or get the type of clients to work with. >> well, it is a telecom technology law firm and we also have a litigation society and we tend to represent the folks in the technology space as well as wireless providers and vendors and some cable broadband no broadcasters, we love them but to many issues. [laughter] >> catherine mccullough. >> i do represent a broadband and also several wireless. >> catherine mccullough and patricia paoletta have been our guests on "the communicators." juliana grenwald from tech daily dose, thank you as well. ..

>> next, a conference analyzing airport security. you'll hear from new jersey representative rush hot on increasing oversight of tsa. after that, a look at body scanners and pat-down procedures

in u.s. airports. this is two hours and 25 minutes. >> good morning, and welcome, everyone. my name is mark ruthenberg, president of the u.s. privacy information center. emic is a public research organization established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging privacy and civil liberty issues, and behalf of epic, the organizers, and speakers at this conference, it is my pleasure to welcome you this morning. i think we have without question a controversial topic, for for those here in the room following us on c-span or twitter, i encourage you go to the website epic.org/events/tsa, participate in the discussion. i think it's scan tsa.

we welcome your comments and your engagement it is also my pleasure today too welcome as our opening speaker congressman rush holt. i think it's fair to say there are few people in the united states congress who combine the legislative bctd and the -- becket and scientific expertise as does congressman holt. he's a physicist, a leader on issues involving science policy, congressman holt is a outspoken advocate to the concerns of the participants of this conversation, but also a leading spokesperson to lead careful scientific evaluation of programs. there's no question that tsa's proposals to subject millions of american air travelers to these

new body scanning devices requires a careful sign isk explay in this case. it is with great pleasure we welcome congressman holt this this conference this morning. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, mark. thank you, mark, and good morning. i thank the organizers, mark, and others of the electronic privacy information center for inviting me to speak. you're program looks very good. i'm sure i could learn more than i can teach. i will be brief in my remarks, and i look forward to getting reports on what else is covered. of course, the goal here is the protection of people, people's safety, and it's not a simple matter in this age of high-tech terrorism, but it's important to

remember that some of the questions, i guess, i would say in principle, most of the questions are age old. the technologies may change, but the questions of how to confront those who would do us harm and not squelch the american freedoms that make us prosperous and give us our quality of life is not a new question

>> the deal was still in progress, and i regret the continuing resolutions solution that bepassed continuing resolutions through march of this year did not in fact halt the funding for the deployment of these systems. i do plan on revisiting the issue with representative mike and other members who have expressed concern about this. i also wrote to tsa director john pistol last fall, and expressed my dismay at the video of the crying 3-year-old who was patted down on camera by a tsa agent. i guess this was in fact the

daughter of a television reporter. i began my letter to administrator by noting that, "when americans witness 3-year-old children being aggressively patted down by screeners, our airline screening system is clearly broken." of course, the problem isn't the screeners themselves, it's the procedures and policies and really the technology and approach of the tsa leadership that has imposed on the screeners and the traveling public these ill-considered practices. now, many of you in attendance today are well aware of the health and safety questions raised by the extensive use of this technology. a number of respected scientists suggest there are potential

health risks to people especially children from the x-ray back scatter scanners. they've used phrases like cancer multipliers and so forth. there's much yet to be studied and made available to the public, i think, in that area, and we need to have a far better understanding of those risks before we should allow the machines to become standard practice in airports. epic and the civil liberties union and other groups and individual have correctly questioned the civil liberties implications of the use of these machines. can we be certain that the images will not be retransmitted or retained or otherwise misused? at the moment? no. we need independent l valuation

-- evaluation of the offhand tsa claims that it has disable the machines so that the images can want be retained or retransmitted. there's a real issue with the ethics of the machine and of the practice. can they consistently and reliably uncover explosive or other dangerous devices on terrorists? the government accountability office questioned this in their march 2010 report on advanced images technology. they call this ait, noting "well tsa officials stated that the laboratory and operational testing of the ait included placing explosive material in different locations of the body, it remaining unclear whether the ait would have been able to

detect the weapon terrorists used in their attacks in preliminary tsa information we've received." as i noted in my letter, the headlong rush to embrace technology gives the public the illusion of security at the expense of their privacy and dignity and without assurance that the use much these measures and practices will actually detour and detect terrorists. in other words, make them, the public, any safer. finally, i'm troubled by the overall assumption underlying the use of the machines and the evasive pass down of passengers. the use is these measures must be used on everyone because we

don't know who is a terrorist and who isn't, and the tsa's approach is thus the only one that makes sense in light of this perceived threat. this is what i'm thinking about when i referred earlier to say that these are really age-old questions. it really gets at the heart that i think you'll be discussing today and that the country should be discussing intensively at this time of the larger problem of how americans and american authorities are facing the threat of terrorism. it is an age-old question. you know, every policeman, every police officer knows that in his

or her community, citizens are going to be assaulted, robs, or even murdered. police often, usually, don't know in advance who is the perpetrator, who is going to commit these crimes. we don't live in a constant dragnet. we don't arrest and search every person who is standing on a corner with his hands in his pockets. despite the lack of threat information, they don't preemptively haul every citizen in the community into the station house and grill them about potential crimes they might be contemplating. in other words, our police don't presume that all citizens are potential murders and thieves.

it is a central premise. you know, today on the house of the floor of representatives, the new majority asked that we read the constitution. it's, you know, of course, our constitution is a truly ingenious document. it's well worth considering even daily. in fact, i carry a copiment not because i don't know what's in it or because i have to read it every day. i like to keep it close to my heart, but a central tenant of our society and of our government is that we did not regard people with suspicion first. people -- it's not just a presumption of innocence. it's a pro consumption of di -- dignity. we don't have separate classes the citizens where people are

regarded as less than full-fledged citizens and less until they prove themselves of good standing. this is an old question, and we have to consider it in light of what we confront today. well, any of you who have visited capitol hill know that the u.s. capitol police do not take this kind of intrusive approach. they understand that the u.s. capitol and all of capitol hill must be considered a prime target by people who want to either send a message or disrupt

our government or harm americans in a very public way. in other words, capitol hill is a target, but if the capitol police use metal detectors and scanning technology, metal detecting wands and other measures when they need to particularly when they see an anomaly or an alarm is raised, they don't subject every citizen who wants to petition his or her government who visits capitol hill to unevaluated, highly evasive scanning technology and mandatory massive pat downs. they don't do that, and yet i feel and i think all of my colleagues would say, we feel well-protected by the capitol police. in other words, there are other sound models for protecting both

people and infrastructure that don't involve subjecting american travelers to unnecessarily health risks or violations of their privacy and civil liberties. this is the disconnect in tsa's scan and pat everyone approach. during my years as a member of the house permanent select committee on intelligence, i've seen how much we spend annually to acquire and deseminate threats to airline security. what is clear is that none of that or little of that intelligence is being used to determine who should receive the kind of additional technology screening that all american travelers are now enduring. the tsa's current approach actually make it harder for the screeners and intelligence

analysts to spot real threats. screening every american means that tsa is deliberately injecting a huge level of what is known in the intelligence business as background noise. in this case, when you're treating erroneous girl as a threat, you're devoting resources and attention from what might be real threats. you're potentially missing the seemingly innocuous but seemingly deadly threat nearby. if tsa's approach were more calibrated and the initial screening were conducted on individuals identified by intelligence sources as potentially dangerous, it would be more effective and less troublesome. just as wiretapping willie-nilly

with only the vaguest of suspicions invades people's civil liberties, but it also leads to poorer intelligence, therefore less protection of americans. the idea of the 4th amendment which i hope we don't skip that in the reading on the floor of the house today -- [laughter] is not based on some vague abstract idea of civil liberties. it is based on the very real understanding of human nature, the very ingenious observation that we get better information, a better understanding, a better

sense of what we're doing if we have to prove to somebody else an objective observer that we know what we're talking about. intercepting electronic communications on the basis of a vague suspicion results in bad intelligence, so similarly i think a overly exuberant heavy-handed screening approach to travelers leads to a less affective, less protective system. i understand that this week during her visit to israel, secretary of homeland security that poll tan know said this is not app applicable to the united states because of the size of the country.

