Feds admit storing checkpoint body scan images

(CNET) – For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they’re viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.”

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

This follows an earlier disclosure (PDF) by the TSA that it requires all airport body scanners it purchases to be able to store and transmit images for “testing, training, and evaluation purposes.” The agency says, however, that those capabilities are not normally activated when the devices are installed at airports.

Body scanners penetrate clothing to provide a highly detailed image so accurate that critics have likened it to a virtual strip search. Technologies vary, with millimeter wave systems capturing fuzzier images, and backscatter X-ray machines able to show precise anatomical detail. The U.S. government likes the idea because body scanners can detect concealed weapons better than traditional magnetometers. Full article here

Video: Lawsuit challenges airport full-body scanners

(BostonGlobe) – A privacy advocacy group is suing the Department of Homeland Security to suspend the use of the controversial full-body scanners employed at airports across the country, including at every major checkpoint at Logan International Airport.

The machines, which use X-rays or radio frequency energy to detect weapons and explosives beneath passengers’ clothing, have been much criticized because of privacy concerns.

Video: California Swine Flu Checkpoint Identified?

The testimony of a woman who claimed she was part of a military drill in California centered around setting up roadblocks to check if people had received the H1N1 vaccine has potentially been validated with another report of a swine flu checkpoint near San Diego.

Military Attacks American Citizens With Sound Weapons & Tear Gas At G20

REUTERS UPDATE: Secret Service confirms that police are shooting #g20 protesters with “bean bags.” But check out what they look like. Via Keepshooting.com: