Irene's Weblog

Last week, numerous news reports stated that the TSA was pulling its controversial full body scanners. Many people assumed this meant they were going to be removed completely. This is not what is happening. The TSA actually stated in October 2012 that they would only be removing the backscatter scanners and not the millimeter wave scanners. Their contract with Rapiscan, the makers of the highly controversial backscatter scanners, was expiring and they were not going to renew it. Instead, they are going to heavily invest in the millimeter wave scanners because they, supposedly, have better privacy software.

At this point, all Millimeter wave units have been equipped with ATR, but even with the extension to 2013, Rapiscan was unable to fulfill their end of the contract and create the ATR software that would work with backscatter units. As a result, TSA terminated the contract with Rapiscan in order to comply with the congressional mandate.

All Rapiscan AIT units currently operational at checkpoints around the country, as well as those stored at the TSA Logistics Center, will be removed by Rapiscan at their expense and stored until they can be redeployed to other mission priorities within the government. Most of the backscatter units being removed will be replaced with millimeter wave units. The millimeter units will be moved from the inventory currently deployed at other airports and from an upcoming purchase of additional millimeter wave units.

The TSA says that passengers should see only millimeter wave scanners by June 2013.

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With the removal of the Rapiscan backscatter scanners, we will never know exactly what the health risks were to individuals who used them. The government stonewalled the public for years, dismissing any concerns out of hand.

The fact is, the full body scanners were more of a money-making scheme for former Washington officials than anything else. It is well known that former DHS chief, Michael Chertoff, made millions off the Rapiscan scanners. Former US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, also profited by having clients in his lobbying and consultancy firm that sold their software and equipment to the federal government. They were never about passenger health, safety, security, or protecting anyone’s privacy.

Apparently, the primary screening method of using metal detectors is good enough for pilots, flight attendants, military personnel, diplomats, and airport workers isn’t good enough for the general public. Until the government actually performs independent testing on the scanners, it doesn’t matter if they are backscatter or millimeter wave, they are a risk to your health and an invasion to your privacy.

Video.

This article originally appeared at The Daily Censored.

Not sure I like the way this guy pronounces Curaçao. The accent mark under the second C indicates that it should be a soft C and not a hard C like the guy is using. It’s a little grating to me to hear. You can learn how to say it properly here.

Source.

Many are cheering the fact that the TSA has begun moving backscatter scanners from major airports around the country, but it isn’t all good news. These scanners are being moved to smaller airports and aren’t being mothballed as most had hoped. The larger airports are also getting the millimeter wave scanners, leading some to believe that the TSA is preparing to admit that the backscatter scanners are, indeed, dangerous. Millimeter wave scanners have a significantly lower radiation risk and do not have naked picture representations of passengers.

The backscatters, as the X-ray scanners are known, were swapped out at Boston Logan International Airport in early October. Similar replacements have occurred at Los Angeles International Airport, Chicago O’Hare, Orlando and John F. Kennedy in New York, the TSA confirmed Thursday.

The X-ray scanners have faced a barrage of criticism since the TSA began rolling them out nationwide after the failed underwear bombing on Christmas Day 2009. One reason is that they emit a small dose of ionizing radiation, which at higher levels has been linked to cancer.

In addition, privacy advocates decried that the machines produce images, albeit heavily blurred, of passengers’ naked bodies. Each image must be reviewed by a TSA officer, slowing security lines.

One of the larger problems of the backscatters is the possible increased risk of cancer and other health concerns [pdf].

According to many studies, including a new one conducted by the European Union, the radiation dose from the X-ray scanner is extremely small. It has been repeatedly measured to be less than the dose received from cosmic radiation during two minutes of the airplane flight.

Using those measurements, radiation experts have studied the cancer risk, with estimates ranging from six to 100 additional cancer cases among the 100 million people who fly every year. Many scientists say that is trivial, considering that those same 100 million people would develop 40 million cancers over the course of their lifetimes. And others, including the researchers who did the EU study, have said that so much is unknown about low levels of radiation that such estimates shouldn’t be made.

Still, the potential risks have led some prominent scientists to argue that the TSA is unnecessarily endangering the public because it has an alternative — the millimeter-wave machine — which it also deems highly effective at finding explosives.

Still, while the TSA may be counting this as a win and some privacy advocates may be satisfied with the changes, the millimeter wave scanners aren’t altogether successful either.

tests in Europe and Australia suggest the millimeter-wave machines have some drawbacks. They were found to have a high false-alarm rate, ranging from 23 percent to 54 percent when figures have been released. Even common things such as folds in clothing and sweat have triggered the alarm.

In contrast, Manchester Airport officials told ProPublica that the false-alarm rate for the backscatter was less than 5 percent.

Essentially, passengers are faced with two, very difficult choices. They can use the backscatters, which has a 5 percent false-alarm rate, but risk their chances of cancer or they can use the millimeter wave scanners which have an atrocious false-alarm rate, but are safer for the human body. Surely, in the 10 years that these machines have been forced upon us, someone should have discovered a way to combine the safety of one with the accuracy of the other.