seems to me once you get above some hundreds of travelers or thousands of travelers, you can scale it to millions because, you know, each airport is one unit. each airplane is one unit. now, i'm not saying that we should absolutely duplicate what israel does, but i'm saying we can learn a lot from our allies. the claim that this just wouldn't be applicable in the united states and so i idea why the israeli model wouldn't work here. i'm not advocating we follow that, but i'd like to see what we could learn. i suspect the real reason for the resis tepees to trying these other models or modified versions of them is the fear

that it would in fact work, under mind tsa's creditability. it certainly wouldn't be the first time that a federal agency resisted change because of a not invented here or let's not embarrass ourselves mind set. i want to make clear that we should not, i do not, will not, support the use of racial, ethic, or religious profiling as a tool. when i say we use intelligence, again, it should not be this intellectually lazy shorthand that we've come to know as profiling. there clearly is some important lessons we can learn from our allies, lessons to protect them, the traveling public, without exposing their public to needless health hazards and

civil privacy violations. i just want to say how much i value the work you're doing. i think that the conference today is getting at some really important questions. your role in our democracy is an important one holding public officials and agencies accountable, demanding that our government work smarter and ever smarter and it seeks to protect us, so keep it up. i look for good results from today's conference. thank you. >> thank you.

our first panel, if you would come forward please? thank you. i'd like to say also a few words about the moderator about our first financial, someone who i'm sure is familiar to all of you, ralph nader, but what you may not know is that ralph was a key figure in the early efforts to address concerns arising from new forms of airline technology and particularly the use of new

screening technology because it was actually in the early 1970s when the federal aviation administration proposed to integrate new screening technology that ralph brought a challenge to that practice, and in a case that was decided here in the district court in washington, the court concluded that the faa violated the law actually when it introduced this new screening technology without giving the public the opportunity for comment. we're going to be coming back to almost that exact same issue on a panel discussion later this morning, but it is a remarkable fact that ralph nader was the first person to raise the issue that we are addressing today about the consequences of using airport screening technology. ralph.

>> thank you, mark, panel, and ladies and gentlemen. the major issues affecting the recent deployment of airport screeners have been and will be continually discussed if they are affective? certainly they are not in terms of cavities. do they have hazards? yes. some people are more susceptible to radiation and people have certain medical conditions, people have religious and moral concerns that impede their use of conventional air travel. we have a person, for example, who had a wireless insulin pump and he had problems going

through these screeners, pregnant women, children. there is, of course, the privacy issue which is also a moral issue that's a slippery slope. if americans think i have nothing to hide, what happens is incrementally they lose their freedoms, and they break down their resistance to any understanding of what invasion of the self involves with modern technologies and dna and biomet trick and all the rest floating around the world through software, misused, commercially used, ect.. there's also the opportunity cost. whenever you have dragnet enforcement, not only do you get bad intelligence or waste money, you demoralize workers. when workers day after day process hundreds of thousands of people who are innocent, first of all, they wonder what they're

doing, and second they feel that their alert function goes down. anybody who knows anything about guards knows that when nothing happens day after day, their alert function goes down. i want to say a few words today to amplify what mark and epic have done in the violation of the 4th amendment and violation against the religious act and the violation of the provision act and the violation of the administrative procedure act, the tsa has not held public hearings and the tsa in many areas is a sphinx. they are a basket case collectively. when you have a risk designed management specialist in tsa to say he thought he was working in

quote "a culture of insanity," he was not just pontificating. he was saying this is a fundamentally irrational strategy that tsa is pursuing, and one documented repeateddedly by the office of the u.s. congress where they denied their ability to monitor the contracts, decried the ability to conduct a risk assessment or cross ben fibl analysis or establish qawn quantifiable measures on new technologies. as a result gor according to the gao, their efforts are not focused on the highest priority needs. now, we all know what the problem is. tsa moves when any terrorist attempt is disclosed, and so it

reacts. you have the shoe bomber, we take off our shoes, the failed shoe bomber fortunately. you have the christmas bomber heading to detroit that failed, and now we have new scanner machines. the puffer machines were installed because of a failed suicide attempt on a russian airliner, and those puffers were deemed ineffective and wasteful and they were pulled to the cost of the taxpayer of $30 million. here's the mind set of the tsa and department of homeland security. they cover existing threats that failed because they don't want to be excoriated by congress and congress itself is part of the problem, and so if tsa operates

on the premise of 100% success against any terrorist threats, why do 15,000 corporate aircraft not be screened? why do other tens of thousands of journal aviation aircraft not be screened? why aren't airport terminals be screened? you can have a bomber in a very crowded airport terminal. what about trains, busses, subways? well, it hasn't happened yet. you haven't had an attempt. with that logic, they are willing to participate in drag gnat enforcements with tens of millions of people. with a agency that doesn't have to explain itself, we're dealing with an enclave that doesn't know what its doing, but knows that it has to answer to congress on any lack of reaction to a bungled threat. in fact, it doesn't even answer

if all these eenmies are suicidal and they hate us, why there haven't been these suicidal events day after day in our country. why are we in iraq and afghanistan? why are we provoking these people? why have the three bungled efforts been freelanced efforts of the most absurdly, fortunately, ineffective carryout. they were not even experted or trained. they were not subjected to any analysis in terms of what the threat really is. the government accountability office is the key advisor to the congress. congress advocated its role, and all it's doing a appropriating money, not doing oversight of tsa, and continuing to hold this

over tsa in case something gets through that was already precursed by a failed bungled effort such as the shoe bomber. the rationality here defines caricature. we have to save tsa from itself, not only protect the various rights of the american people. we have to ask what is it doing to the tsa employees? what are they thinking? what is their exposure day after day? we have to ask is this being driven in part by corporate hucksters who are swirming over tsa with shocks here over washington? we have to ask whatever happened to cross benefit analysis which is raised in the gao reports repeatedly. we have to ask what is the evaluation of human life when

hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on terrorism threats, but virtually nothing is spent on 58,000 americans who die every year from occupational disease and trama or 65,000 people who die from air pollution, or 100,000 people who die from hospital malpractice or 200,000 people who die from hospital induced infections. if they are not sourced to terrorist activity, they are ig norred. we need a comprehensive evaluation here of how to deploy resources in a rational manner that will be effective, minimally evasive, efficient, and obey the constitution and federal law. finally, i want to ask where are the scientists here? some have spoken up around the country and have been ignored. where are the airlines?

why aren't they speaking up? why are the airline union workers? why aren't they speaking up? because there are other fish to fry. because they are intimidated. because they cut deals. because they are not standing tall for the interest of the american people, that they are uniquely equipped to protect. i think what we have to do is continue what epic has been doing and put the pressure on all points as you'll hear in today's conference. i think we'd also need to demand a new administrative process under strict congressional oversight by the congress. an administrative agency that operates like a dictatorship is unworthy of our government, our constitution, our statutes, and empirical reality. thank you.

