EPIC Files Lawsuit To Suspend Airport Body Scanner Use 559
nacturation writes "The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a petition for review and motion for an emergency stay, urging the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to suspend the Transportation Security Administration's full body scanner program. EPIC said that the program is 'unlawful, invasive, and ineffective' (PDF). EPIC argued that the federal agency has violated the Administrative Procedures Act, the Privacy Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Fourth Amendment. EPIC cited the invasive nature of the devices, the TSA's disregard of public opinion, and the impact on religious freedom."
Re:Where can I sign up? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It's either full body scanning (Score:5, Informative)
I've gotten around every single pat down without having my genitals felt up by simply making eye contact with the security guard, eyeing him up and down once, and cocking an eyebrow.
I'm sure one day I WILL come across a homosexual security guard and that will eventually backfire, but to this day I haven't had them reach more than 6 inches above my knees.
Re:another Obama disappointment... (Score:5, Informative)
do you think the president makes all the decisions in all departments?
You know it was a Democrat that said "The Buck Stops Here", right?
How about he discuss thinks Obama does that's in his realm or responsibly?
TSA comes under Homeland Security which is a part of the Executive Branch the last time I checked. Guess who is in charge of the Executive Branch?
OMG, my school board made a decision I don't like, that damn Obama!
That's a stupid analogy. My school board is a local agency that's independent of the Federal (and State, for the most part) Government. TSA is nothing of the kind. Obama could fire the director of TSA tomorrow and end this bullshit policy if he was so inclined.
the ACLU has been calling for a ban since 2002 (Score:4, Informative)
/. is broken and I often can't paste into the text box, so no link. However go to ACLU.ORG and search for TSA.
IN fact, they have been calling for a ban of this kind of scanner in airports since 2002
Re:another Obama disappointment... (Score:5, Informative)
Department of Homeland Security is a Cabinet level department, which means President Obama personally picked Janet Napolitano to be Secretary and she answers to him.
On November 5, 2008, Napolitano was named to the advisory board of the Obama-Biden Transition Project. On December 1, 2008, Barack Obama introduced Napolitano as his nominee for United States Secretary of Homeland Security, she was confirmed on January 20, 2009. Janet Napolitano assumed the office of Secretary of Homeland Security on January 21, 2009.
This isn't some minor functionary of the Federal Government deciding this, she has been pushing backscatter X-ray since the day she got her job.
Re:Congrats! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:another Obama disappointment... (Score:4, Informative)
Don't see how you're thinking the 1st Amendment rights would go away first under the Dems.
Remember that it was under Bush that we had "free speech zones" so that he didn't have to see people that disagreed with him.
Re:another Obama disappointment... (Score:2, Informative)
Don't see how you're thinking the 1st Amendment rights would go away first under the Dems.
See Citizens United. The mainstream of the Democratic Party thinks that I have no 1st amendment rights when I band together with like-minded citizens to further a political objective.
Re:another Obama disappointment... (Score:3, Informative)
I vote straight ticket 3rd party every election just out of the hope that a 3rd party candidate gets enough votes that the next time around they might get equal footing in a debate, or news coverage and maybe some other people might wake up and realize that there are more than 2 choices.
The number of votes isn't going to get anyone into a debate. On their website, the Commission on Presidential Debates describes themselves as a non-partisan non-profit organization. Somewhere along the line, the definition of "non-partisan" changed from "not associated with any political party" to "associated with both republicans and democrats, as opposed to only one". The Commission decides which presidential candidates debate each other on prime time TV. The wiki page on them includes a little history:
The Commission sponsors and produces debates for the United States presidential and vice presidential candidates and undertakes research and educational activities relating to the debates. The organization, which is a nonprofit corporation controlled by the Democratic and Republican parties, has run each of the presidential debates held since 1988. The Commission has moderated the 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 debates. Prior to this, the League of Women Voters moderated the 1976, 1980, 1984 debates before it withdrew from the position as debate moderator with this statement after the 1988 Presidential debates: "the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter." The Commission was then taken over by the Democratic and Republican parties forming today's version of the CPD.
In 1988, the League of Women Voters withdrew its sponsorship of the presidential debates after the George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis campaigns secretly agreed to a "memorandum of understanding" that would decide which candidates could participate in the debates, which individuals would be panelists (and therefore able to ask questions), and the height of the podiums. The League rejected the demands and released a statement saying that they were withdrawing support for the debates because "the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter."
At a press conference announcing the commission's creation, Fahrenkopf said that the commission was not likely to include third-party candidates in debates, and Kirk said he personally believed they should be excluded from the debates.
You're not going to see third-party candidates in the debates, because republicans and democrats pick who gets to debate.
It's a nice little system they have set up, isn't it?
Re:another Obama disappointment... (Score:2, Informative)
You're not going to see third-party candidates in the debates
I seem to recall Ross Perot and Admiral Stockdale being involved in the 1992 debates.
Re:Congrats! (Score:1, Informative)
I was with you up until that last part. The notion that average citizens should be allowed to carry a firearm on a plane is absurd. I'm for the second amendment too, and as soon as we need a militia again I'll personally supply everyone I can afford to with guns, myself included. But if you genuinely believe we can allow people to carry firearms onto an airplane where there's the potential for a single shot to get everyone on board killed, you are dead wrong.
But yeah, these scanners are invasive, and while I can't think of examples at the moment I believe there have been several occasions when people have pointed out that they aren't as effective as the TSA would have you believe.
Re:another Obama disappointment... (Score:3, Informative)
No - the way to really make third party vote extremely effective is to reform our voting system to make better use of game theory to make decisions. As it is we tend to throw away about half of the information provided by our citizens votes (give or take depending on the election). Systems like instant runoff, approval voting, ranking, and etc... put to use much more information to come up with a (mathematically) better selection. Some are more "accurate" than others and some are "simpler" than others.
This is something that can happen, but it will have to be from the bottom up (because it's a big threat to the two parties in control - they can agree on that at least). Start local at the city or county governments (or even the PTA). There's already several communities in the country which use instant runoff (Google it). States which allow voter ballot initiatives would probably be the easiest places to implement it (That may be how South Carolina adopted it, but I don't know the history there). With increased adoption of vote counting reform, pressure on the big two will increase until they look really bad if they don't implement the system in their states.
Write up a quick email and send it off to your local state legislators asking them to introduce the legislation - it's more likely to happen there than it is in DC (although that's a good place to write letters to also). Ask for a response and see what they say.
Re:Give it a break.... (Score:2, Informative)
Actually he didn't do what he said he would do with regards to health care. Candidate Obama condemned the notion of a mandate to buy health insurance and effectively leveraged the issue against Clinton during the primaries. President Obama signed a bill containing such a mandate into law.