Pop Culture Icon Rihanna Put Through TSA Naked Body Scanner In Show Of Power

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
April 29, 2011



More Photos: The Superficial.com – Photos: Bauer-Griffin

The TSA’s latest headline generating act comes in the form of putting a popular music superstar through it’s radiation firing naked body scanners, in a blatant show of power that the agency knew would serve as a PR coup.

The singer Rihanna was stopped at a security checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday and asked by TSA agents to walk through a full body imaging device.

The TSA maintains that air travelers are chosen completely at random to be put through the machines, yet it is difficult to believe that was so in this case.
Clearly a message is being sent here – even your pop culture icons are not untouchable, you should take a leaf out of Rihanna’s book and submit to the radiation firing naked scanners with a smile on your face.

Some of the more savoury comments on the various news reports of this incident betray exactly the message the TSA wants to get across, in effect…

“I guess they shouldn’t exclude anyone, no matter who they are.”

Though the TSA denies that the naked images produced by the scanners can be stored, transmitted or printed, documents obtained by The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), have proven that the machines are designed to do this.

Therefore it would be no great surprise to see naked scanner images of Rihanna or some other celebrity appear in the public domain at some point. Indeed, Indian film star Shahrukh Khan last year publicly stated that he had witnessed images of his own body scan printed out and circulated by airport staff at Heathrow in London.

The TSA has faced months of backlash and fierce criticism over its increasingly invasive security procedures, in particular the imaging machines and the enhanced pat-downs, which involve agents reaching inside the pants of travelers.

Even children are not exempt. Despite TSA claims that minors under 12 are not required to undergo the procedures, in recent weeks there have been numerous high profile cases of children being groped down by agents at airports around the country.

These stories have been set to a backdrop of consistent disturbing reports of TSA employees having records of sexual deviancy, including, in the latest disgusting case, the distribution of child pornography.

Earlier this week, a former miss America went public with her disgust over being intrusively handled by TSA agents in Dallas, Texas.

In the video below, the former beauty queen who held the Miss USA title in 2003, Susie Castillo, says a TSA “screener” extensively fondled her vagina during an intrusive pat-down.

Many other young women have complained that they have been singled out by the TSA far from randomly, but based on the size of their breasts or their figures.

Recently a California woman filed a lawsuit against the TSA following an invasive pat-down conducted in full public view and front of her son at Albuquerque International Sunport. When a TSA supervisor arrived on the scene and the woman’s son asked why he had also not been subjected to the body search, the TSA agent told the boy “well you don’t have boobs”.

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

TSA Records: Some Scanners Emit Ten Times Expected Radiation

Michael Tennant
The New American
March 15, 2011

Americans concerned about exposure to potentially dangerous levels of radiation from the Transportation Security Administration’s full-body scanners just got another reason to worry: USA Today reports that on March 11 the TSA announced “that it would retest every full-body X-ray scanner that emits ionizing radiation — 247 machines at 38 airports — after maintenance records on some of the devices showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected.”

The TSA, of course, insists that all the machines are safe and that the records indicating the high radiation levels are the result of recordkeeping errors by technicians. TSA spokesman Nicholas Kimball told USA Today that, for example, “the testing procedure calls for the technician to take 10 separate scans” for radiation levels, “add them up and then divide by 10 to take an average. They didn’t divide by 10.” In addition, says the paper, “even the highest readings listed on some of the records — the numbers that the TSA says were mistakes — appear to be many times less than what the agency says a person absorbs through one day of natural background radiation.”

The agency posted reports from 127 X-ray devices, including some used to scan checked luggage, on its website. “Of the reports posted, about a third showed some sort of error,” Kimball told USA Today. Even more alarmingly, of the reports from 40 backscatter (i.e., full-body) scanners, 19 had errors, including six that were described as “considerable.”

Read entire article

TSA Scanners: Radiation 10X Higer Than Expected

USA Today
March 13, 2011

The Transportation Security Administration announced Friday that it would retest every full-body X-ray scanner that emits ionizing radiation — 247 machines at 38 airports — after maintenance records on some of the devices showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected.

The TSA says that the records reflect math mistakes and that all the machines are safe. Indeed, even the highest readings listed on some of the records — the numbers that the TSA says were mistakes — appear to be many times less than what the agency says a person absorbs through one day of natural background radiation.

Even so, the TSA has ordered the new tests out of “an abundance of caution to reassure the public,” spokesman Nicholas Kimball says. The tests will be finished by the end of the month, and the results will be released “as they are completed,” the agency said on its website.

TSA officials have repeatedly assured the public and lawmakers that the machines have passed all inspections. The agency’s review of maintenance reports, launched Dec. 10, came only after USA TODAY and lawmakers called for the release of the records late last year.

Full article here 

TSA to retest airport body scanners for radiation

TSA to retest airport body scanners for radiation

USA Today

March 12, 2011

The Transportation Security Administration announced Friday that it would retest every full-body X-ray scanner that emits ionizing radiation — 247 machines at 38 airports — after maintenance records on some of the devices showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected.

The TSA says that the records reflect math mistakes and that all the machines are safe. Indeed, even the highest readings listed on some of the records — the numbers that the TSA says were mistakes — appear to be many times less than what the agency says a person absorbs through one day of natural background radiation.

Read the rest of the article.

TSA Scanners Repeatedly Fail To Detect Handguns In Testing

Scanners do nothing to increase security as operators are too busy groping people

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Feb 22, 2011

The TSA’s naked body scanners have once again failed to detect a concealed handgun that was taken through security lines at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport multiple times in covert tests.

A female TSA worker had concealed a pistol in her bra as she walked through the radiation firing body scanners, yet no agents stopped her even once despite walking the gun through “many times” in tests last weekend, according to reports.

The information was leaked to NBC News by a TSA insider

“In this case, where they had a test, and it was just a dismal failure as I’m told,” said Larry Wansley, former head of security at American Airlines. “As I’ve heard (it), you got a problem, especially with a fire arm.”

None of the TSA agents who failed to spot the gun on the scanned image were disciplined, according to the TSA source. In fact they continue to operate the machines and have not even been placed on other duties or been scheduled to take further training.

The TSA would not directly address the claims, and instead issued the following statement:

“Our security officers are one of the most heavily tested federal workforces in the nation. We regularly test our officers in a variety of ways to ensure the effectiveness of our technology, security measures and the overall layered system. For security reasons, we do not publicize or comment on the results of covert tests, however advanced imaging technology is an effective tool to detect both metallic and nonmetallic items hidden on passengers.”

In this instance it is clear that if the undercover agent had been directed through the standard metal detector it would have detected the gun and set off an alarm, yet instead she was able to waltz through the body scanner, albeit having had ionizing radiation bounced off the soft tissue under the skin, as no one bothered to check the results.

Obama allocates $44 billion for Homeland Security to purchase hundreds more health-destroying naked body scanners

by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) The Obama administration recently announced its $3.73 trillion dollar budget plan for the 2012 fiscal year beginning on October 1. The new budget includes a more than $44 billion allocation for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to purchase 275 more naked body scanners to be installed at U.S. airports, despite continued outcry from health experts and the public about the machines' safety hazards, threats to personal privacy, and complete ineffectiveness.

Up three percent from last year's budget, the DHS allocation is just the start of the Obama administration's efforts to have 1,275 naked body scanners installed in airports by the end of 2012. The plan disregards the numerous testimonies from security experts who have dubbed the machines "useless," and say they fail to detect explosive materials any better than conventional scanners.

"I don't know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines," said Rafi Sela, former chief of security at the Israel Airport Authority and expert in airport security. "I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747. That's why we haven't put them in our airport."

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