[applause] >> thank you very much, ralph, for those comments. i'd like to go now to our next speaker, wes benedict who was the director of the libertarian party. we are very pleased to have you wes and mention also for the people here, there are complete biographies for the speaker for people who are watching us on c-span or watching us online. get that at the web page at epic.org/events/tsa. >> okay, thank you, i want to thank the center for putting together this conference and for inviting a diverse groups of panelists. i'm wes benedict, libertarians stand for free markets and civil liberties. the libertarian party opposes

the full body scanners program. i recognize that different groups oppose these scanners for different reasons. ralph nader has always been a strong consumer advocate and sees a role for government in providing safety. libertarians would like to see the government do less. when libertarians and ralph neighedder agree a -- ralph nader agree a program is bat, it's time -- bad, it's time for our government to listen up. [laughter] [applause] i'm glad we have a congressman or two participating today. i wish more republicans and democrats took our constitution and bill of rights seriously. the transportation security administration is rapidly rolling out a program at our airports where you have to choose between getting a full body scan where tsa agents can

see an image of you nude or getting an intrusive pat down like a criminal. we'll here from aviation experts, security experts, and others that the scanners don't do any good. republicans serious about cutting wasteful spending should take a look at cutting this full body scan program. democrats talk about defending civil liberties. these scanners are an invasion of privacy and intrude on our civil liberties. we should not treat every american who wants to fly on an airplane like a potential terrorist. government is supposed to protect our rights, not take them away. this is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. i often wonder if bin laden is laughing at us while our own

government terrifies us. the tsa wants to use machines to see us naked before we get on an airplane, but if you don't want to be seen naked, then you can be felt up instead. when is enough enough? the terrorists win by tricking us into letting our government overreact and trample on our rights and waste our money. you'll hear from experts today who will show you that these full body scanners do nothing to make us safer. that's why we call this security theater. it's just the government putting on a show for us by making it look like it's doing something even though it doesn't do any real good. this is a perfect example of a solution that is worse than doing nothing at all.

i want to know which corporations and which lobbyists are making how much money on this miserable program. i wish more congressman had the guts to put a stop to this program. i'm hopeful that this conference will help inform and rally americans to put pressure on our government to put an end to this wasteful and insulting program. let's not forget the root cause of our situation. our government's intervention into the foreign affairs of other countries inspires terrorists. these full body scanners are a bad reaction to an unnecessary situation. while we can't undo what we've already done, we can stop it, and we can control our own reaction. what would libertarians do about airline security? many airlines are probably glad to have the federal government take responsibility for

security, but it's the airlines who ought to be responsible and they should be bear the liability for what happens on their flights rather than have a one-size fits all approach imposed by government. passengers and airlines should be free to work together to determine what methods and levels of securities best fit their needs. since we don't have a libertarian free market for aviation security yet, let's at least stop the worst abuses of our civil liberties and the wasteful spending for these full body scanners. the libertarian party has more information at lp.org. once again, i want to thank the organizers of the event and other panelists. working to the, i'm hopeful that we can get rid of these worthless, wasteful, useless full body scanners at our airport and stop them before they start showing up at other

places too. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much, wes. while several of the speakers already talked about the need to bring some expertise to this debate, and i can think of no perp better qualified to help us understand this technology than -- and one of the very first people to draw attention to the problems of the tsa programs. >> thank you. i don't belong here at all because i'm sort of in different to questions of privacy, and liberty and all that stuff. my only function is on functionality which is flying through airports, landing, and taking off, and security, real security. my presence here is actually quite absurd because there's an

organization called iata, international air transport arks. association. it including 113 airlines and it is well-funded, highly experts, and very well staffed, certainly better than some of the pure bureaucracy created in the last few years, and this organization prepared after four years of highly expert funded study a document called vision for intelligent aviation security. it's called vision for intelligent aviation security. this document has absolutely no references to privacy, freedom, or any such thing. it's only reference is functionality and real security. now, this iata is consulted every day by airport

authorities, national aviation authorities all over the world for expertise on air traffic control, airport functionality, grand security, and the whole lot. the only organization that did not respond where the full staff responds to this document called the vision for intelligent aviation security was tsa. they simply didn't respond. now, what it says in this vision, this vision incidentally is based on many considerations of which i'll go through fast, but actually based on veto study of three peculiar airport. airport number one is nurita. it was known for -- when you go to this airport, when you are in a buss or car entering on the freeway to get there, there is a check point where they simply look into the

car, look at the passengers fast without stopping and make sure that everybody is a page or legitimate with the passenger. that's it. that's to prevent a breakout where people do not attack the airplane, never go through check point. they simply enter and disrupt. their concerns there is with demonstrations, but in rome, the munich airport with 2,000 people there the concern is the terrorist arrives in a taxi and opens fire. that's a richer target and disrupts an entire airport more than an airplane. i earnestly never advise you never to fly. it's 830 passengers. [laughter]

now, what has been the case in the second airport is changing. it's a singapore airline airport, and here passengers are instructed that if they want to board successfully, they have to arrive within 30 minutes of takeoff. 30 minutes, not three hours, two hours, not an hour and a half, but 30 minutes. how do they do that? simple. they are mobile screening gate by gate. the screeners, the machines and everything go from one gate to the other. they don't screen. they have a prescreen to make sure you don't have a bunch of people carrying machine guns in their hands which is just done visually. as you enter, the rest without stopping anybody, the rest is at the gate. therefore, they have gate selective security methods, so they have let's say the flight that goes to japan or korea, the usual bunch of 45 schoolteachers all together who all know each

other, and they just look at them and wave them through. the flight that flies to saudi arabia, they know on the flight the people can't carry liquids or bottles or anything of the sort, and therefore they have adjust the. they have a new york thing, an istanbul thing according to it, and the result is 30 minutes including 8 minutes for shaping. that's important. they look the at the the airports in tel-aviv. they are supposedly the highest rated facility. here you don't remove your shoes. there is indifference to liquids unless you carry something labeled 50 tons of glycerin or something. [laughter] nail cleaners, little scissors, things like that, they don't care about. this was interesting for the

study. now, this study recommends another solution. it says let's grow up, realize that despite the efforts of the libertarian party and other parties, today research companies know what color underwear you prefer. they do. airlines with frequent flier programs and records and marketing data, they know a lot about a lot of passengers, and what they recommend is to use the equivalent of the booking system of the end point to monitor all this and to identify frequent travelers, frequent fliers of all airlines automatically. the moment you buy a ticket, you get a boarding card, you get a sign on the boarding card saying you're a frequent flier, and it's a probability based risk assessment. if the guy flew 50 times in 50 weeks and in the previous 50 times he never blew up

airplanes, it's unlikely he'll do it on the next flight. this screens out people. screen bookings by identifiable groups like the japanese teachers. i keep mentioning them because they represent a major part of the traffic due to the sad fact that japan teachers are glossily overpaid because they like to have good schools and they travel all the time. twice a year a normal. boarding cards get printed, and when you arrive at the airport, you go through a visual nonstop passage check point, okay? secondly is a category for people they are not sure about, and they go through whatever the question in country -- the country in question has in its system. no question about shoes or scissors. third would be people who are suspects for whatever reason because they appear somewhere on some list or whatever it is

wherever they are, and that -- those people are subjected to whatever the country's prior search system was which is whatever the system because iata is not the will of the government, and they accept the fact that people do have these regimes, but the only -- for example, the tsa regime currently existing without scanners in which they have a separate section, without scanners is suitable for 10% of pmgs who are suspects. the treatment every passenger gets, prescanner is ready and suitable for suspects, not suitable for passengers, okay which they estimate can never been more than 10%. finally on scanners, they did the full-scale study of scanners. they employed a group in germany whose only job was to bypass both and back scanner and the third scanner which i will not mention which is also emerging, and the expert guys who were all

prison guards, german prison guard experts, their job was to bypass the systems. they did it with such ease that the iata says there is no case for scanners, and i won't go into the details of it, but when i was a kid in the british army, we had plastic -- it's the same as the usual glycerin or whatever, but it's playsic. why? to make it easier for deemlations because it's plastic. therefore this can be the rib of a shirt. that's it. i don't have to tell you more, and they don't interrupt the scanners. there's nothing. no. the final point is about the details of the selection in how it works. the thing that i personally find infearuating, absolutely frustrating is that i go to

israel a lot. every time i go, i meet with security people, and they tell me, oh, yesterday there was another group from tsa. you know, they stayed and had a good time, we gave them the briefing. they go there, you know, when the weather is cold in detroit, they fly to tel-aviv -- [laughter] because you can swim until november, okay? each time they are given the briefing on the system, and each time they come back, and they misrepresent the system. they make it sound as if they are using racial racist religious profiling. okay? whereas the data base of the analysis they use is consistent of an irish pregnant woman of two elderly frenchmen, japanese young guys, a blond blue-eyed

