From where I live, it sure looks as though the body scanners – better termed “strip-search machines” – are in fact violating laws against child pornography. Ohio Revised Code section 2907.323 states:
(A) No person shall do any of the following:
(1) Photograph any minor who is not the person’s child or ward in a state of nudity, or create, direct, produce, or transfer any material or performance that shows the minor in a state of nudity, unless both of the following apply:
(a) The material or performance is, or is to be, sold, disseminated, displayed, possessed, controlled, brought or caused to be brought into this state, or presented for a bona fide artistic, medical, scientific, educational, religious, governmental, judicial, or other proper purpose, by or to a physician, psychologist, sociologist, scientist, teacher, person pursuing bona fide studies or research, librarian, member of the clergy, prosecutor, judge, or other person having a proper interest in the material or performance;
(b) The minor’s parents, guardian, or custodian consents in writing to the photographing of the minor, to the use of the minor in the material or performance, or to the transfer of the material and to the specific manner in which the material or performance is to be used.
In the case of body scanners, a photo is most definitely being taken. The TSA long maintained images weren’t being stored. Indeed, it repeatedly claimed images could not be stored.
That was a lie. Earlier this year, CNN documented the machines’ capacity to save and export images:
(Go here if you can’t see the clip.)
This week, the TSA’s false claims were further debunked at Alternet:
The U.S. Marshals Service admitted that just one courthouse checkpoint in Florida has stored tens of thousands of the images. And a report released last week revealed that the TSA demands all machines be equipped with the ability to record and transmit images for “testing, training, and evaluation purposes.”
So yes, the TSA is able to save and transmit pictures of children. The TSA insists that the “save” function is disabled before the strip-search machines are used on passengers. Blogger Bob – the friendly public face of the TSA – insists that “here is no fondling, squeezing, groping, or any sort of sexual assault taking place at airports.” Unfortunately for Blogger Bob, multiple witnesses report being groped. The TSA might be credible if it had a track record of truthfulness rather than truthiness.
Even if the “save” function is indeed disabled in the strip-search machines, we cannot know what transpires in the mind of the officer viewing the images. Some portion of the population gets off on pictures of naked children. The TSA has no mechanism to avoid hiring these people, other than rejecting applicants with a conviction for rape or aggravated sexual abuse less than ten years in the past. Applicants with older sexual assault convictions are fully eligible for hire. These regulations are silent on possession of child pornography. (Regulations via the travel blog Flying with Fish.) Last spring, a 44-year-old TSA employee at Logan Airport in Boston was arrested on “two counts of statutory rape, two counts of enticing a minor and one count of indecent assault and battery.” (The link is to Prison Planet, which mirrors the Boston Herald’s article – now partially behind a paywall.)
I imagine the TSA would cite a “governmental” purpose, as specified in paragraph (a) above. However – and this is a mammoth caveat – paragraph (b) further requires the written consent of the child’s parent of guardian.
Know any parents who would willingly sign off on this?
Otherwise, according to my reading of Ohio law, naked images of a child, whether transmitted or not, constitute child pornography. Creation of them is a second-degree felony.
(The usual disclaimer applies: I am not a lawyer, just a pissed-off mother. If are any real lawyers are willing to weigh in, I’d be grateful for your opinion!)
Patron cat of Kittywampus (1985-2001)
It certainly seems obtrusive.
I don’t know much about state law since my area of practice is all federal, but I think that its a stretch to call these child pornography* under the federal statute. Now, having said that, I have had the unfortunate experience of seeing a decent amount of material that is characterized legally as child pornography which is more mundane than the back scatter images. I have no confidence whatsoever in the security of these images and I don’t think it’ll be long before they start being traded online. I am deeply ambivalent about taking Baby Fizz (Toddler Fizz, to be accurate) home for the holidays precisely for this reason. It’s too much.
*I hate this term. Some suggest calling it child sex abuse images or something comparable, which I think is a lot more accurate. Porn seems too innocuous for such garbage.
I’m checking out what the DOJ says, and it seems like the federal standards requires more than just nudity. There needs to be “sexually suggestive content.” The DOJ states: “A picture of a naked child may constitute illegal child pornography if it is sufficiently sexually suggestive.”
