Saturday, January 14, 2012
Use of technology to be expanded despite warnings that devices cause cancer
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, January 13, 2012
The Department of Homeland Security is set to increase its deployment of of X-ray scanners, already in use on highways, at US border crossings, despite warnings from innumerable health authorities that the devices can cause cancer.
Despite airports moving away from dangerous naked body scanners that fire radiation into the body, damaging living tissue, rearranging chromosomes, and raising the risk of cancer, the DHS is expanding its use of X-ray scanning technology at border checkpoints.
With the technology already in place at places like the busy San Ysidro, California checkpoint, the DHS is planning to introduce the procedure at more locations, with Customs and Border Protection set to announce a new round of scanner purchases in February.
“A 63-page set of specifications (PDF), heavily redacted, obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center through the Freedom of Information Act, says the scanners must “be based on X-Ray or gamma technology,” which use potentially dangerous ionizing radiation at high energies, and “shall be capable of scanning cars, SUVs, motorcycles and busses,” reports CNet’s Declan McCullagh.
X-ray technology is being pursued at border checkpoints despite the availability of millimeter-wave machines that do the same job without emitting harmful radiation.
“Society will pay a huge price in cancer because of this,” John Sedat, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California at San Francisco, told CNET. Sedat has raised concerns about the health risks of X-ray scanners, and the European Commission in November prohibited their use in European airports.”
Presumably in an attempt to hide the true threat posed by the scanners, the DHS has named them “Low Energy Drive Through Portal Non-Intrusive Inspection Systems,” a term Peter Rez, a professor of physics at Arizona State University who has studied the technology, calls “highly misleading”.
“To call anything based on high energy X-rays ‘low energy’ is worse than 1984 doublespeak” because radiation emitted by the scanners “goes right through the person” sitting in a vehicle, he says. (High energy X-rays can penetrate not only human flesh, but steel plates that are multiple centimeters thick.)”
Indeed, numerous studies conducted by prestigious universities and health authorities, including Johns Hopkins, Columbia University, the University of California, and the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety, have warned that the devices will lead to an increase in cancers.
These warnings have been ignored by the DHS, mirroring the federal agency’s response to another controversy uncovered by EPIC, where “A large number of workers” at Boston-Logan Airport were found to “have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease,” having been tasked with operating X-ray scanning machines in the airport.
After TSA workers complained to bosses about how they were being kept in the dark over the dangers posed by the scanners, the DHS attempted to cover-up concerns and refused to issue workers with dosimeters.
After making assurances that the DHS would conduct further studies into the safety of X-ray scanning devices, TSA head John Pistole reneged on the promise in November.
Using portable X-ray scanning devices to carry out virtual strip-searches of the American people at TSA checkpoints is not just confined to airports or border crossings.
Documents obtained by Forbes describe Homeland Security plans to “mount backscatter x-ray scanners and video cameras on roving vans,” which would then allow the DHS to scan individuals on “public streets” at random.
Last year we reported on how the federal government has acquired hundreds of backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that they are now using to randomly scan vehicles, passengers and homes in complete violation of the 4th amendment and with wanton disregard for any health consequences.
The devices are most frequently used to scan the vehicles of truck drivers who are forced to stop at internal checkpoints on highways.
Congress recently gave the green light on increased funding for a massive expansion of TSA checkpoints, with the federal agency already responsible for over 9,000 such checkpoints in the last year. The funds will pay for 12 additional VIPR teams (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response), who will be tasked with searching Americans on highways, at bus depots, train stations, sports stadiums, and numerous other public locations.
The extra money is being demanded despite the fact that there is “no proof that the roving viper teams have foiled any terrorist plots or thwarted any major threat to public safety,” according to an L.A. Times report.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
Labels: Department of Homeland Security, DHS, x-ray
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Pro Publica
The head of the Transportation Security Administration has backed off a public commitment to conduct a new independent study of X-ray body scanners used at airport security lanes around the country.