No study comparing the two machines’ effectiveness has been released. The TSA says its own results are classified.

Why are these classified? Why is the public, who is forced to use these machines, not allowed to know how the machines work or how the scanners are going to affect their health? Why are they not being informed about the next generation of scanners and what the risks will be with them?

When it’s all said and done, we’ve secured the cockpit doors and we’re prepared to fight back should a flight ever be highjacked again. There is no need for any type of scanner other than to line politicians’ pockets. Whether they be backscatter or millimeter wave scanners, they are there to give an illusion of security, not actually provide it.

This post originally appeared at The Daily Censored.

Image Source.

Ever wondered how long it actually took to travel throughout the Roman Empire? Now you find out via a new system called ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World that can track, in real time, how long your journey would take.

Built by historian and classicist Walter Scheidel and Stanford Libraries’ digital humanities specialist Elijah Meeks, with the assistance of geographer and Web developer Karl Grossner and GIS analyst Noemi Alvarez, the interactive online atlas is based on a host of data. This includes historical tide information and weather; size, grade, and surface of roads; main cities and ports; land, sea, and river routes; vehicle speed (including ships, ox carts, horse, and walking); and the cost of transport.

The time period the system centers on is about 200 CE, when Roman power was at its highest and the empire’s extent was greatest. The atlas is built from 751 sites, most of which are cities and towns, and covers about four million square miles. Two hundred sixty-eight of the sites are ports. The road network mapped on ORBIS includes 52,587 miles of road, including desert tracks and 17,567 miles of rivers and canals.

Give it a try. It’s quite informative.

Until now, passengers flying to the United States had to fill out the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) form as a paperless replacement to the I-94 form to be checked against the US watch list and pay a fee in order to enter the United States. This form has basic information on it and, although stored for a period of up to 12 years, did not contain much personal information. A vote in the European Parliament has now changed that policy, leaving EU civil liberties at risk.

The European Parliament has approved the controversial data transfer agreement, the bilateral PNR (passenger name register), with the US which requires European airlines to pass on passenger information, including name, contact details, payment data, itinerary, email and phone numbers to the Department of Homeland Security.

According to the ruling, the following PNR data [pdf] will be sent:

PNR Data Types

1. PNR record locator code
2. Date of reservation/issue of ticket
3. Date(s) of intended travel
4. Name(s)
5. Available frequent flier and benefit information (i.e., free tickets, upgrades, etc.)
6. Other names on PNR, including number of travelers on PNR
7. All available contact information (including originator information)
8. All available payment/billing information (not including other transaction details linked to a credit card or account and not connected to the travel transaction)
9. Travel itinerary for specific PNR
10. Travel agency/travel agent
11. Code share information
12. Split/divided information
13. Travel status of passenger (including confirmations and check-in status)
14. Ticketing information, including ticket number, one way tickets and Automated Ticket Fare Quote
15. All baggage information
16. Seat information, including seat number
17. General remarks including OSI, SSI and SSR information
18. Any collected APIS information
19. All historical changes to the PNR listed under points 1 to 18

If a person is not on a terror watch list, no-fly list, or any other list that labels them a danger to the airline industry, then there is no need to keep any of this information. This is all erroneous information with no justifiable reason to keep innocent travelers’ information.

Under the new agreement, PNR data will be “depersonalised” after six months and would be moved into a “dormant database” after five years. However the information would still be held for a further 15 years before being fully “anonymised”.

All the information taken from passengers will be readily available and accessible for six months. PNR data is the personal details of a person. If you remove the information that identifies the person, how is any of that information useful in combating terrorism?

If this information is depersonalized, how is it useful beyond the six months? If the information is not completely anonymized until after 15 years, how do they intend to identify a person if it was already depersonalized? It should also be noted that, after 15 years, the information will still be held. It might be anonymized, but it will still be held somewhere in a database.

Unfortunately, the most depressing aspect of this story is that the European Parliament caved to US pressure in voting to send airline passenger data to the US.

Some EU politicians alleged that their colleagues had been “held to ransom”by the US authorities, who threatened to suspend visa-free travel to the US if the deal was rejected.

At this point in time, the United States is in no position to be making travel to the US more difficult than it already is. If Europe no longer has visa-free travel to America, they are more likely to travel elsewhere that does not require long waits for expensive visas. The European Parliament should have called the United States’ bluff as it cannot afford to have millions of European tourists go elsewhere for their holidays.

The United States is continuing to bully every country it can into doing their bidding. They are attempting to control worldwide copyright with TPP. They have attempted to control free speech and the internet with ACTA. They have already forced anyone flying over US airspace to hand over airline passenger data. They recently forced Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean to turn over airline passenger data even if they don’t enter US airspace.

Other countries need to stop rolling over and merely accepting whatever policy the United States creates. As long as other countries are willing to give up their sovereignty to placate the United States, citizens across the world will suffer. Intrusive, big brother surveillance is not what the world needs.

Sophie in ‘t Veld of The Netherlands has urged the EU to reject the rule. This video is from her speech in the EU Parliament in February 2012.

This article originally appeared at The Daily Censored.