So under federal law, the images created by the TSA appear not to be child porn, because they are not overtly sexual. I actually think it’s important to draw that distinction, lest we criminalize pictures parents take of their kids in the bathtub. I seem to recall at least one case where an Ohio parent was prosecuted for naked-kid pix after a CVS photo clerk called the police, but I can’t seem to turn up the reference (though it’s easy to find accounts of parents prosecuted in other jurisdictions).
British privacy proponents have argued that the scanners violate British child-protection laws, but their extravagantly-named Transportation Secretary, Lord Adonis, has held otherwise.
I can’t imagine how you deal with child pornography as part of your workaday life. I have enough trouble just *teaching* about various atrocities without having to look at them.
Well, there’s what the statute says and how it gets construed in practice. I have seen photos that are classed as child pornography that (individually), I would not say qualify under even a liberal reading of the statute.
I think the one thing I did not expect to discover in my line of work is that child pornography falls on a spectrum: some of it is seared into my retinas, some of it is almost pedestrian. I also was surprised to discover how much worse video files are than still images. I just never thought I would be compartmentalizing and processing it like that, but you do. You can’t internalize too much of that pain or you’ll never be able to get out of bed in the morning. Yes, it’s horrifying, but I’m working to prevent it, even if my way of doing so is just a teaspoon in a raging ocean.
Also, frequently the images aren’t the worst parts: the narratives about what was happening to these children when the camera is off is even more horrifying than the stuff you see.
Can we talk about something happy now?
Anyone who believes these images aren’t being saved is a nitwit. Someone in Ohio needs to make a complaint and test the TSA’s aberrant policies and practices.
As an aside, here’s a story about a man who was convicted of having child porn on a computer that wouldn’t even power up. He’s now a registered sex offender. The “children” in question? Cartoon characters from ‘The Simpsons.” No real or living children anywhere to be seen. Yet the US government, one that criminalizes the human body now thinks it’s alright to photograph your children in the nude, save the photos, then lie to you about what they’re doing with them.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/the-simpsons-porn-lands-man-on-sex-offender-list-20100126-muzn.html
At some point soon, these images the TSA says they’re not saving will begin to show up on the internet. Once that happens of course, these images are irretrievable. On that day we will all start to pay for the TSA’s violations of our privacy and our rights because the subject of the distributed photos will sue the Federal gov’t every time such an image appears–over and over and over again. They will win their suits over and over and over again. That’s also how often you and I will pay.
Yes – all it would take is one rogue TSA employee who understands how to reactivate the “save” function that is supposedly disabled before the machines come online at airports. My larger concern is still for the kids. But you’re right, if those photos go on the Internet, we will all pay, and in moral terms as well as monetary.
They are storing the imges and I will tell you why. If something happens they will “magically” have the capability to work their way back to PROVE the imaging didn’t catch anything. Everything in airports is recorded, time stamped and dated.
What happens if you are wearing a tampon? Can they see this? Or a bladder protection pad in your underwear, will they question why your pants are bulky in the vaginal area? No one should be checking my vag out but me and an occasional doc or my hubbie. I am waiting for the naked woman under the coat. I think it would be worth a public indecency ticket and time served.
This is stupid. Just in…terrorist are putting the bombs in the cargo? DUH! no SHIT. THE PLANES ENTERING THE COUNTRY SHOULD BE BETTER SCREENED. We can’t keep 30 million illegal aliens out of this country and yet we have the privileged of “feeling safe” in the air after being violated by our own government. This is so backwards. National guard should be on the fence, 1 every 100 ft. Armed with big guns and the TSA should keep their eyes and hands to themselves.
Contemplating Muslims being self patted down or exempted. WTF!!!!! Profiling is the only way to go here folks. period.
Leisha, there’s no evidence that Muslims are being allowed any special treatment, or that any changes are being contemplated beyond perhaps some training in cultural sensitivity. Please see my post on this topic.
And do you honestly think there’s any connection between undocumented aliens, who flock here because U.S. employers are hungry for them to take jobs that others won’t, and terrorists? Where’s the logic?
I’m not going to debate you on these topics, and I didn’t edit them out of your comment because I don’t edit comments. I let it through in hopes that you will keep reading and see that the threat comes from terrorists, period. Not from peace-loving Muslims, not from job-seeking Mexicans – from terrorists! Let’s keep our eye on the true threat, and let’s also keep it in proportion.
I thought your first point (on images being stored) was interesting and fairly convincing.