Earlier this month, a ProPublica/PBS NewsHour investigation found that the TSA had glossed over research that the X-ray scanners could lead to a small number of cancer cases. The scanners emit low levels of ionizing radiation, which has been shown to damage DNA. In addition, several safety reviewers who initially advised the government on the scanners said they had concerns about the machines being used, as they are today, on millions of airline passengers.
At a Senate hearing after the story ran, TSA Administrator John Pistole agreed to a request by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, to conduct a new independent study of the health effects of the X-ray scanners, also known as backscatters.
But at a Senate hearing of a different committee last week, Pistole said he had since received a draft report on the machines by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, or IG, that might render the independent study unnecessary.
“My strong belief is those types of machines are still completely safe,” Pistole said. “If the determination is that this IG study is not sufficient, then I will look at still yet another additional study.”...[Full Article]
Labels: body scanners, Transportation Security Administration, TSA, x-ray
Monday, March 7, 2011
Natural News
(NaturalNews) Newly-released documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) reveal that the US Depart of Homeland Security has been working on plans to roll out a new wave of mobile surveillance technologies at train stations, stadiums and streets. These new technologies will track your eye movements, capture and record your facial dimensions for face-recognition processing, bathe you in X-rays to look under your clothes, and even image your naked body using whole-body infrared images that were banned from consumer video cameras because they allowed the camera owners to take "nude" videos of people at the beach.
Most importantly, many of these technologies are designed to be completely hidden, allowing the government to implement "covert inspection of moving subjects." You could be walking down a hallway at a sports stadium, in other words, never knowing that you're being bathed in X-rays from the Department of Homeland Security, whose operators are covertly looking under your clothes to see if you're carrying any weapons...[Full Article]
Labels: Department of Homeland Security, DHS, surveillance, Transportation Security Administration, TSA, x-ray
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
March 1, 2011
The next generation of body scanners to be rolled out in airports will literally be able to see inside the human body, as security personnel gear up to trial machines that use deep penetrating radiation, the same kind hospitals use to examine internal organs and bones.
Australian airports are set to begin using the devices should legislation before Federal Parliament be passed, enabling customs officers to use technology previously only operated by doctors in controlled conditions.
The justification for the technology is to crack down on suspected drug smugglers who swallow illegal substances to evade airport security. However, the notion of placing the technology along airport security lines paves the way for its general use, particularly in light of the recent security theatre explosion we have seen in airports over the last eighteen months.
The current crop of naked body scanners being used by the TSA and other transport security personnel around the globe use either Millimeter-wave or BackScatter radiation. These devices render clothing and organic materials translucent, providing an image of what is concealed underneath, which is why they have caused such controversy.
The radiation fired from those scanners does not penetrate beyond the tissue under the skin, nevertheless there have been significant and legitimate fears expressed by experts and scientists over the safety of such devices, as far as both the operator and the traveler are concerned.
The force generated from tetrahertz waves used by the millimeter-wave scanners is small but, according to scientists, the waves can ‘unzip’ or tear apart double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the DNA that could interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication.
Despite further warnings from scientists that the scanners will cause cancer in some travelers, it seems our governments are ready to push even further and use even more potentially lethal technology, under the guise of security.
Of course, there is a very good reason why internal X-ray scans are only legally permitted to be carried out by a doctor at a hospital or surgery – because they are extremely hazardous and can cause detrimental health effects to those exposed to them.
Radiography and Tomography scanners fire deep penetrating ionizing x-rays. The most recent studies estimated that CT scanners cause 29,000 cancers and kill nearly 15,000 Americans every year. Imagine how that number would balloon if such technology were installed in airports and used everyday on millions of healthy people, as if they were routine metal detectors.
Yet, there is every indication that this will be the case. In January 2010, following the failed underpants bombing, former European Commissioner for Justice, Freedom & Security, Franco Frattini, told the media that governments should consider scanning the insides of all travelers to make sure they are not concealing explosives or weapons. It now seems that what at the time seemed a stretch beyond the realms of sanity is actually happening before our eyes.
