New York – 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.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
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.
One has to look hard to see who wrote this editorial, which is clearly not a news article. Even the full-body scanners aren’t perfect, the answer is not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. If you use the scanners, you don’t need the clearly intrusive pat-down.We live in dangerous times with agenda-driven people seeking strange ways to rid the world of people and governments they deem to be offensive. I personally don’t want to take the risk of getting blown out of the sky so that other passengers can get to the airport at a time more convenient to their personal schedules. Until the technology improves, denial is not the alternative. To those who object to either method on religious grounds, I guess that you’ll have to wait until you can drive to your ultimate destination.
If true, why isn’t this nationwide news with a criminal incitement against the head of the TSA and against Chertoff and against the Rapiscan company for outright bribery, conflict of interest and misleading congress and the American people about th BIG LIE of these scanners not being capable of detecting plastic explosives such as the “Underwear Bomber”.
The only answer is Racial Profiling as israel does it,
I agree with the Councilman. These $11/hr people and the goons that govern them must be stopped. These are reactive security measures as opposed to pro-active ones. The bad guys do X – TSA reacts with Y. Time to be wise and do otherwise. Follow the Israeli model. It’s cheaper and it works.
Unfortunately, David Greenfield is not in the position of being able to do anything about these scanners. This is a state issue.
In israel the security dudes all went to the army, not just high school also at ben gurion there are at least 7 people who check you out from when u pull up with your car till u get on the airplane. At other airports NoNe
this is all liberal propaganda.
it all stems from the fact that they get offended at security and the ideas of prosecuting terrorist arabs
To some degree at-least, it sure seems the terrorist’s have already achieved a portion of their goal!
Greenfield again demonstrates his lack of intelligence and tendency to be a self-promoting political hack who jumps on any issue which might get him on camera or in the evening news. I just got back eruv shabbos from a trip to Atlanta and had to deal with the pat-downs on my return trip. No big deal…the guy doing the check was professional and it was over in 30 seconds. Unless you have some really difficult psychological issues, such a pat down should not be a concern. If it embarrases you, than see a counselor and deal with your problems.
The only airport where you can still go through security as a decent human being is Ben Gurion. You don’t have to get groped, you don’t have to go through an x-ray machine so that some guy/girl/who knows who else can see your private parts, you don’t even have to take your shoes off!
Mr. Greenfield do you go the doctor, does your wife and kids, Do you your wife and kids strip totally naked in front of them ? do they touch your private areas? the answer is yes and of course they do because its for their health, the doc has to examine your entire body to see if anything is wrong and even though its uncomfortable everybody does it. So to here in order to protect us the TSA must pat us down and look at x-rays of our unclad bodies, its only for our good. If you dont complain when your wife goes to her OBGYN then you shouldnt complain about the TSA. Certain things are a necessity no matter how uncomfortable it is.
I’m curious if Greenfiled is simply lobbying for a private firm that wants to replace the TSA ,because then he’s doing the same as chertoff all the private company will do is hire the same TSA employess & maybe cutting some managment costs but the Scanners & Ehanced pat downs will stay the same because that the policy.
so it should be illegal to take a child to the mikvah?
Wow the City Council solved all our problems already, Priority 7, Tickets, Taxes, MTA, Bicycle lanes, and now they have time to take on the Federal government and the TSA. What’s so bad by what the TSA is doing, protect us from another 9/11. So now come a few attention seekers and try to get their names in the press.
Mr. Greenfield, the reason you got elected was that the Boro Park community wasn’t interested in another politician that is busy with stuff that has nothing to do with the District. If you are the same press seeker and activist then why were you different then the other candidates?
Can you get back to normal business and stop looking to be in the press?
david greenfield was elected to the city council not to congress so please stick to the program and deal with parking tickets and piroity 7. i guess he cant do anything there so he makes alot of noise whereever he can. this idea of his is totaaly nonsense