By way of clarification: No, a tampon cannot be detected by the machines. Pads can. TSA head John Pistole admitted this but then refused to say how the TSA will react when they view a pad (or even an adult diaper!) on the screen. I strongly suspect he just hasn’t thought it through! A terrorist could smuggle quite a lot in a mocked-up diaper, but do we really want to humiliate every adult who has to rely on incontinence products? That would be incredibly cruel.
this just in check out the story of the TSA worker just arrested in Atlanta for sexual assault of an airport employee.
As to the original story about children, I have told my daughter that no one should take pictures of her without her clothes on and no one should touch her. I have read stories where the parent was not allowed to be in proximity of the child or even touch them. I can honestly say that if a TSA worker touched my daughter’s private area, I would be on the news that night. It is pure and simple sexual assault. WE don’t know these people, WE DON’T know their backgrounds. WE are trusting the government to hire and train professionals, but there are many reports this is not the case, see above story on the news tonight. Our government recently put out a report that says the TSA is not appropriately training their employees. There is simply NO REASON TO TOUCH THE GENITALIA OF ANYONE LET ALONE A CHILD!
You are incorrect, CAIR is “requesting” preferential treatment of Muslim women. Janet Napolitano is considering. Pistole says no but then again he said pilots would be screened and now they are (rightfully) exempt. For the Muslim community to say we shouldn’t profile and then turn around and claim religious exemption is hypocritical. They must be subject as anyone else would be.
With regard to pads/diapers, you have proved the point, these searches would not yield much. Why wouldn’t they humiliate someone with this problem. they are doing it NOW. Did you not see the woman who was forced to take out her prostetic breast? The urine spill incident?
Surely, anything inserted in a woman would be the size of a tampon and what would they do if the diaper was in view. I know they are not going to give all of their secrets away, but where does this end. To switch from standard metal detectors to AIT and full fledged groping without any real flash point shows this was a financial boon for someone. Most airports are using these methods now and have left the metal detector behind. If they aren’t, they soon will be.
My assertion about illegal aliens is that our government is out of control. Focus is in the wrong place. There have been numerous reports of questionable individuals arriving into the US through the un-tended borders of this country.
I am not talking about JOB SEEKERS. I am talking about the government’s failure to secure our borders, to keep those who seek to break the law, and that is what they are, out of our country. Now our government is going full force on manhandling genitalia of it’s own citizens to keep us safe. It is hypocritical. If they put as much emphasis on securing our borders as they are with this show of force, we would be better off.
In other words, how can we believe these unproven and doubtful, invasive measures will keep us safe when our government can’t even keep 30 million illegal aliens from walking across our borders.
Homeland security has put its faith in these methods. The problem is any flight that is bound for the US should be screened this way. Some are not. Save these invasive searches for anyone seeking to enter our country. We have the right to secure our country, but where are the threats coming from? Birmingham, Alabama? NO.
Profiling is the only thing that will stop but we are a nation of “get in one line now”. Did you ever notice how we as a society have shifted from several lines, each line serving many to one long line. We are so afraid that someone will have to wait longer than anyone else. We are all treated the same now so the few won’t be inconvenienced. I find this utterly ridiculous. Think about that next time you are waiting in line at the airport for your groping or screen time.
Well, actually we’ve seen major threats come from people born within our borders – have you forgotten Timothy McVeigh? Also, given the violence inflicted on peaceful African-Americans merely seeking their civil rights in the 1960s, Birmingham might not be such a sterling example, either.
CAIR will not achieve a meaningful exemption for Muslims. Muslims as a group do not have clout. Pilots, on the other hand, can ground air traffic entirely, if they so choose. There’s no comparison. Why, flight attendants have not yet achieved an exemption. If they do, it will because they are unionized.
Don’t we really need to be rolling back these stupid, harmful new rules for everyone’s sake? Scapegoating minority groups is a distraction.
I agree on you completely with regard to children.
Please note that I’ve written a whole series of posts on the TSA issues. I’m not going to approve further comments that don’t stick to the general theme of each post. That means I’m also not going to approve any comments that pick on immigrants or say ignorant things about Muslims.
I was googling TSA and your blog came up.
