Sorry, Ladies-o'-the-Burg. It seems they haven't made it out to the general public for them to be posted here, yet.
In any case, here is the article in all its glory (pun intended). Might be true, and it might be the rantings of a paranoid elite.
Claims on behalf of authorities that naked body scanner images are immediately destroyed after passengers pass through new x-ray backscatter devices have been proven fraudulent after it was revealed that naked images of Indian film star Shahrukh Khan were printed out and circulated by airport staff at Heathrow in London.
UK Transport Secretary Lord Adonis said last week that the images produced by the scanners were deleted "immediately" and airport staff carrying out the procedure are fully trained and supervised. If they are always immediately deleted, then why does the capacity to save them even exist at all? You'd think that in any case where they would need to be saved as evidence, that the whole line would be stopped in any case and any real evidence be removed from a terrorist's person. Perhaps the capacity could exist, but superiors would have to be notified to authorize the capture of the images.
"It is very important to stress that the images which are captured by body scanners are immediately deleted after the passenger has gone through the body scanner," Adonis told the London Evening Standard.
Adonis was forced to address privacy concerns following reports that the images produced by the scanners broke child pornography laws in the UK. When the scanners were first introduced, it was also speculated that images of famous people would be ripe for abuse as the pictures produced by the devices make genitals "eerily visible" according to journalists who have investigated trials of the technology.
However, the Transport Secretary's assurances were demolished after it was revealed on the BBC's Jonathan Ross show Friday that Indian actor Shahrukh Khan had passed through a body scan and later had the image of his naked body printed out and circulated by Heathrow security staff.
"I was in London recently going through the airport and these new machines have come up, the body scans. You've got to see them. It makes you embarrassed -- if you're not well endowed," said Khan, referring to how the scans produce clear images of a person's genitals. Apparently Mr. Khan didn't feel that he had much to be embarrassed about.
"You walk into the machine and everything -- the whole outline of your body -- comes out," he said.
"I was a little scared. Something happens [inside the scans], and I came out. Then I saw these girls -- they had these printouts. I looked at them. I thought they were some forms you had to fill. I said 'give them to me' -- and you could see everything inside. So I autographed them for them," stated Khan. That didn't take long. Suspiciously so.
The story was carried by Yahoo News under the headline "Shah Rukh signs off sexy body-scan printouts to gaggle of giggling girls at Heathrow".
Khan's reference to "girls" with printouts of his naked body scan can only refer to female airport security staff responsible for processing the images produced by the scanners, "professionals" who are supposed to instantly delete the images, according to Lord Adonis.
The revelation that airport security staff are completely abusing any notion of the professionalism promised by authorities by printing out and circulating images of naked body scans should set alarm bells ringing, especially in light of the fact that such images of minors break child pornography laws. British authorities have made it mandatory for travelers to submit to the naked body scanners when asked and have overturned previous rules that prevented under 18's from passing through the devices.
Within days of the devices being introduced at Heathrow, staff have abused their professionalism and printed out naked scans of a famous actor for their own titillation. I'm shocked that human nature would override law. Who could have guessed?
We were promised all along that the body scanners "increased privacy" because they were only accessible to a single staff member who had no personal contact with the passenger taking the scan, in addition to the assurance that the images could not be saved and were instantly deleted. It in fact turns out that airport staff have been saving, printing and circulating naked body scans in complete violation of these supposed guarantees.
Furthermore, we were told that the identity of the person undergoing the virtual strip search would also be kept private. The fact that Heathrow employees must have known that the actor was about to take the body scan in order to print out copies of the image also proves this claim to be a total fallacy. Ever heard of text messaging, folks?
The abuse of the naked body scan images in this instance is a total violation of every data protection law in the UK. Far from treating the story in a comical manner, Khan should be filing a very expensive lawsuit and preparing for a successful and lucrative outcome.
In the meantime, the revelation that the naked body scanner images are being freely printed out and circulated by airport security staff should prove to be the death knell for plans on behalf of governments worldwide to institute the scanners on a widespread basis.
Courts have consistently found that strip searches are only legal when performed on a person who has already been found guilty of a crime or on arrestees pending trial where a reasonable suspicion has to exist that they are carrying a weapon. Subjecting masses of people to blanket strip searches in airports reverses the very notion of innocent until proven guilty.
Barring people from flying and essentially treating them like terrorists for refusing to be humiliated by the virtual strip search is a clear breach of the basic human right of freedom of movement. Security experts agree that such scanners would not even have stopped the incident that has been exploited to justify their widespread introduction -- the Christmas Day underwear bomber.