with a russian and tush irk passport. that's the base, and anybody who goes through the system knows they could care less whether you a japanese or a jew. they are asking you entirely different questions, and the questions are simply though, what are you doing on this flight, what are you doing, and why? the christmas bomber would be -- they would have asked them are you a student, are you going to study, and why christmas, ect.? are you visiting relatives? who are your relatives? in other words, why are you on this airplane? that's what that ask, and that's it. the people who ask are extremely young people because they don't want experienced judgment. they totally don't want the guy who knows, feels, and senses. they are monitored with realtime, there are microphones

on their body so they hear the questions and answers and somebody intervenes and says ask him what's the name of the mayor of his town. he claims to be from this town. they ask him the name. it is a small town. never mind. this misrepresentation reflects the nature of the tsa which is described by ralph nader as a kind of run away bureaucratic regime and as said in the beginning, the iata the fact they were the only organization didn't immediately appoint a staff group of the best people to respond to vision -- by the way, if you are interested in the details, they have disclose the -- disclosed the information on the website. you read the prescreening where you first remove all people who are fliers, passengers, citizens, and not suspects which

therefore -- and then you have the 10% being examined. this would deal with most the problem. thank you very much. [applause] >> this is a really remarkable panel. we began with ralph nader, and then a leader of the libertarian party. we've heard next from the leading expert in aviation security, and now you are about to hear from a leader in the human rights field. it's our pleasure to welcome chip pits, who is part of the b of rights committee. [applause] >> i'd like to add my thanks to mark and to epic, to amy, and the other organizer the conference. hard to believe this is the first major conference on the body scanners that's taking place in the nation, and it's a very important subject.

i'm like wes from louisiana talking beforehand. i was born in baton rouge and so was he. we were trying to figure out if it was a naked body scanner or a naked body scanner. it's a charade. we're going to narrow out the intellectual landscape that was painted for you. in those -- looking at the comparative dependence dimensions, i have four points. i took a look at what different countries are doing, and i was surprised to see how much the u.s. is going it alone in this area. that's the first point. the second point is all the issues you hear about. the health concern. there is a right to health. there is a right to not be discriminated again and a right to effective security. it's an article.

if you have not read it, i commend it to you. it's a short document on human values and rights. you can read it quickly, and article iii talks about the right to life, liberty, and the right to personal security as does by the way, the 4th amendment, the privacy clause which talks about the right of people to be secure in their homes and personal articles and effects as do the international treaties on the subject. these rights are international law, but i also want to make the point, and i'll come to that at the end of my brief presentation that these are also moral rights, and there's a significant reason that my panelists asked me to just highlight the facts these are moral as well as legal concerns. i'll spend most time looking at the current practice briefly in various states. you heard about japan and israel and singapore and this very important organization, the iata which rejected body scanners

definitively. on the first poipped, i want to just reiterate that no other nation in the world has this level of intrusiveness. no other nation in the world has this double whammy of intrusive pat downs or being exposed to radiation. as the opening remarks said, that's pretty unique. there is one nation in the world that occasionally not systematically uses x-rays to radiate people, and that's russia. they expose the russian females who such levels of radiation that they pure into the body coveties. whether that's going to be next is the question. the rights we're talking about at the international levels and regional levels and in our bill of rights in the country that inspired rights and count institutions and statutes and laws all over the world now. these are the right to health,

the rights of children, elderly, the disabled, the rights to freedom of thought. in a sense, these are all related in a critical way to prief vie. -- privacy. if you think about it, so many of the bills of rights provisions relate to this idea of boundaries that cannot be crossed. we're dealing with a serious boundary, the actual boundary of bodily integrity whether you are exposed to radiation or a naked image that someone else sees. now, i want to spendtime on the third poibout what's haening elsewhere with the focus on europe. shortly before 9/11, the europe union did not have a common approach to aviation security. after 9/11, they shifted to that. the aviation conventions and europe was resistant to body scanners and so was u.s.

congress, but before that, the eu commission and the top executive body has been more positive towards the idea of using body scanners and propose to draft regulation using scanners as an approach. the reactions of the people and representatives could not have been stronger. the european parliament just like the u.s. congress in the following year in 2009 actually protested this in a vote much like the u.s. congress that had almost 400 representatives and that resistance was a companied by the member states, politicians, and the commission withdrew its proposal. ..

but in that looking at three of the five reported the state for a more privacy respected scanner could be used that therefore the scanners might be an alternative to the existing screening methods and on this basis the commission said the overall outlook was very positive. the problem is italy rejected the standards and they forgot that. they also forgot the u.k. government before september 09 tested and found them to be

ineffective and three of the five say that the protected version is adequate is just not adequate. switzerland also tested body scanners and i had a student of mine confirmed a swiss practicing lawyer that the swiss experience was very ambivalent. they also tested them for a couple of months and if you gates decided they were not going to go forward with the scanners so as you have heard israel, singapore, japan and of course dubai, the largest in the middle east is rejected these, nigeria which was given a couple body scanners and had to buy ten more under u.s. pressure is having them sit unused to this day. they are not being used by nigeria. why? delisted mainly muslim countries as subjected to their citizens pat downs and body scanners and they thought it was discriminatory and the backlash resulted of internal pressures putting them on hold.

so globally there is overwhelming resistance what we are seeing. it's used and if you allies like canada, australia, but the momentum of the body scanners has stopped. why? because the same legal issues later on today and the legal panel. i won't steal their thunder but basically the overarching test in the u.k. and europe is similar to the test in the u.s.. is their justification for the scanners? first will do the work appeared, do they in the end being sought and the answer across these countries the the the protection of doherty is, ministers of countries are increasingly saying no these are unnecessary and invasive a fundamental human rights which is where i return to five fundamental final point that these are not just legal rights. when we are looking at the women who are survivors of breast cancer have to take off their prosthetic breast in public or the three-year old that was

referred to who is being groped. if we are talking about a bladder cancer survivor who is listed by the tsa to the point he was covered in his own urine because the bags broke that is offensive to all of us is it not? that is a moral issue. whether or not that glove look humiliation, whether or not it should be protected is not the point. we have to ask what has become of the nation when we are allowing ourselves, and i've been through these body scanners many times, to touch our genitals, to have naked pictures of ourselves even if you are not bothered of that personally, many people are coming and the idea is we have empathy for concerns of people that experience those sorts of humiliations and those are important issues like eink in addition to legal issues we can't lose sight of so i will stop there and i again want to thank you for the fine work you are doing here. [applause]

>> i'm going to ask the panelists a few questions. we will have a chance for the audience to ask questions as well. but because we are also streaming and because we are also tweeting being followed on the order we welcome comments from people following the conference in real time if he would just like to tweet to scanusa we will pick up and ask the panelists. i want to begin by asking the ralph nader our conference is meeting today the same time that the 112 congress is beginning. the members of the congress are carrying around copies of the constitution and i gather reading the text on the house. i was wondering if you could tell some of the things that you would like to see the new congress do about this body scanner proposal from tsa.