Even if they disable the ability to record – it doesn’t stop that worker from using their personal phone to record or snap photos. There is a case of a firefighter who used his phone to take video of a fatal accident and posting it online. What’s to stop the guy in the office from doing the same?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/10/19/2010-10-19_parents_outraged_that_a_firefighter_videotaped_their_daughters_car_crash_death_p.html
That’s a really good point you make, Elisa. (And the story of the firefighter is horrific.) I have no confidence that there will be meaningful controls on those images.
I’m terrified. I’m 16 years old, and I don’t need a 40 year old man seeing me naked. It honestly scares me. I don’t want to be felt up either.
I do have one question, do you have to go through it ONLY if you set off the metal detectors?
I NEVER want to go in one of these, it really scares me. I’m not exactly the smallest chested person in the world…and I don’t need some guy getting off on that or posting my picture on a child porn websites. Websites that will then come back to haunt me by say…I go in to get a really good job, but they somehow discover I have a naked picture from the TSA on the internet.
But I don’t want to be felt up either. I don’t need someone groping me. It’s creepy, disturbing, and disgusting. I’m underaged for god’s sake! We might go to Europe during the summer, and I REALLY don’t need that. It seriously scares me. What if I’m randomly chosen to get a screening? This pisses me off and I’m fearful of it. I can’t refuse either, so it’s either get eye-raped or felt up. Both are uncomfortable and creepy.
I hate TSA
They’ve even stolen stuff from my family before. When we moved here we, of course, brought out dog. Well we packed her leash in our luggage and they stole it. We had to take the straps off our carry-ons and attach them to each other to make a leash for her. Completely ridiculous.
I do think of this as child porn. Underaged kids and teens do not need to be felt up and touched or see naked. This really does scare me.
Megan, having done almost a year’s worth of research on the TSA’s procedures, I can answer your question: “do you have to go through it ONLY if you set off the metal detectors?”
Unfortunately, you can be selected at random, for any reason whatsoever, including whim. The TSA is not required to tell anyone why he/she has been chosen for “secondary” — i.e., gropefest — screening. I wrote about my own “random” selection back in September (http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2010/09/we-are-your-neighbors-friends-and-relatives.html) — this was before the groping was put in place. But I knew said groping was coming because I knew it had been “tested” for months in Las Vegas and Boston before a national roll-out. I tried to warn people, but . . . .
Anyway, I didn’t set off anything, I didn’t even get a chance to walk through the metal detector initially, even though other people were walking through, because the agent simply pulled the strap across the line when she saw me. I was told to go through the stripsearch scanner. I declined, then was told to go through the metal detector, which I didn’t set off, and was made to wait (and wait and wait) until someone came over to search me. Search my bare arms and bare feet, I might add, just one of the many idiocies being performed by the TSA.
Also, any so-called “anomaly” — a scrap of paper, a string in your pocket — that the scanner picks up can get you booted over to grope-screening. I do mean any. I’ve read far too many stories by now, not just one or two or three, of this happening. People who’ve already emptied their pockets but who may have not pulled out a — gasp! — ponytail holder — are being pulled aside, lectured if not yelled at, and then groped.
For Sungold and others who are discussing the prospect of people being humiliated when it’s discovered they’re wearing a sanitary napkin or incontinence pad, see this:
http://blog.gladrags.com/2010/11/24/tsa-groin-searches-menstruating-woman/
Thank you for your response. I just read your article and a few of the comments.
I am truly fearful of this, and I honestly don’t want to go to Europe JUST because of this. And I’ve wanted to go on a tour of Europe for a while. I was so excited for it too, but then this.
I’m TERRIFIED, absolutely terrified, of rape and sexual assault. No, nothings ever happened to me, but it just still scares me. I don’t want that to ever happen to me, but this is EXACTLY like that. Why should they be allowed to feel me up or see me naked? Especially when I’m only 16. If I have to go through with either of those, it will be seriously traumatizing for me. I doubt I will ever be able to even fly again.
Another part I’m concered about is that I am cancer survivor, and I hear the porn-scanners…ahem I mean…the full body scanners give off an unhealthy amount of radiation and I don’t know if that could severaly hurt me.
But I don’t want to then have to get felt up, especially when it could quite possibly be a man. It’s supposed to be same-sex people who do it, but they ignore that rule a lot. I don’t need a 40 year old feeling up, groping, and squeezing my groin and breasts. I’ve never let someone touch me there before.
