TSA Indignities and Intrusive Government

Big Sis’ Street Scanners Target of FOIA Request

November 26, 2010

Infowars.com - The Electronic Privacy Information Center is demanding that Big Sis spill the beans on street scanners as part of a FOIA request that seeks to unveil the truth behind Homeland Security’s hundreds of roaming backscatter devices that are now radiating Americans in their homes and vehicles at internal checkpoints in the name of “safety”.

As we reported earlier this year, as the national outrage surrounding the TSA’s use of naked body scanners at airports simmered, the feds had already purchased hundreds of x-ray scanners mounted in vans that were being used to randomly scan vehicles, passengers and homes in complete violation of the 4th amendment and with wanton disregard for any health consequences.

“EPIC cited previous DHS testing of body scanners on New Jersey’s PATH trains and the development of street-roaming backscatter vans. EPIC has also filed a lawsuit to suspend body scanner program. EPIC has called the devices “invasive, ineffective, and unlawful,” states the press release.

WSBTV reported on once instance of the mobile scanners being used to check trucks for explosive devices at an internal checkpoint set up by Homeland Security, the Department of Transportation, and the TSA. 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”.

Despite polls showing the majority of Americans oppose the use of body scanners in airports, many travelers are unaware of the fact that the TSA and Big Sis are now roaming neighborhoods and highways with the same invasive technology.

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.

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.

With the devices already being used at highway checkpoints, DHS chief Janet Napolitano has now publicly outlined the plan for mobile scanners to be used on all forms of transit, from trains and the metro to boats.

Apathetic Americans who think they can avoid the clutches of Big Sis by merely refusing to fly are going to be in for a rude awakening when they see DHS scanners rolling around their neighborhoods taking naked pictures of their children while firing them up with dangerous radiation, all in the name of safety and security.