>> thank you. they have to do comprehensive hearings and to the strategy. they are not providing a stream work for tsa. the are delegating everything to tsa and the are incorporating a lot of the issues and concerns that you will hear about in this conference today. the have to be more aggressive in their appropriations oversight as a huge amount of money being wasted here in the new government accountability office as documented and it's just going to get worse. as to put more of these machines on and they have more training people they have to get on, etc.. we noticed that airports that they now have reverted back to more metal detectors. and the question is why. i mean, i like that. to go back to metal detectors that are they having trouble with the machines? the third is they got the fourth seeded the department of

homeland security to be more responsive to the public. we've already lost our rights to this department wholesale. a lot of the concern today is we may lose this right or that right. we've already lost our rights. this is a dictatorial department that justifies everything with words national security, doesn't think it is to meet the administrative procedure act which is something the congress has to look into as well as other laws and finally, the question is do members of congress have to go through this? are we seeing a vip treatment? speaker boehner was whisked past these machines late last year. what is their own experience and their own family's experience with this? i always think when congress is part of the risk they are more likely to be part of the

solution. >> thank you. you talked about how, you know, people across the political spectrum, consumer advocates, democrats and republicans seem to be unified in this country and expressing their concerns about the tsa practices, yet we don't see much change in washington. is anyone listening? what will it take to get the decision makers here in washington more focused on this issue? >> i think it's up to us to keep this topic out there and the public and make sure that people continue to think of it. republicans and democrats, whatever the case congress doesn't listen to us unless we continue complaining. we found -- i don't have the exact numbers on this, but we had this initial outburst of complaints are around thanksgiving time when these were coming out, and looked like tsa was putting some of these machines aside and not losing

them completely. it seemed like that may have been happening around christmas time hoping that we will forget about it, go back to our usual routine and stop complaining and the issue would go away. so i think the only way that we make sure something is done about this is we keep complaining about it, keep pointing out the problem and not let congress hear our complaints and do a better sales job on this. we need the congress to get rid of these machines not just find a better way to accept them. >> tsa will readily concede that these devices are not a new screening technique is perfect but they tend to argue at least this is a step in the right direction at least we are making things better. at least according to the tsa we are reducing the level of risk.

but as i understand for what you have said and written elsewhere this may not be a step forward. it may not even be is that sideways perhaps it is a step backward. could you tell us a little bit more about some of the security risks that might result in the further deployment of these airport body scanners? >> what i wrote was before the publication of the vision for intelligence and national security. and they did eight of course in the article in the "wall street journal." in essence the reason is the following. you have a piece of machinery and this piece of machinery is extensive and complicated. you have a number of people on site at the checkpoint. the focus becomes operating this piece of machinery. this piece of machinery isn't perfect as tsa at meds come therefore the security resources in terms of people, attention,

is coming years, brains are focused on operating a piece of equipment that doesn't work. as opposed to doing the job and understanding who you are looking at and looking at passengers and in doing whatever other procedures. so therefore, it's not that this machine like all other human artifacts isn't perfect. it is rather the fact that it occupies the center stage inevitably and becomes a focus of inactivity and that activity is not aviation security but it is the operation of a scanner. now if i may raise the point there's something i don't understand. i'm not ralph nader, i'm not a politician, i don't understand this at all and that means the peculiar and responsiveness of tsa, the kill your response. given here in washington is rather calmly and other

[inaudible] coming back from visiting a consulate in houston and what it [inaudible] coming back from visiting a consulate in houston and what it meant but what happens is the tsa in this report isn't a boon dhaka airport quite and was described by a group of people who refer to her as the indian ambassador that her identity document happens to be a diplomatic passport identifying as the indian ambassador. take this as prime evidence of suspect. to them this was evident suspect because no doubt they believe india confused in the with him and or whatever it was. [laughter] they then submitted her to the most extraordinary intrusive personal pat-down and everything else performed by a person who she describes as a female on her identity papers only. that is how she described the person within the pat-down. she then comes back to

washington and as an experienced diplomat tried to contact the tsa and informed them of what happened. the tsa's the answer is that security comes first and that isn't -- that is the ambassador to india who in the presence of the staff accompanying was submitted to extraordinary procedures. by the we all heard things were opened up in public and everything to get out and putting her diplomatic dispatches which were not suspected. so if you have this question where this person can't even get an answer, you know, those of you who read the bible remember that john when he complained finally complained he lost all these -- god take away his kids and god answered him saying shut up, job, i know what i'm doing.

tsa didn't even answer. [laughter] and i don't understand why because even in the notoriously responsible to brokers is answered. when you make a fuss they get an answer and we don't get an answer and that i don't understand. >> they are not answering, tsa is not answering again and again year after year why they are behind screening cargo. cargo and passenger planes where you can have far more devastating for an object. that is the asymmetry i think congo is very much in the fishing and emphasize on it and pointing out that when you scan it and aaa scan and moreover congo doesn't for the known cinders to the recipients. talking about the legal issues i have to say for those lawyers to

litigate the administrative cases which in the required agencies to respond to publications he just hit a home run and reminding us of at least god answered job so why doesn't the tsa respond to the american public? i wish i had that in a brief last night. in going to go next to chip and i wanted to ask this question i'm sure people who are following this conference the are listening that maybe they are agreeing with the panel was saying that the same time sure there are some people who say listen it's really not that big a deal to go through one of these devices and i'm tough, i can to get and that is what the government asks us to do. i will do it. i'm sure people feel that way but then they look and see the children or their wife or somebody else been subjected to this and they may have to start second thoughts and when we

think about certain groups, when you think about children and the elderly you think about rape survivors and began to ask ourselves as the point you raise about moral rights how serious is this intrusion of the tsa is now engaged on a routine basis. >> it is serious. the harm he mentioned often are tangible. you can see the year in mabus plater, you can see sometimes the effect on a rape survivor, the trauma is sometimes visible on the face. often it's not so the harm can be tangible or intangible but just because they are not visible or they are less apparent doesn't mean they are less significant. that is an important point here. why the idea never been treated in a fashion doesn't respect fundamental personhood, humanity. that is a violation of the norm of the entire concept of human

rights violation of personal dignity. in their response to the tsa is to give this false information, the false choice of its to live on three the growth radiation that is also a moral as is the corruption, as is what was referred to the degrading nation to become a teacher and you mentioned this as well if you are treated like cattle, you lose the ability to be an autonomous agent and exercise the responsibility of self-government which are essential to a democracy so all of these are moral concerns as well as legal concerns even if they're less tangible. like the inside of the lot of people have, like the people you won't even hear about and the muslim women that didn't travel to got some attention but there are scores of other muslims, religious jews, catholics and people of conscience who don't want to see their children treated that way, their burden of movement is now right to free

travel is burden, so a lot of the intangible harms are important to take into account as well. >> we will go to questions in just a moment but i did want to ask the panel and maybe we will simply go down the line. one of the other tough questions that is sometimes asked of people who have raised concerns, raised objectives about the tsa body scanner program is to say what you do? if you don't want us to do this what would you propose we do as we have a responsibility to safeguard the public, the flying public, and i will go down the line and ask you how would you answer that question? >> it's simple. what we do instead of having these body scanners? we would do nothing different. we were doing before, these were better than having them today. so that's a very simple thing. i talked earlier about how i think airlines should be responsible for what happens on their planes and the consequences of when they fly in

a true free-market, passengers and airlines work together and come up with various things to be we don't know which ones work the best or which customers would like the most, but having that choice out there would be a good thing. but again, the security we had before these body scanners was rolled out was fine. we don't need these new body scanners. >> welcome to will hear much more about this of course from bruce snyder this afternoon, but the first thing we've got to do is stop being terrorized. to realize there is no perfect system, this was a nation founded by risktakers, the famously venture their lives, fortran, sacred honor the new the would be executed as the american revolution failed. this is the land of the free and home of the brave and after each incident taking off our shoes, getting rid of liquids, evin chollet there will be cavity searches if we continue that logic and so the thing to grasp

is as europe grasped there is an amicable risk to living in a free society so you've got to live in it. when it comes to aviation security even the european commission has admitted later security is not adequate decided of tears that respond to the last war. the are also calling for more holistic approach. holistic approach in the body scanner a riga is accept may be secondary screening by the less privacy interests of millimeter scanners that give not the naked machine but the machine that jeff rosen also a panelist is afternoon has written about in his books and articles. and in addition to that we have to have rights compliance security, intelligence approaches, law enforcement that doesn't focus on the last resort but tries to identify as what was said people who are risky as opposed to their techniques they can always change the techniques and so it is a question of growing up, living with risk and in doing intelligent rate based

enforcement and i have to agree with the panelists who also said we've got to stop reading terrorists, occupying land. that is what al qaeda said and was the reason that they are terrorizing us understanding that is not justifying it and we won't really get to the policy dimension of this and making headway against it unless we stop violating human rights. >> i completely disagree with the notion that terrorism is by invading countries. most terrorism never reaches the united states. its interregional and religious terrorism one set of muslims killing another set of muslims those casualties are ten times the casualties of all of the attacks against non-muslims. so that has nothing to the invasion but i totally disagree. on the ever had, to answer the question specifically here it is extremely difficult to identify a suspect even to implement all of your intelligence database.

