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Originally Posted by Trollkiller
(Post 11645596)
The posting of the signs is meaningless and does not dilute the Constitutional protections of the 4th Amendment. Contrary to your contentions, the blind, stupid or illiterate have the same Constitutional protections as the literate, sighted and intelligent. |
Originally Posted by LoganTSO
(Post 11644715)
I should add, according to our local newsletter, the pilot was authorized by Napolitano herself.
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Originally Posted by doober
(Post 11645631)
Interesting point: how does the TSA get around the claim that "signage" is posted for all to see when it comes to those who are legally blind? Are they put into the MMW with absolutely NO knowledge of what is happening and now way of obtaining that know or is the machine explained to them?
Hopefully one of our friendly TSOs can give us the scoop. |
Originally Posted by doober
(Post 11645637)
Of course, if Francine gave Napolitano her opinion of the legality of this type of screening, we can't put much faith in that, now can we?
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Originally Posted by Trollkiller
(Post 11643074)
In a word, reliability.
With the walk through MMW you have a controlled environment that is tuned to allow the sensor to see through clothing. With the passive MMW it relies on ambient radiation. Because the ambient radiation varies by location the reliability of the machine is lower. There are two separate aspects of the two scanners: (a) how the sensing is done (passive/active) and (b) what to do with the data. Trollkiller, your point is about (a) and is right - just as a flash photo is more reliable than relying on ambient light. But the privacy issue comes in at part (b). Both scanners produce (at a basic level) a series of numbers corresponding to pixels in rows and columns. It's possible to reassemble those numbers to create a picture (as the active scanner does, or as your computer does when you open a digital image file) which is viewed by a human to see if something stands out, or to analyse those numbers without creating the image by looking for anomalies (for example, pixels 30 to 89 in rows 18 to 60 are brighter than the pixels around them, suggesting something in that part of the view field.) The passive scanner does something like that, but it's independent of whether the scanner is active/passive. It's a technology decision which trades off whether you trust a human to find the "bright spot" better than the computer does against the privacy issue. The two manufacturers seem to have taken different approaches. A hybrid would be possible; the controlled source environment of the active scanner with the non-invasive display format of the passive system. But that would require cooperation between the two companies, time and money. Don't hold your breath.:rolleyes: |
Originally Posted by doober
(Post 11645631)
Interesting point: how does the TSA get around the claim that "signage" is posted for all to see when it comes to those who are legally blind? Are they put into the MMW with absolutely NO knowledge of what is happening and now way of obtaining that know or is the machine explained to them?
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Originally Posted by RadioGirl
(Post 11636713)
Poster Boy is back, misusing "hopefully" . . .
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Originally Posted by Trollkiller
(Post 11645596)
If a thermo imager showing "intimate details" of the time a person takes a bath is protected how much more are the intimate details of what I have in my pants protected?
As far as "intimate", I agree, he did not mean sex. But his analogy (lady of the house, sauna, bath)" was, in my opinion, his being cute and trying trigger in the reader's mind other situations where people do things in the house while naked. I did not mean to imply that his use of the word "intimate" is what sent my mind to the gutter-- or maybe that's the problem in the first place? |
RadioGirl,
Thank you for that last post. Perfectly logical and crystal clear. Any chance we can explain that to the TSA folks? I would tend to support technology that avoided groping IF it did not generate an image (pending cost-effectiveness analysis, etc, of course, and not as primary screening). But somehow I have the feeling some people within the TSA liker the idea of generating nude images and watching them secretly, not for the indecent exposure, but to show other people that they can do what they want in the name of "security"... |
Originally Posted by BubbaLoop
(Post 11647889)
RadioGirl,
Thank you for that last post. Perfectly logical and crystal clear. Any chance we can explain that to the TSA folks? I would tend to support technology that avoided groping IF it did not generate an image (pending cost-effectiveness analysis, etc, of course, and not as primary screening). But somehow I have the feeling some people within the TSA liker the idea of generating nude images and watching them secretly, not for the indecent exposure, but to show other people that they can do what they want in the name of "security"... now as to your "feeling" that some people at the tsa will be secretly viewing the images in, shall we say, not a proper manner".....give it time to come out and be made public, just give it time. (and poof, there goes the millimeter wave machine from service as yet another fine example of the tsa wasting (oops, my bad, i meant spending) money on a process which they thoroughly didn't perfect even tho they had the resources to do so) |
Originally Posted by Ari
(Post 11647640)
From what I understand of the technology, it doesn't really see through clothing, does it? Looking through the thread I couldn't find any photos that showed anything like what the MMW machines show. It looked much more like a glorified video camera (junk science?) to me. If I'm wrong in my take on the technology, then my 4th amd. view might change.
In a similar way, the mmw scanners (whether active or passive) record digital information of the intensity of the radio energy bouncing off your body (under your clothes) at each pixel of the scene. The manufacturer then has a choice: to turn that information into a picture on a monitor (like your camera does) or to search through it for patterns that indicate something artificial is under your clothes. As I said above, that involves a technical decision about whether a human is better at picking up an anomaly than the computer is. The manufacturers of the passive scanner have chosen the second option. They also have a regular digital camera that takes a regular photo, and the software then puts a marker on top of that photo in the location where the mmw sensor found something under the clothes. (OT - there was a research effort some years ago to automatically identify pornographic digital pictures by analysing how many of the pixels were some shade of pink. :eek: Didn't really work (for many reasons) but it was an example of analysing a picture without someone having to look at it.) Just explaining here, okay? I don't support the use of any scanners before the checkpoint, and think that if a scanner is used at the checkpoint, the display should be the type currently used by the passive scanner.