Not only have the scanners proven to be a total violation of privacy, but major international radiation safety groups are now warning of the health risks they pose.
Despite governments claiming that backscatter x-ray systems produce radiation too low to pose a threat, the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety concluded in their report that governments must justify the use of the scanners and that a more accurate assessment of the health risks is needed.
Pregnant women and children should not be subject to scanning, according to the report, adding that governments should consider "other techniques to achieve the same end without the use of ionizing radiation."
"The Committee cited the IAEA's 1996 Basic Safety Standards agreement, drafted over three decades, that protects people from radiation. Frequent exposure to low doses of radiation can lead to cancer and birth defects, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,"
#1
The PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) are old hat. The new acronym on trading floors for possible dominoes if Greece should fall is STUPID (Spain, Turkey, UK, Portugal, Italy, Dubai).
This should worry the UK. It's not one of the PIGS but is considered STUPID. Given the way such acronyms can become contagious, the UK needs to distance itself from the others.
* WMF > ISLAMISTS' WAR OF PEACE/WAR IN PEACE: "AFGHANISTANS IN EUROPE" MAY BE CREATED AS A CONSEQUENCE OD SERIOUS ECONOMIC TROUBLES IN GREECE, FORMER YUGOSLAVIA AND EASTERN EUROPE, AND TURKEY.
Declining to poor economies may lead to ETHNIC + LABOR UNRESTS, MIGRATIONS = ECON DIASPORAS which in turn may lead to NEWFOUND ETHNIC, MIXED LOCAL DEMANDS FOR DE FACTO "SOVEREIGNTY" = AUTONOMY OR INDEPENDENCE FROM MAIN GOVTS.
I'm a'guessin the USDOD might wanna dust off + upgrade those old Cold War NATO WAR/OPPLANS as per FULDA GAP + USMC DEFENSE OF SCANDINAVIA. MAKE SURE THE PLANNING BOYZ BUY ENUFF NASAL ANTI-HISTIMINE(S) WHEN THEY DO!
When France's most dashing philosopher took aim at Immanuel Kant in his latest book, calling him raving mad' and a fake', his observations were greeted with the usual adulation. To support his attack, Bernard-Henri Lévy a showman-penseur known simply by his initials, BHL cited the little-known 20th-century thinker Jean-Baptiste Botul.
There was one problem: Botul was invented by a journalist in 1999 as an elaborate joke, and BHL has become the laughing stock of the Left Bank.
There were clues. One supposed work by Botul from which BHL quoted was entitled The Sex Life of Immanuel Kant. The philosopher's school is known as Botulism and subscribes to his theory of La Metaphysique du Mou' the Metaphysics of the Flabby. Botul even has a Wikipedia entry that explains that he is a fictional French philosopher'.
But Mr Lévy, a leader among the nouveaux philosophes school of the 1970s, was unaware. In On War in Philosophy, he writes that Botul had proved once and for all just after the Second World War, in his series of lectures to the neo-Kantians of Paraguay, that their hero was an abstract fake, a pure spirit of pure appearance'.
The blunder was seized on with glee by a literary world fiercely jealous of BHL's success. His credulity was spotted by Aude Lancelin, a journalist with the Le Nouvel Observateur, the left-leaning weekly that is de rigueur for the thinking classes. The Botul quotes were a nuclear gaffe that raises questions on the Lévy method', she wrote.
Mr Lévy admitted last night that he had been fooled by Botul, the creation of a literary journalist, Frédéric Pages, but he was not exactly contrite.
Appearing on Canal+ television, he said he had always admired The Sex Life of Immanuel Kant and that its arguments were solid, whether written by Botul or Pages. I salute the artist [Pages],' he said, adding with a philosophical flourish: Hats off for this invented-but-more-real-than-real Kant, whose portrait, whether signed Botul, Pages or John Smith, seems to be in harmony with my idea of a Kant who was tormented by demons that were less theoretical than it seemed.'
Ms Lancelin told The Times she was surprised that none of the journalists who had been giving Mr Lévy the celebrity treatment had noted that he spent two pages using a non-existent philosopher to prove his argument. I came across the quotes from Botul and burst out laughing,' she said.
On the internet, where the affair took off yesterday afternoon, many others questioned why the reviewers and interviewers who have been filling pages and air time with Mr Lévy's new book had failed to spot the blunder.
Mr Lévy's slip was far from his first. His career as writer, moralist, occasional war correspondent and media commentator has been punctuated by claims that he cuts corners.