I’m really scared to go to the airport. As stupid as it sounds, I’m not just embarrassed or annoyed, I am SCARED. I’m scared that someone is going to be jacking-off in the TSA room to my picture. I’m afraid of ending up on a child porn website. I’m afraid of being groped by a man who’s giving me an intimate and creepy pat-down. Even if it’s a women, I’m still not okay with it.
At this point, I really do think I would give up Europe just so I don’t have to go through either of those. I don’t want to be randomly selected. I don’t want to have to go through because I’m on my period either. What if they decided “Hey she has big boobs! Let’s pick her so we can see her naked or feel her up.” Because I’m pretty sure SOMEWHERE out there, there are men in the TSA doing that.
Now I don’t want to say that this is towards all TSA staff, because it’s not. But perverted or not, I don’t need them seeing my naked or felt up. Even if the people who are looking at the pictures aren’t getting off on them, they still might save them and send them to websites or something or others may look at them. It’s disturbing to me.
I’m just really upset and disturbed by this entire TSA bull-shit.
Megan, it does NOT sound stupid, and please don’t let anyone tell you it is. I completely sympathize with you. I feel the same way you do, and I’m 53 years old! I’ve been having raging battles with my husband, an otherwise sensitive soul, because he just doesn’t get it.
And neither, frankly, do most of my female friends. They don’t get it. They think it’s, quote, “no big deal.”
Assault on your body is “no big deal”???
Well, we all know what that means: assault on SOMEBODY ELSE’S body is “no big deal.” If and when it happens to them personally, suddenly, you can be sure, it will become a big deal.
But that’s where we stand. People who don’t get it until it happens to them. Frankly, I’ve met this same kind of resistance when I’ve tried to talk about rape and battery in general. Women who haven’t directly experienced it, or whose loved ones haven’t, often don’t get it. (And no, I’ve never been assaulted, either.) Magical thinking? “If I pretend this isn’t going on, then it can’t happen to me”? I don’t know. I just know that sticking one’s head in the sand isn’t an answer.
I have a major, expensive, already-paid-for trip to India coming up. I agreed to it against my better judgment. I’m inches from bailing, and just eating the cost. Because I don’t see why I should have to submit to possible assault — by my own government, no less — to get on an airplane. But no one — no one — in my immediate or extended family gets it.
Megan, I’m sorry not to have been more present in my own comments section! I was finishing my end-of-quarter grading. (Now I’m a free woman for a few weeks. Woo hoo!)
I teach women’s and gender studies at a college, and so a lot of my work is exploring how we can together build a world where bodily autonomy is taken seriously for both women and men. Obviously my work aims to reduce sexual assault, and I just saw red when I realized how the new TSA procedures – both the imaging and the groping – run directly counter to my everyday work. I envision a world where people would determine their own boundaries and only consent to being viewed or touched if it feels right to them.
That said, I also teach about the harm done by the fear of rape and other forms of sexual assault – a phenomenon that Gloria Steinem once dubbed “sexual terrorism.” If I let my fears of sexual violence keep me from doing something I really want to do – say, staying at the library until midnight, or going to see a late movie – then that is also a harm. Any one such decision to play it “safe” might have minimal impact. Added together, they can really limit our lives.
All things considered, I would go to Europe, but be armed psychologically with the knowledge that a stranger’s touch does not diminish you as a person, it is just a violation of your rights. You remain the same whole, worthy, wonderful person you were beforehand. You do have the right to demand a *female* TSA officer.
As a cancer survivor, I’d opt out. My husband has had Hodgkins and he does not need any more radiation. Ditto for my sister, who got radioactive iodine following surgery for thyroid cancer. I personally have only had a couple of pre-cancerous skin lesions removed, but since the x-rays are concentrated at and near the surface of the skin, I’m nervous about my own safety.
Let’s hope you just don’t get randomly selected.
And Lisa – ditto. I would not bail on India, because that in a way also let’s them win. If you eat the cost, you don’t even get the satisfaction of participating in the “we won’t fly” boycott. I say, go to India, and meditate upon the changes we need to make happen.
TSA and john pistole are violating federal laws which state, it is unlawful to produce,transmit or view nude pictures of minors, further john pistole ordered aggressive pat downs to get americans to use those porno scanners which are being peddled by former TSA administrator michael chertoff who stands to make millions if janet napolatino gets her away and those devices are put all over america, TSA is committing crimes against common decency and claiming ignorance or i was just following orders were used at Nuremberg with little or no success and they won’t work now.