Shostack + Friends Blog Archive

TSA News roundup

Intrusiveness and outrage:
• “Homeland Security Is Also Monitoring Your Tweets”
• “‘Baywatch’ Beauty Feels Overexposed After TSA Scan” (David Moye, AOLnews) “the agent responded, ‘Because you caught my eye, and they’ — pointing to the other passengers — ‘didn’t.'”
• “POLICE STATE – TSA, Homeland Security & Tampa Police Set Up Nazi Checkpoints At Bus Stations ” (Video from ABC Tampa) “looking for terrorism, immigration violations and bulk cash smuggling.” Unfortunately for TSA, this undercuts their argument that you have a choice of ways to travel, and fails to meet any sort of 4th amendment standard.
• “Delvonte Tisdale’s death is a tragedy that raises questions about security, DA says” (Andrew Ryan, Boston Globe) It appears that a teenager snuck past security and into the wheel well of a 737, then died when it opened near Boston.
• TSA Newly banned items (UCBComedy video)
• TSA pat-down of Indian ambassador Meera Shankar causes uproar (Elizabeth Crisp, Mississippi Clarion Ledger)

  Lawsuits

• “Colo. lawyer sues over TSA airport screening” AP story by P. Solomon Banda about Gary Fielder’s lawsuit
• Woman with mastectomy suing TSA in Albequerque “to which the supervisor said ‘well you don’t have boobs'”
• “Harvard Law Students Sue TSA” Harvard Law Record story about Jeffrey Redfern and Anat Pradhan’s lawsuit. Well reported, mentions suits in Florida and Arkansas, not the EPIC lawsuit. So that’s at least 6 suits pending. Is there a single list somewhere?

  Health

• “The Medical Problems of Airport Screening: It’s Not Just the Radiation” (Jane Orient, MD, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons blog)
• “TSA workers, experts worry about radiation exposure” (Allison Young, USA Today) “Six of 281 machines used to screen checked luggage violated federal radiation standards, some emitting two or three times the allowed limit, the CDC found.”

  Polls:

• “Frequent travelers oppose new TSA security screenings” (USA Today story by Gary Stoller)

  Analysis

• “State of New Mexico v. Phillip Mocek” (Identity Project blog on Phillip Mocek case)
• “An evaluation of airport x-ray backscatter units based on image characteristics” (Leon Kaufman, Joseph Carlson, Journal of Transportation Security) Machines are easily fooled. Via Slashdot.
• “The Fear Profiteers” (Naomi Wolf)

Finally some humor from Lucas Cantor:

and another:

Originally published by adam on 14 Dec 2010
Last modified on 14 Dec 2010
Categories:   Air Travel   privacy   Security   Uncategorized