In his television interview last night he called philosophy a combat sport, insisting: It's the role of the philosopher to land blows.'
A freshman Southern Arizona lawmaker is leading the effort to strip Arizona voters of the right to nominate U.S. senators.
The proposal by Rep. David Stevens, R-Sierra Vista, would give that right to the elected legislators from each party. Only after that process is complete would voters get a say, in the general election, who they actually want to send to Washington.
Stevens said his measure, if approved by Arizona voters in November, would be a partial return to the way things were before the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted.
Until then, each state legislature actually got to choose its U.S. senators, with voters allowed only to pick only the folks going to the House of Representatives. The 1913 amendment requires direct election of all members of Congress.
Stevens said that amendment was a mistake. He said the old system ensured that senators were responsive to the desires of state lawmakers.
"The state is supreme over the federal government,' he said. "And when they weren't doing what we thought they should be doing, we could recall them at any time.' With direct election, Stevens said, federal senators are less interested in protecting the rights of the states and more interested in looking out for the powers of the federal government.
"It takes away the ability of the state to negotiate with the federal government,' he said.
Unable to repeal the 17th Amendment, Stevens is trying the next best thing: changing the nominating process.
He said HCR 2046 would not run afoul of the U.S. Constitution because it does preserve the direct election of senators as required. He said nothing in that amendment spells out the nominating process for those candidates, which is what he wants to change.
Because his plan requires voter approval, nothing in his measure would affect this year's Republican primary battle involving incumbent John McCain and challengers J.D. Hayworth and Chris Simcox.
Stevens said, though, there might be an entirely different political landscape if McCain, Hayworth and Simcox were busy battling for the support of the 35 House Republicans and 18 GOP senators rather than seeing who can corral more popular votes at the primary in August.
In fact, he said it is possible that someone like Hayworth, whose campaign warchest is going to be dwarfed by McCain, actually might have a better chance of becoming the party's nominee.
"He would have to come down and, basically, campaign us,' Stevens said.
Stevens said he believes he can sell voters on the idea of giving up their right to nominate their U.S. senators.
"I'll ask them if they feel like they're being served by their senators,' Stevens said.
"And I can pretty much tell you what they're answer is going to be, that is 'no,' ' he continued. Stevens added, though, he said he's not just talking about Arizona but the situation nationwide.
The plan will get no backing from McCain.
"Senator McCain believes all elections, primary and general, should be decided by the people, as stated in the Constitution,' said aide Brooke Buchanan.
Hayworth said he is sympathetic to what Stevens is trying to do.
"I believe in states' rights,' he said. But Hayworth said he can't support this specific measure.
"Right now I just think it's important for the people to decide' who are their Arizona senators.
And Simcox said he's not sure if such a change would make the process better.
On one hand, he said the measure might help candidates like himself who he contends are more committed to the principles of the party and less to being loyal to those who control the party structure. But Simcox said he also can foresee a way that this system also can be co-opted by the party leadership.
The measure does have an escape clause for recognized parties that don't happen to have any members in the Arizona Legislature: Their U.S. Senate nominees would continue to be chosen the way they are now through a primary race.
Stevens said even if he gets his wish and the nominating process is changed, it still might be difficult for Arizona lawmakers to keep their federal senators' feet to the fire. That goes back to the 17th Amendment and that federal requirement for direct election.
"Once they get elected to their six years, we (legislators) don't have the ability to call them back,' Stevens said. This is brilliant! McCain hates it, because right now his rich wife and lobbyists buy him his seat. He doesn't give a damn about Arizona. But even if a bad senator, who betrays his State, is elected once, it means that he will be a 1-term senator only. Term limits.
#1
Don't get the anti-federalist in the title. This sounds more federalist to me. I've often thought that the old way might be a better curb on Washington.
#2
I vaguely remember some really good reasons to take selection of Senators away the state legislatures, which was the reason for the 17th amendment. The electorate has always had the power of term limits. Adding more regulations on top of that is superfluous. I keep hoping that eventually the electorate will suffer enough to take the government back, but some days I'm not as optimistic as others.
#4
I suggest the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, then the Federalist Papers. If anything can help, that's it.
#5
State ledislature corruption, deadlock and no sitting senators, etc. were the reasons that the populist apporach was pushed. While I think that the state should have the ability to pull back their senators after a 2/3 vote of the state government, term limits would be the best way to keep bad senators from stinking up the hill for long periods.
#6
AlanC: By today's definition, a Federalist supports the idea of a balance of power between the national government, the individual States, and the people.