Originally Posted by BubbaLoop
(Post 11647889)
RadioGirl,
Thank you for that last post. Perfectly logical and crystal clear.
Originally Posted by goalie
(Post 11648210)
emphasis mine: please don't use the tsa and phrases like ""perfectly logical" and "crystal clear" in the same sentence while i'm eating....;)
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Originally Posted by Ari
(Post 11647640)
From what I understand of the technology, it doesn't really see through clothing, does it? Looking through the thread I couldn't find any photos that showed anything like what the MMW machines show. It looked much more like a glorified video camera (junk science?) to me. If I'm wrong in my take on the technology, then my 4th amd. view might change.
As far as "intimate", I agree, he did not mean sex. But his analogy (lady of the house, sauna, bath)" was, in my opinion, his being cute and trying trigger in the reader's mind other situations where people do things in the house while naked. I did not mean to imply that his use of the word "intimate" is what sent my mind to the gutter-- or maybe that's the problem in the first place? The thermo imager in Kyllo did not display a visible image of what was behind the walls. (Thermo photo of Kyllo's residence). Because the thermo imager registered heat that MAY indicate a grow operation the police felt they had enough to search. The Constitution disagreed. Both technologies have the ability to detect both legal and illegal and because of that ability the false positive results would fall way out of the standard set by the Court with the drug dog sniff exception. Katz shows that warrantless searches, no matter how unobtrusive, are unconstitutional without probable cause set forth in well defined exceptions. Katz v. United States (paragraph breaks are mine) The Government urges that, because its agents relied upon the decisions in Olmstead and Goldman, and because they did no more here than they might properly have done with prior judicial sanction, we should retroactively validate their conduct. That we cannot do. It is apparent that the agents in this case acted with restraint. Yet the inescapable fact is that this restraint was imposed by the agents themselves, not by a judicial officer. They were not required, before commencing the search, to present their estimate of probable cause for detached scrutiny by a neutral magistrate. They were not compelled, during the conduct of the search itself, to observe precise limits established in advance by a specific court order. Nor were they directed, after the search had been completed, to notify the authorizing magistrate in detail of all that had been seized. In the absence of such safeguards, this Court has never sustained a search upon the sole ground that officers reasonably expected to find evidence of a particular crime and voluntarily confined their activities to the least intrusive means consistent with that end. Searches conducted without warrants have been held unlawful "notwithstanding facts unquestionably showing probable cause," Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20, 269 U. S. 33, for the Constitution requires "that the deliberate, impartial judgment of a judicial officer . . . be interposed between the citizen and the police. . . ." Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471, 371 U. S. 481-482. "Over and again, this Court has emphasized that the mandate of the [Fourth] Amendment requires adherence to judicial processes," United States v. Jeffers, 342 U. S. 48, 342 U. S. 51, and that searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment [Footnote 18] -- subject only to a few specifically established and well delineated exceptions. [Footnote 19] |
Originally Posted by Trollkiller
(Post 11649299)
The fact that the SPO-7 does not display a visible image to the operator of what is under the clothes is irrelevant. The fact that the machine indicates to the operator that there MAY be contraband under the clothing is enough to violate the 4th Amendment protections.
BTW, are you a lawyer? |
Originally Posted by Ari
(Post 11649783)
Interesting argurment. How do you get around the warning sign, though? "You are subject to search" signs and the like tend to be upheld by SCOTUS, no?
BTW, are you a lawyer? I hate to raise the issue again, because if TSA took that objection seriously, they'd probably build an audio loop and speakers into the signs to repeat the message endlessly, or worse, put one of their underemployed TSO barkers to work spreading the word orally. Which would make the airport experience just that little bit worse. As regards the very informative quote TK pulled out of the Katz decision, I think TK put his finger on the larger issue (whether he's a lawyer or just plays one on TV), and I am no lawyer, and I am opposed to roving passive MMW's, but here's my $0.02, worth not a fraction of that: I bet if this ever comes to a head at the Supreme Court, they will make a distinction between someone behind the four walls of a home (or car) and someone anywhere inside the four walls of an airport (even a blind bat like Mrs.triehle), and allow TSA to go about their nasty business. BTW, here's a link to the pictures the roving passive MMW will deliver: http://www.tsa.gov/blog/2009/04/see-...creen-spo.html and what the nekkid pictures MMW at/near/instead of the WTMD will deliver: http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2...-naked-bodies/ |
Originally Posted by Ari
(Post 11649783)
Interesting argurment. How do you get around the warning sign, though? "You are subject to search" signs and the like tend to be upheld by SCOTUS, no?
BTW, are you a lawyer? I searched the Supreme courts rulings for every combination I could think of to find a case that dealt with implied consent searches based on signage by agents of, or in cooperation with, a Government agency. I was unable to find any such case. I did not do a search of the Circuit courts. If you know of any such case please post as much information as you can so I can look it up. |
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