Recent security failures concerning the current crop of naked body scanners, many of which stem from human error, and the fact that the scanners are simply incapable of identifying some materials, will no doubt also be used as justification should the US and the UK follow the actions of the Australian authorities in attempting to beef security theatre in airports even further.
Of course, none of this matters to the scores of security contractors making fat profits from government contracts. The military industrial complex cares little if a few million people drop dead from cancer or pass on genetic defects. The only health worries they have concern their profit margins.
At the end of the day, however, the buck stops with the public on this. Overall apathy toward the rollout of highly invasive and potentially dangerous naked body scanning machines in airports, has only paved the way for more excessive violations of our rights and our liberties.As we have consistently highlighted, there are even more frightening scenarios down the road if we continue to ignore the open tyranny being implemented all around us. If the public willingly accepts naked imaging x-ray machines that will cause cancer and death, all in the name of security, what comes next?
The TSA is considering taser bracelets that can deliver electric shocks to anyone who steps out of line inside an airport or on a plane.
Passport control officers at airports are to be phased out as new biometric face scanning cameras are replacing them under UK border control measures that came into force last year. A global biometric facial scan database is the end goal of security authorities the world over.
Other proposals include placing the cameras in every seat on aircraft and installing software to try and automatically detect terrorists or other dangers caused by passengers.
Passive brain scanners that pick up brain waves in order to sense the behaviour of travelers have already been trialed in airports. The technology known as “MALINTENT” has been developed by the Department of Homeland Security under a project lovingly called “Project Hostile Intent”. The following image is a DHS Impression of the mindreader technology in action.
We are also being incrementally taught that what goes on in the airports will be transferred to the streets, schools, shopping malls, rail stations and bus terminals.
The very body scanners we see being implemented within airports now have already been extensively trialed and are now being in railway stations in major cities.
The same technology is being considered by governments for general use in cameras on the street. Once accepted as part of everyday life in airports, it becomes much easier to sell for use in all public places.
The development of all of this nightmare technology only emphasizes the need for immediate outright rejection of the mass implementation of all forms of body screeners. If we continue to allow such gross attacks on our liberties to succeed the onslaught will never end.
Labels: body scanners, Steve Watson, x-ray
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
FoxNews.com
Oct. 13, 2010: The Z Backscatter Van uses detects contraband like explosives, drugs or people in hiding with an X-Ray mechanism that has no need for a detector on the far side of an object, allowing it to be extremely mobile, versatile and built into a commercially available van.
Privacy advocates worried about x-ray scanners making their way around U.S. airports may be surprised to know the technology is also making its way onto America's streets.
The Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. military and even local law enforcement agencies are buying and deploying mobile X-ray vans that can see into the interior of vehicles around them.
The Z Backscatter Van (ZBV), manufactured by American Science and Engineering (AS&E), can be used to detect contraband such as car bombs, drugs and people in hiding.
But the vans, which can also see through clothing and into some buildings, are raising privacy concerns as well as questions about health risks -- and what might happen if the technology gets into the wrong hands.
FoxNews.com was given a rare ride-along in a ZBV at a U.S. seaport in Elizabeth, N.J.
Click here to see FoxNews.com's video report on the ZBV...
[Full Article]Labels: big brother, privacy, x-ray, Z Backscatter
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Feds Radiating Americans
As an antiterror measure, the US government has deployed mobile X-ray technology to randomly scan cars and trucks. But the measure is riling privacy proponents.
Atlanta
For many living in a terror-spooked country, it might seem like a great government innovation: Use vans equipped with mobile X-ray units to scan vehicles at major sporting events, or even randomly, for bombs or contraband.
But news that the US is buying custom-made vans packed with something called backscatter X-ray capacity has riled privacy advocates and sparked internet worries about "feds radiating Americans."...