An Anti-Federalist supports the idea that the individual States, as a group, should be superior to the national government. This is more like Rep. Stevens statement, "The state is supreme over the federal government."
So today, Federalists and Anti-Federalists are not in contention, because they both hold that the national government has taken far too many powers not authorized it by the constitution.
This has gone so far that it means that all three branches of the national government have usurped power that is constitutionally denied them. The executive branch and the bureaucracy, the legislative branch, and the judiciary, all need to be reduced in stature, in relation to the individual States and the people.
In 1913, the national government stripped away the power of the States, with the 17th Amendment, and directly inserted itself into the lives of the people with the 16th Amendment. So in effect, the national government took absolute power from the States and the people.
And this is as bad as if the POTUS declared himself dictator. Which, now that the States cannot constrain the national government, has been one of the directions the national government has taken. The POTUS thinks himself above the law, and able to create law on his own.
The federal judiciary now demands that States must obey them as well, appropriating money as judges see fit, and being given "special masters" if they refuse to obey.
And senators are now paid by lobbyists and corporations, and are responsive only to them.
#8
Moose, 1913 also was the year the Federal Reserve was created. I've often thought of getting an on line newspaper archive for 1912 and 1913 and reading the paper daily for two years to find out what they thought was going on. 1913 was a black year for freedom.
President Obama has attempted, through his health care plan, one of the most ambitious government takeovers of the private economy in our lifetime. Republican lawmakers have, to a person, declined to assist Obama in this effort. Opposition by the out-of-power party is not unusual -- although the degree of polarization we have seen during the Obama presidency is unprecedented. Barack Obama is the most polarizing first year president since the 1950s, when Gallup first began polling on this issue.
What is unusual, and politically worrisome for Obama, is for a president this early in his tenure to see his own party increasingly pay little heed to his wishes. For example, the Obama administration took great pride in announcing that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be given a civilian trial in New York City, just a few blocks from where the World Trade Center buildings were attacked and destroyed.
This was supposed to be emblematic of what a law-abiding, image-changing administration it is. Yet late last week most of the New York Congressional delegation and other New York officials told the president that he best find a new venue. Sen. Chuck Schumer, one of the administration's closest allies on Capitol Hill, said that he was hopeful the administration could "find suitable alternatives." Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein agreed that the trial should be moved, saying, "from an intelligence perspective, the situation has changed with the Christmas attack . . . and the administration should take note of that and make a change as well." And on Sunday, Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh said that the KSM trial "sounded good in theory way back when but, in practice, it just was not the right thing to do."
#1
With the help of the MSM the Democratic party has has been able to hide its agenda, its complicity in the nation's problems and its corruption by blaming Bush and the Republicans. With control of both the executive and legislative branches that is no longer possible.
Obama is the face of the problem because the gap between his campaign promises and his adminstration's actions is painfully apparent to the voters. However, that gap is no bigger than the gap between promises and actions of any other swing state/district democrat.
#2
Most painful to many voters is their unemployment, falling standard of living and decreasing ability to afford necessities. They don't need the MSM to tell them about that.
Fearless prediction: watch Barry's 2008 electoral coalition fall apart the way Jimmah's did in 1980: first blue-collar whites, then left-libs, finally jews will defect, leaving only afr-americans and some hispanics.
Wonder who will play the Teddy K role and challenge Barry from the left in 2012?
OK, legacy media, here's a scoop for you . . . .
Dick Cheney is not the most popular of politicians, but when he offered a harsh assessment of the Obama Administration's approach to terrorism last May, his criticism stung--so much that the President gave a speech the same day that was widely seen as a direct response. Though neither man would admit it, eight months later political and security realities are forcing Mr. Obama's antiterror policies ever-closer to the former Vice President's.
In fact, the President's changes in antiterror policy have never been as dramatic as he or his critics have advertised. His supporters on the left have repeatedly howled when the Justice Department quietly went to court and offered the same legal arguments the Bush Administration made, among them that the President has the power to detain enemy combatants indefinitely without charge. He has also ramped up drone strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan.
#3
That assumes it's a real discussion. Expect him to come with emotion-laden video clips that leave the impression the R's are heartless SOBs out of touch with real people and their needs. The real audience here is the MSM, wavering Congresscritters and the voting public.
#4
The Dems need to listen before they should speak. If they do anything other than ask questions, then they are doing something other than what is best for America right now. I've heard and feel that I understand very well what they are offering. I don't feel they understand what Republicans want because I never hear those issues addressed by Dems. It's as if they aren't even aware.
#5
I'm waiting for the first commentator who says that Obama is fretting "not having a legacy", like Bill Clinton fretted, once his real legacy was assured.