however it is very easy to identify them on suspect. this guy was 30 times or 40 times or 50 times last year and he is not a suspect because the probability of them switching is so terribly low. so the first thing is identify them on suspects. bye removing the suspects who are 50 come 60 come 70% depending which airport, which time, how much seasonality, how much leisure travel and on that particular group on that particular time you first of all or allowing people to go through faster and allow security to focus on the much narrow group and then you can do serious things and therefore you will never in bark on things like putting the scanners that have all of the above disadvantages mentioned plus the disadvantage that matters to me that don't work. and here the decision is critical because italy is world

the and other things but it is certainly the world leader in terrorism. not by accident. they have lower tax in spain and france and england and italy mips them in the love bug. the i talions look at scanners with their long experience of terrorism began in september 11 but terrorism is an italian tiramisu, going on for decades. with their experience they need to figure out and listen to the called the airports in addition to other things. what we need here is professionalism. that's all come professionalism. i would accept any professional professionalism. i despise this operation. >> with great respect i have to comment roberts new book. >> yes. it's not yet -- >> [inaudible] >> no, no. i protested all of these fears buddhist attacks which go on and around the world.

nonsense, this is nonsense. this is the whishing to adhere to this american concept that all religions are equally good. i believe you're equally bad and this is quite a different attitude. >> so we have a topic for a different conference. [laughter] >> first it is unfortunate tsa refuses invitations to conferences. they even refuse to come. is their anybody in the tsa here in the audience? see what i mean? now that is an example of a closed off for terrie in mind. if they don't want to participate, why don't they come here? you know where they go? they go to corporate conferences on the latest security technologies. that's where they go, to see what the latest machines and the latest gadgets etc. are. that's number one. number two and they have got to vastly prove their scanning of

cargo. major aircraft have been brought down by cargo explosion. there are dozens of them all over the world. it brought down in this way. if you of the conventional approach for what edward is talking about you had better watch lists come intelligence gathering and training security officers to look for suspicious behavior. that is for many experts in this area as well as the government accountability office adviser to the u.s. congress, the major of decatur in this town of its responsibility. finally, and here's where i disagree with that word. when you invade countries that don't attack you and you violate the constitution and the

statutes and you violate a series of international treaties to help develop and sign on to and millions of people or shall we say more than discomfort, they are terrified, they are refugees, they die. it's not out of the realm of probability. some of these people or their children are going to plan attacks against the united states directly or indirectly or against the united states citizens abroad and we've got to make sure that general casey and former head said in his statements we do not operate in countries like iraq in a way that provide fertile ground for producing more people who have more reason to apply violent approaches to the security of the american people. finally, and this is very

important in terms of the public, most of the public does not understand what the invasion of the cells does to their civic role. edward's privacy everything he has private because he wants us to function on function of the which is important. but we've seen all over the country when the government acts arbitrarily, and is not just invading people's privacy. when it is interested in many other ways, people's resistance to arbitrary government, which is the spirit of our bill of rights is ground down. growler down in a thousand ways. someone who is left up at airports for no reason at all goes back home. are they going to be standing up to something going on in the city hall? are they going to be intimidated? are they going to be eroded?

so we have to say just because we cannot quantify this with some formula or equation that it's not serious. we must always resist efforts by arbitrary government often inclusion with commercial firms who want to profit from this arbitrary behavior we must always resist. the or arbor term the and reckless bureaucratic attempt to justify their own presence at the expense of the bill of rights of the american people. and i would add one thing. this is a cartoon this sends the message. this is what we should not be doing in this country. >> who says we bureaucrats are out of touch and adis a tsa agent groping someone. [laughter] his comment is a great segue into one of the comments we are seeing on the twitter feet feed and i want to ask west benedictus talk about the

importance of free market should we abolish the tsa were to be more precise and the tsa knows this committee reports in the united states to have the legal authority to say to the federal government know we would prefer to do this hour own way and find options other than the tsa and forced security standards. what is your thinking right now for the prospect of the airports moving in a direction? >> certainly as a libertarian i would like to see the tsa abolished and for airlines and passengers to come up with different solutions to read the security at one line at the airport might look vastly different from biosecurity at another airport with another airline. the important thing is that these airlines also need to remain responsible for the results of the actions of people on the flights. an example from another industry, the oil industry where the bp oil well leaked out in

the gulf. that happened largely as a result, the circumstances that led to that was the government removing liability from their responsibility of what happens if a deep well fails. as we need to have airlines responsible for what happens when they don't have good enough security. but let's let the free market work out what are the best options. so yes i would like to not have the tsa exist. it does exist and i like the fact that some airports are considering getting rid of tsa and some of the other options that might be out there. but i don't think just contacting things out to private corporations is an automatic good solution. big corporations have a lot of money to make from the government who pays them. when there is millions or hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars at stake, those corporations start lobbying their congressmen and

government and big business get in bed together and they take our money and they take our rights. i think that is what is happening with fees' body scanners and so i do appreciate that we have a lot of different groups out there watching out for our rights, consumer safety advocate, ralph nader comes at things from different perspective than i do but on this particular program i think that we agree largely. >> thank you very much. unfortunately we are out of time on this panel now we want people to take questions. we will have time i think leader in the morning for questions. i do want to thank the participants for has been extraordinary discretion and i think we are glad to have more extraordinary discussions today as well. i would like to ask the second panel to please come forward. we will move immediately into the next discussion, and while the next panel was coming forward i would remind the viewers that you can get more information about the conference proceedings on the internet at

the web address pity it is epic.org/events/tsa. you can follow the twitter feet. the hash tag is scantsa. you will be able to add your comments, participate and also see the comments of others who are viewing the discussion and as the second panel comes forward i would like to thank again the first panel for an extraordinary discussion. [applause] ..

began the second well, which looks at the public is to the tsa's airport screening procedures. and for this panel, it's my pleasure to welcome as the moderator of the panel a lecture at georgetown law center, the chief information officer, pablo molina. >> thank you, mark. thank you for being here. i thank you for the members of this particular panel or time in their comments on these issues. i am also a professor of ethics and technology.

this semester come of my students chose this topic for their class papers because they thought it was a very interesting normal dilemma in our daily lives. this is the panel for we the people. if the shoe stand that we say deployment of the counters in airports across the nation, american citizens and visitors to this country no longer face only an economic decisions when traveling. they now face also a moral decision. and this is why you would like suggest that airline traveling site like travelocity.com or expedia.com, that they add one more option whenever it they

displayed slate search results or travel search results. and then option would be not only the low cost options with the one with the least outs, but would also like to suggest the one with the least painful moral choices that people can select when making their travel plans. i would argue most americans have faced moral decisions, than many of them have not traveled yet. in spite of the service-connected and statistics set up and throw at people, that we still don't know how most of the people in this country feel about being subjected, themselves, their children and their family member to the treatment in airports. we are going through the scanners are going to repack down. i'm the last panel is diverse. this one is not so first. this is made up from people who have devoted their time and effort to defend the rights of

privacy for many travelers or simply to oppose the idea of the newest counters being rolled out. it is very hard for me to do a search on the internet that would leave something might cut down or bumper stickers that read, i'd rather be going through scanner instead of being out for. so with this panel, i like to start with kate hanni. kate hanni is the founder, the executive director and also the chief executive officer for flight rates airport and one of the most advocating and passionate defenders of airline passengers rates in the united states. kate. >> thank you, marc for inviting me here today. it's amazing to be speaking up