[Full Article]Feds Radiating Americans At Internal Checkpoints
While illegals and hardcore drugs flood into the country from across the border, authorities target truck drivers in Atlanta
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Federal authorities do not concern themselves about the flood of illegal immigrants and drugs crossing the border every day, they’re more worried about radiating American truck drivers at internal checkpoints with mobile scanners that shoot dangerous x-rays through both vehicles and passengers.
As we reported last month, the federal government has acquired hundreds of backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that they are now using to randomly scan vehicles, passengers and homes in complete violation of the 4th amendment and with wanton disregard for any health consequences.
An example of their expanding use was reported by WSBTV yesterday, after federal agents from several agencies, including Homeland Security, the Department of Transportation, and the TSA, set up an internal checkpoint on Interstate 20 just west of Atlanta and detained truck drivers for half an hour or more at a “state-owned inspection station” while they were scanned with a bomb detection device.
Officials admitted there was no specific threat that justified the checkpoint, and although it was labeled a “counter-terror operation,” the scans were also being conducted in the name of “safety”.
Watch the video here.
Backscatter x-ray vision devices mounted on trucks are already being deployed inside the United States to scan passing individuals and vehicles in complete violation of the Fourth Amendment. Similar to naked airport body scanners, the devices fire x-rays outwards which are then absorbed by dense objects or the human body. Frequent exposure to low doses of radiation can cause cancer and birth defects, according to a report by the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety.
American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Massachusetts, has sold many of the devices to U.S. law enforcement agencies, who are already using them on the streets for “security” purposes.
“Without a warrant, the government doesn’t have a right to peer beneath your clothes without probable cause,” points out Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC. “Even airport scans are typically used only as a secondary security measure. If the scans can only be used in exceptional cases in airports, the idea that they can be used routinely on city streets is a very hard argument to make.”
As we have warned from the very beginning, everything you see being rolled out in the airports is eventually designed to hit the streets as Americans become prisoners in their own communities, constantly harassed, scanned and surveilled by an oppressive state.
Mobile scanners for crowds that would be used at football matches and other public events have already been announced, as have proposals to fit lamp posts with CCTV cameras that would X-ray scan passers-by and “undress them” in order to “trap terror suspects”.
Body and vehicle scanners are just one tool authorities plan to implement on a widespread basis as part of our deepening decline into a hi-tech militarized police state.
Homeland Security is already implementing technology to be enforced at “security events” which purportedly reads “malintent” on behalf of an individual who passes through a checkpoint. The video below explains how “Future Attribute Screening Technology” (FAST) checkpoints will conduct “physiological” and “behavioral” tests in order to weed out suspected terrorists and criminals.
The clip shows individuals who attend “security events” being led into trailers before they are interrogated as to whether they are terrorists while lie detector-style computer programs analyze their physiological responses. The subjects are asked about their whereabouts, and if they are attempting to smuggle bombs or recording devices into the “expo,” proving that the technology is intended to be used at public events and not just airports. Individuals who do not satisfy the first lie detector-style test are then asked “additional questions”.
The implementation of ‘Checkpoint USA’, where citizens are routinely stopped, searched and radiated by federal VIPER teams is further evidence of how America is crumbling into a Soviet-style police state where the presumption of innocent until proven guilty is abolished and the 4th amendment eviscerated.
Privacy organizations and civil rights lawyers need to activate immediately to bring lawsuits against the federal government for unleashing this tyranny upon the American people as part of the bid to create a chilling atmosphere that ends all dissent and makes the people fearful of their government as they are made to prove they are not criminals or terrorists on a day to day basis while a high-tech slave pen is constructed around their entire existence.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.
Labels: big brother, privacy, scanners, x-ray
Monday, February 8, 2010
Children and pregnant women should not be subject to scan says influential body, urging governments to ditch backscatter x-ray devices
An influential international radiation safety organization has warned that the naked body scanners currently being rolled out in airports across the world increase the risk of cancer and birth defects and should not be used on pregnant women or children...
Labels: body scanners, cancer, x-ray
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