#6
Why is the Rebups even considering a meeting with this POS? first of all, he doesn't make the laws, Congress does. So that would intimate that the Ds and Rs get together, come up w/ a compromise and then bring that to the Waffler-in-Chief.
this is nothing but show for the mouthbreathing libtards.
#9
Of course it's a trap -- Oblahblah wants a repeat of last week's televised debate where he looks big standing at the Presidential rostrum while his critics look small sitting in the audience like Jerry Springer guests.
Smart thing to do would be to treat this like the funeral of some obscure dictator: send an articulate back-bencher along with the message that the minority leadership is too focused on tax cut legislation to improve the economy to attend this sideshow.
Posted by: regular joe ||
02/10/2010 15:46 Comments ||
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#10
He's never tried to negotiate anything prior to this
Forget his ideology, an even bigger rap against this guy is his track record of never having shepherded ANY piece of complex, major legislation through any legislative body, anywhere. Even (especially?) the man's left-wing supporters can see now that he is totally out of his depth.
#2
How, then, could Abdulmutallab have been thoroughly interrogated immediately after he was arrested if the most important breakthrough came six weeks later,
I think the point here is that he wasn't waterboarded.
we Mirandized Abdulmutallab because we had to under FBI policy because we called in the FBI.
I'd like to think that the FBI or any US agency on US soil would follow miranda rules.
The family convinced him to cooperate. That's more reliable than torture in my opinion.
#3
Oh for crying out loud, flash91. Only 3 people - 3 - were waterboarded in 8 years under Bush, and one of them was a top mastermind who'd planned and attempted multiple such attacks in the past before managing to pull off 9/11.
The issue isn't torture vs. Mirandizing.
The issue is treating an ongoing war as if it were a crime spree in the 'hood. And if you don't get that you're either dense or deliberately closing your eyes to the core issue here.
#5
I know the stuff I went thru they did for Army in Texas for cross assignment. Can't really speak to the stuff at Mackall.
Does SERE in Navy still waterboard at SERE-B in California? That was the rumor we always heard.
Waterboarding isn't torture. No permanent damage, no physical risk of damage or death, if its done right. Its just a way of breaking a person quickly. Being broken is a hell of a psychological blow but no permanent damage once you are taught how to deal with it. WB just does it quicker than other methods.
With a tip of the hat to MissileThreat.com, there are several issues presented by this commercial enterprise that offers convenient "missiles in shipping containers" that can be fired from highways, railroads and the sea.
#2
The article reads like an ad for defense contractors of various sorts. AFAICT, it would be a trivial exercise to pack a ship with dirty bomb materials & detonate upwind near a key seaport, &/or smuggle all sorts of nasty stuff over the southern border, mixed in with all the illegal drugs we have an insatiable desire for. Or simply burn a ship full of NH4NO3. (Wikipedia) Once NH4NO3 has started to decompose then a runaway reaction will normally occur as the heat of decomposition is very large. The compound evolves so much heat that this runaway reaction is not normally possible to stop. This well-known hazard is responsible for the loss of several cargo ships. The US needs more than missile defense.
#3
Article: LA ports add ship to screen for biological weapons Feb 10, 3:39 PM (ET)
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A new ship to detect chemical and biological weapons has been launched to protect the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department said Wednesday it started using the $3 million vessel this week. It is staffed by explosives experts and equipped with tools to screen cargo ships for threats before they enter the nation's busiest port complex.
The experts board the ships and screen for substances used for weapons of mass destruction. Deputies have also added a helicopter to screen for radioactive material, while the ship's sonar system looks for underwater threats.
Khamenei, whose public statements should be taken seriously, is promising some sort of devastating "punch" against the West on Thursday the 11th...Some think he's preparing some kind of attack against Israel...The other obvious possibility is that he's ordered a massive, Chinese-style crackdown on the opposition... or they might announce they have a new weapon or that they have discovered a domestic source of Uranium or that he is going to host a late night comedy/variety show to compete with Leno beginning Mar 1
Posted by: lord garth ||
02/10/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
from a link at the link ...
this comment: 23. Steven Den Beste:
#7
Does Steven Den Beste still do commentary/geopolitical blogging? His stuff on Walter Russell Mead and Jacksonian Democrats was very interesting back in the day.
#15
Joking aside, I think Den Beste is betting on the wrong horse.
If they have a nuclear test, the planes will be striking within 48 hours. I don't believe even the mullahs are that stupid to have a test without others mated to an offensive launch system.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