for the first panel, so i hope i can bring something to the conversation that is unique and maybe a little bit different. i am kate hanni, founder ineffective a flyers rates.org. where the largest nonprofit playwrights organization the world. i found this because my family spent for nine hours and 17 minutes on the tarmac in austin, texas on december 292,006, 6 weeks to the day before jetblue have their meltdown and we felt it was not right and against our civil rights and i took the opportunity to get off of a plane and to be denied access to food or water and to be sitting in conditions with overflowing toilet and smells that most people would not have her smell outside maybe a more. i believe that the airline should treat their passengers as human beings and we've had great success in improving treatment of airline passengers over the last four years. if you're not familiar with

their success, it took three solid years to get it, but we got a rope has been that prevents airlines in the domestic u.s. from holding it for over three hours on the internet. after two hours there to pray to food, water, access to medical attention, clean toilets, clean cheshire spec evolves them are still working on air-conditioning. it seems like something they would want to have an fighter planes. now it seems we also need to force our government street airline passengers as human beings that tsa check points. i'm here today to tell you whether please air travel security is an airline passenger rights issue. then on to outline for you to grave concern to members have about the new tsa security measures effectiveness, safety and constitutionality. finally, i'll simply state what our members and other airline passengers we've heard from want. security is an airline passenger rights issue. swiss air travel security and airline passenger rate issue? honestly, until recently i

didn't think it was. we reluctantly entered this conversation. it's a little different to take on the tsa and dhs then it is the airlines. obviously, we all want to be safe when we fly. we rely on the airline and the faa to provide these airplanes and safe movement from engine start to engine shutdown. after 9-1-1, we accept the need for increased airport security even if removing our shoes seemed a little silly and relied on the tsa to provide that for us before the security became a passenger rights issue when they began rolling out equipment and procedures that have not been proven effect is and they're actually putting out the risk and seemed to us to trample on our fourth amendment rights. having taught for so long for the right to retreat as human beings by the airlines, we were dismayed to see that our government was opposing to treat us as if we were criminals simply because we wanted to get on an airplane. concerns over effectiveness, safety and constitutionality.

when the public began to learn of the new tsa full body scanner is and what they called enhanced pat downs, i received hundreds of communications from our members. with a hotline for those of you who may not know it. it's a toll-free hotline. 1-877-359-3776. and people began calling assembly being pretty horrifying messages about their 3-year-old being patted down, about their grandmother having tsa stick their hands down their pants because they had a medical device and they weren't able to go through the scanners and family therapy and subject it to horrifying treatment at the end of the tsa agents who are changing the loves in between these. i don't mean to be too graphic here, but in the history of our organization, over a month period of time, i must have said a thousand times the word, cavity bombs, things i have not

had to say until october of this year. what they actually detect threats that drove their implementations such as 2000 sanest underwear bomber hidden explosives? many members were medical profession are demanded to know why the government that they routinely exposing us to more radiation is safe. any others wanted to know why new measures didn't violate our fourth amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. overall this very valid questions, there is a general feeling of outrage that our government's casual assumption that they could assume that every hard-working american who was the airport store was a terrorist who had to be strip-searched were groped. other body scanners effective? if not, why is the government insisting if we do not use them, we cannot be safe? even the tsa is that these so-called advanced imaging technology scanners are both laboratory and operational testing, congress' own audit

agency said, it remains unclear that they can actually do the primary job they are intended to do. i'd like to add that pistol is on the record as saying that they have never tested a bomb like abdulmutallab had in his pants once in the scanners. on top of that, the machines radiation penetrates to depth of only one 10th of the change. they will never detect explosives that have been followed or put it delicately hidden in body cavities. neither by the way with the enhanced pat down with someone is by accident pounds of explosives hidden away but were then be subjected to body cavity searchers? body scanners is 20 years old. in today's works beta band of technology commish with its allies in the hands of design federal? there must be a better way. many of our members were medical professionals have objected to anyone imposing more radiation on us. they point out that there is no

defined safe limits on radiation exposure and exposure is cumulative over our lifetime. the most outrageous thing is we have been given no evidence the scanners are safe. the tsa assured us that his long list of agencies, the ian johns hopkins applied laboratory among others were involved in determining venturing scanners safety. the thing is, aol asked each of the agencies about this and they'll hasten to point out that they are in no way responsible for the devices day-to-day safety nor have they been doing regular testing of these units. we've seen recent stories about how maladjusted hand-delivered damaging doses of radiation to patient. who is making sure that does not do airline passengers? we all know that everyone -- everyone except the tsa, his subject and mr. radiation is required to undergo extensive training in the subject to extensive regulation. what radiation training and

regulation are tsa subjected to? i notice they are not wearing my dress. the fourth amendment says an mechanic will come in the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures so not be violated and the work shall issue upon probable cause supported by oath or approbation and particularly describing the place to be served and the persons or things to be seized. do we as a country want to create the electronic strip searches and a basic gropings are searchers? are we willing to accept that walking into an airport means we give up rights that are granted to street bugs. wright believes that airline passengers believe better than that. this issue is particularly galling for members who have served their country. for example, required air force officer received a background investigation security clearance for 17 years and was again

granted a top secret clearance a contractor after his retirement is outraged that his government now considers him a potential terrorists. another member, a retired u.s. navy senior chief who served in the military assistance command special operations group and then held a q. clearance in the nuclear weapons industry for many years feel deeply betrayed by his government the same reason. there must be a better way. what might some of those better ways via? the sacraments keynote speaker is going to address that very issue. we addressed it really in the air when they started deploying body scanners. we believe that canine are very effective method for detecting explosives and there were many, many possible methods that could have been explored and deployed that would not have violated our basic right. thank you so much. [applause] >> i'd like to thank kate hanni torture and abuse upper

organization with the members today. the next person in the panel is a commercial pilot. michael roberts, who are not tober 15 of 2010 was denied access to the memphis international airport when he refused to either go through the scanner or have a pat down. michael. >> is important to think clearly about exactly what it is we're resisting, what effective resistance and tales. throughout history, citizens of every kind of government, facing a kind of crises have called out to the states, deliver us from evil. the state invariably answer is that it must be given more control to meet the people's demands for his protection provision. governments are made powerful only by the confession of the

governed. the people take comfort in creating for themselves a higher power to stand between them and the uncertainty of things beyond their control. the state has established and described with power to meet the needs and desires of its creators. been inherently and attend is most essentially interested in the transference of power away from the many into the hands of the few. whatever ancillary agendas or obligations it has come the primary business of the state must be to secure the strength needed to bring its attentions to pass. promises or exchanged for disproportionate share of the power that has been equally endowed by the laws of nature and nature's god to people themselves. now, as it is that the direct history, civilian comprehensive shift is underway in a relationship between the people and the government, the united states and indeed throughout

much of the winning free world. roles are being reversed with regard to who is accountable to whom and our contact here today, consider law abiding travelers are being ordered about by government agents, told to remove our shoes, our belts and even prosthetic body parts. we are instructed to stand for compliance and oppose it imaging of of her body were sometimes in addition to the physical invasion of our personals and literal body and a shill. a recorded announcement are made in airport terminals with desensitizing repetition of the wordiness when we may be arrested if we dare question or a family ridiculed this madness. it may be difficult for the infrequent traveler to believe these are happening. in america, we are partnering our personal sovereignty in exchange for the ability to move

about within our own borders by air or to perform our work or even attend a conference to express their indignation against us these egregious assault, our basic rights and dignity. in any exchange, we must choose carefully between the value of one alternative to that of another. on october 15, i was confronted with the choice between access to my work place in the essential dignity as well as the right to be secure in my person against unreasonable search and seizure. countless others are being made to choose every day between their livelihood and freedom. the choice to play for a living or otherwise induced simultaneously enjoy the assurances expressly guaranteed by the fourth amendment and the rule of law in general that we will not be a cause that by government agents has been taken from us without any meaningful semblance of due process. if passenger airlines were permitted to offer their services in a free marketplace,

