Have you ever had a dream where you were standing in front of a group of strangers in your underwear? The next time you fly, you’re likely to be left in less than that. Last month, the Transportation Security Administration began installing full body scanners at our local airports. These scanners virtually peel away your clothing and leave you stark naked to an employee who may, or may not, have had a background check.
Many New Yorkers have told me that they are willing to check their dignity at airport doors in the interest of safety. But, did you know that the safest airport in the world — Ben Gurion International in Tel Aviv, Israel — refuses to purchase these scanners because they don’t work? In the words of the former chief security officer of the Israel Airport Authority, Rafi Sela, he could “overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to take down a Boeing 747.” This is not surprising. These machines can detect guns, knives and box cutters, but they cannot pick up materials, like plastics, liquids and powders, most frequently used in attempted post-9/11 airplane bombings.
So, how did these ineffectual strip search machines, which will leave your Grandma longing for olden days when a glimpse of stocking was shocking, end up at JFK International and La Guardia airports? The answer: TSA incompetence and very powerful lobbyists.
On Christmas Day 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to take down a plane over Detroit using a liquid and powder explosive hidden in his underwear. Americans were now terrified of similar attempts during the busy holiday travel season. Enter Michael Chertoff, former secretary of Homeland Security. Chertoff was trotted out before the national media to proclaim that if these full body scanners were deployed they “would pick up this kind of device.”
What Chertoff neglected to mention to the nervous American public, while shilling for a machine that wouldn’t have stopped Abdulmutallab, is that, as the head of The Chertoff Group, he was now being paid as a lobbyist for Rapiscan, a company actively pursuing a contract for these scanners. Within days, Chertoff’s client received an astonishing $173 million to manufacture and install these machines in airports across the country.
Furthermore, unlike the Israelis, who use background checks on all of their travelers to detect and vigorously search likely terrorists, the TSA does not discriminate against passengers. This means your 7-year-old niece and your 70-year-old mother are as likely to be strip scanned as Osama bin Laden.
Aside from serious concerns about having nude images of children displayed to underqualified TSA screeners, there are also significant health and safety concerns related to the amount of radiation travelers are subjected to by the scanners. Even your 7-year-old niece knows that when she gets an X-ray at the dentist they put a lead bib on her for protection.
So if you don’t want to walk through an X-ray machine unprotected, then what do you do?
Opt out, insist Homeland Security officials. Passengers who are uncomfortable with the body scanning process may instead choose an “enhanced” pat-down, which in other contexts we might classify as sexual assault. A TSA employee will engage in a two- to four-minute examination of passengers, which includes groping your most private parts.
What’s more, a recent lawsuit alleges that one woman’s blouse was pulled down during a pat-down at Corpus Christi International Airport in Texas, publicly exposing her breasts. According to the lawsuit, one screener said he was sorry he missed it and was looking forward to watching the video of the incident. This woman didn’t have to go through a body scanner to be exposed; she only had to interact with one of TSA’s consummate professionals.
So what do we do to bring an end to these egregious violations of our privacy? First, ask your City Council member to support my legislation to ban these full body scanners in New York City.
If the City Council passes this bill, these scanners would be out of our airports and also banned from courthouses and government buildings throughout the city.
I intentionally proposed a citywide ban because, in Orlando, United States marshals kept 35,000 nude images of people passing through these machines in order to enter the courthouses.
Second, while we work through the legislative process, I have suggested to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates our airports on land leased from the city of New York, that it should formally opt out of TSA-provided security, like other airports in US cities already have. By choosing a better trained, more professional private security firm, which the federal government will pay for, we can ensure that we don’t have to be exposed to expose potential threats to our safety.
David G. Greenfield is an attorney and Democratic New York City Councilman from Brooklyn.