Kerfuffle Raised Over Body Scan Images Being Stored

By aaroncynic in News on Aug 5, 2010 7:00PM

Americans have become increasingly used to incursions on our privacy via networked surveillance systems, corporate monitoring of internet activity, the warrantless wiretapping debacle and, of course, full body image scans in airports. On the heels of the announcement that body scanners will appear at 28 airports including Midway, it just so happens that despite assurances that the scans will not be stored (but instead deleted after screening), some agencies are doing just that.

CNET reports the U.S. Marshall’s Service admitted it saved thousands of images recorded at a Florida courthouse. In fact, full body scanners (O’Hare has 23) were designed to record and export images. While the TSA assures us that they’re not recording or “ever activating those capabilities at the airport,” the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a lawsuit asking for an immediate injunction to stop the body scanning program. EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg said it was outrageous that Homeland Security is “subjecting every U.S. traveler to an intrusive search that can be recorded without any suspicion.”

Salon’s Dan Gillmor points out this as an example of “mission creep,” where a program or technology’s use quickly expands beyond its original goals. Abroad, we’ve seen something similar in both Iraq and Afghanistan, where the scope, size and actual goals in the war quickly change to fit an administration’s often nebulous definition of why we’re fighting. Here at home, we can already see the beginnings happening with programs such as “Perfect Citizen,” an NSA spying network or the already ubiquitous nature of surveillance cameras. Sadly, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that though officially our privacy is respected, in practice, it’s anything but.