ACLU on Chertoff Body Scanners

ACLU Takes A Position

On Full Body Scanners

Oct. 31, 2010

ACLU Opposes Use of Full Body Scanners

For Travelers

Invasive, Denies Constitutional Rights

The Department of Homeland Security is misusing its power. Travel abuses have continued to escalate in the past year. In America, we now have:

• A terrorist watch list with over one million names on it, growing by twenty thousand names per month. American citizens kept in exile in foreign countries barred from flying back to the US.
• Security agents that seize laptops, cell phones, and PDAs as Americans enter the United States, with no suspicion of wrongdoing.
• Invasive airport scanners that let agents conduct virtual strip searches of passengers.

Traveling shouldn't mean checking your rights when you're checking your luggage. Stand with the ACLU and oppose government travel abuses

If you are in agreement with the ACLU's position on this issue, feel free sign their petition at this link. If this link doesn't open, enter this URL in your browser.

https://secure.aclu.org/site/SPageNavigator/SEM_Travel_Abuses?s_src=UNW100001ACT&s_subsrc=SEM-g-travel-c-tsa

Text of Petition:

http://www.statewatch.org/news/2010/apr/aclu-petition-body-scanners.pdf

If the first link doesn't open, copy and paste the URL into your browser

Scanners a Business Scam

[From article]
"The body scanners coming to your local airport provide marginal benefits -- if any -- in detecting weapons and explosives hidden on travelers. They aren't worth the cost in money -- let alone in civil liberties.
[. . .]
An army of executives for scanner-producing corporations -- mostly former high-ranking Homeland Security officials -- successfully lobbied Congress into spending $300 million in stimulus money to buy the scanners. But running them will cost another $340 million each year. Operating them means 5,000 added TSA personnel, growing the screener workforce by 10 percent. This, when the federal debt commission is saying that we must cut federal employment rolls, including some FBI agents, just to keep spending sustainable.

Why cut funding for the people who actually catch terrorists to add more pointless hassles at the airport? (Going through a body scanner also takes longer -- the process is slower than magnetometers.)"

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/body_scanners_the_naked_truth_hBCJUd9j0d5kAZWSrStIjL

Body scanners: The naked truth
By DAVID RITTGERS
New York Post
Last Updated: 12:11 AM, November 17, 2010
Posted: 10:33 PM, November 16, 2010

Standards of Washington DC Politicians

Standards of Washington DC Politicians

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has written to Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff requesting an immediate investigation of the leak, which he deemed "deplorable" and said "was not the first leak of law enforcement information apparently designed to influence the coming presidential election," referring to an ongoing investigation of voter fraud by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

He is unconcerned about the “leak” of personal information of Joe “The Plumber,” who was a private individual before the press made him into a public figure.

Since when is a court decision private information? How is that a leak? Why isn’t Conyers outraged that an illegal alien is receiving housing assistance when so many American veterans remain homeless? What are the standards for these obscene elected officials in Washington DC? Have they no shame?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15161.html

Obama aunt leak raises questions
By CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN |
Politico.com