […]
Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) used to have constant trouble at airports because a name similar to his was on the TSA’s “no-fly” list. Even as a senior Senator he couldn’t find out why, and couldn’t get the harassment stopped (which he eventually mentioned publicly during a Senate hearing) for more than three weeks. For […]
Until recently, the TSA has been a domestic legal Guantanamo, and the TSA has treated their domain of “checkpoints” and travel control and surveillance as a law-free zone where their powers of search, seizure, detention, and denial of passage were unconstrained by the Constitution, human rights treaties, judicial review, or stautory or regulatory standards. As […]