with or without humiliating mistreatment with their customers, perhaps an accurate assessment could be made of how much so-called transportation security market is truly inclined to bear. bush only however the determination has evidently been made that we the people are not fit to choose for ourselves in this regard. and when the executive decree was handed down to use federal recovery act funds to stimulate the economy by abusing the traveling public, the people most affected, those of us who work within the industry began to question whether the value of our jobs outweighed that of our personal rights and liberty. but that was not the only exchange we had to consider. first officer howard pinkham of u.s. airways place a value of his passengers safety above that of his own livelihood when he declared himself unfit to fly as a result of systematic security screening experience. his flight was canceled and the airline passengers were unable to reach their destination is

planned. i personally spoken with many crew crew members would psychologically upsetting and performance degrading effect for the tsa is unlawful and invasive actions, but who nevertheless -- would nevertheless chosen to 500 addresses here but to do otherwise may adversely affect her employment status. other traveling professionals, too many to count how given similar reasons for continuing to subject themselves to these abuses. to reiterate, people are continuing to subject themselves themselves -- i'm sorry. people are compelled to comply with the violation of their personhood and even degradation of passenger safety because they are afraid of what will happen if they refuse. a coercion by fear called by any other name is nevertheless the very epitome of terrorism worse politicians make promises in ange for power, the

leveraging of fear to control the actions and decisions of others in society the work of tyrants. we will not -- we are not talking about security at all here. this entire situation is a national embarrassment industries. but above all, it is their security is self that is most threatened by the attack of our constitution's domestic enemies, many of whom are somewhere in the city with us today. their criminal actions clearly violate the legitimate bounds of the states constitutionally delineated jurisdiction. if our bodies belong to this day, we belong to the state. i urge everyone to carefully consider the value with which you regard your natural rights and liberty whether it is ever justified to peddle them in the market at any price. what will you profit even if you gain the whole world and forfeit your own soul. [applause]

>> thank you, michael for sharing your words with us today as a member of the air advanced community. next is trained to come a act this in the philadelphia area. he was on his way to the philadelphia international airport county joined forces with and created one flight.com website that has been a great resource for all the people with concerned issues about body scanners and pat downs. please, james. >> thank you, marc for hosting this event. thank you to a distinguished panelists. it's an honor to be with you today and thank you for the

audience for participating. it is truly an honor to be here with you. my name is james babb and i am one of the cofounders that we will fight. our website is we will fight.com and i am here today to sort out share with you some of the grassroots response to the tsa abuse. i believe you have the right to be irradiated. you have the right to be groped if it makes you feel safer. we all have the right to be,, proud, examined her x-rayed. however, no one has the right to force these procedures on someone else. this doesn't change when you put on a blue shirt or pin on a piece of government issued jewelry. we all have an inherent right to be secure in their persons. we each owner of bodies. there is no power with the moral authority to strip searched and us against our will. we will apply was started by two regular deaths were opposed to the full-bodied airport scanners

on grounds of privacy and effectiveness and how. when the new scanners were headed to philadelphia in fall of 2010, i realized my ability to travel by air with my young daughters wasn't serious jeopardy, so i began researching and organizing local opposition. my friend rich donnelly immediately offered to build a website to support the effort. the website george created exploded across the internet days, resulting in millions of web hits, tens of thousands of facebook fans and twitter followers. overnight we found ourselves in the heart of the tsa resistance movement. our success was largely due to blog posts, containing first-hand accounts from travelers about the tsa is too invasive procedures. these stories and videos of average americans being molested spread like wildfire. we have had the chance to educate tens of millions of people across the world about tsa abuse and our strategy to end it.

the stories that really took off for those of average people like meg mclean and john tyner. people are shocked to see what is happening to mothers, grandmothers, cancer survivors, children's with special needs, people with implants and prosthetics. the most vulnerable in our society were the first to take the brunt of tsa abuse. now no one is safe. i was asked to share some traveler tales with you today. we will fight.com and her facebook page are full of stories and thousands of bold proclamations from angry travelers that are now refusing to step foot in airports. the videos of tsa inaction have been her best advertising tool, like the video of the traumatized rewrote pleading, stop touching me as a tsa employee continued to her. no one can bear to watch women and children being violated by blue shirt with a without screaming for justice. the aclu has also compiled and published 1000 complaints they

have received. marion texas reported the tsa agent used her hands to feel under and between my. she then ran her hand up into my until a chant into my home. i was touched in the labia recent against my labia and not my upper thigh peered she repeated this procedure on the other side. i was shocked and i broke into tears. alan from nebraska says that was visibly upset and when he started to fondle me and appropriately i set out to see a supervisor. i asked emphatically if he was legally allowed to corrupt my genitals. he groped my and told me to have a good flight. rosemary at virginia says the entire affair is very punitive and humiliating and emotionally

distressing. when i retrieved my things, i walked into the women's restroom and left. scott in new mexico says while in a private room, the agent inappropriately touched my genitals more than once it made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. the agent also pulled down my shorts about halfway and i had to ask the agent to let me pull them back up. i was inappropriately touched, groped, rubbed, massaged and sexually arrest. was violating come invasive and humiliating. tsa officials have even suggested that parents made a tsa assault into a game for their children. they are conditioning an entire generation to submit to any abuse these of extreme that. what is going on here? this has nothing to do with security. this is humiliation and conditioning for reflexive submission to the touched class. do we need a congressional hearing to know this is wrong? do we need a study in how much

radiation is unhealthy or in a virtual strip search? of course not. anyone with a shred of decency knows what the tsa doing is immoral and totally unacceptable. this will be a conservative liberal or libertarian, race, age or economics. this is a matter of basic human dignity. this problem is beyond the point of reform. there is no better way to strip search a child. there is no more professionally to fill up our grandmothers. this is not an issue of tsa training. it's not even an issue of security. this about the fundamental fundamental course of nature a government assault. the tsa is just the latex covered -- the latex gloved tip of the iceberg. the public is outraged because they see a tsa hand reaching under a waistband, but everything the government does is a hand in our pants. the public is outraged about scans of our families, but the

era's forces us to reveal far more than any x-ray scanner. the government which is on wars of aggression abroad, participates in regime change, metals and foreign elections have imposes sanctions and blockade and then they claim to mess up and her to radiate a goes crazy foreigners hate us for our freedom. the police state at home and the empire abroad are flip sides of the same coin. in classic government fashion every blunder is followed by an expectation of more power and more of our treasure. and of course, please don't pay attention to windfall profits of former homeland security michael chertoff who now works for scan systems, filling scanners to the tsa. we moved into a bizarre world where everything about us is open for government inspection and everything the tyrants do is cloaked in the deepest secrecy. reveal their db secrets or attempt to protect your privacy, they will brand you a terrorist or domestic extremists, whatever that is. so what is the alternative? we need flexible, decentralized

innovative security that only a competitive marketplace can provide. as passengers we need the freedom to select the level of security that we are comfortable with. those who want a full exam can have it. those that prefer more modest techniques can have that too. but in scope airline complete with free and dignified airline. it's better for security, better for privacy and avoids the constitutional issues. so instead of trusting the same politicians that have betrayed us over and over again, it's time for a mental shift. airport security should not be an issue between airlines and customers. it should be an issue between airlines and customers. it should not be an issue between politicians and lobbyists. so accept no compromise. we must abolish the tsa now. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much, nadhiras

babb for sharing your comments today. i like to start by posing questions to the panelists. i'd like to say with a two-part question for commercial pilot, michael roberts. when the city u.s. automakers came to washington about two years ago to ask for a bailout, they were embarrassed publicly by being asked how they got to washington. and that's going to be my first question for you, you guys are today and why. and also if i could follow question on a more serious matter and that would be about the lawsuit i understand you and a fellow pilot have against the department of homeland security and the transportation security administration. michael. >> well, how i got here, i drove my trusty airport car 14 hours. [applause]

yes, we are suing napolitano and pistol and their professional capacities and seeking restoration of our fourth amendment rights and freedom. it's as simple as that. we want them to stop doing what they are doing. i would like to see security placed in the hands of professionals as well. i agree with that approach. in the near term, the main thing to do is restrain the politicians and bureaucrats and put them back inside the boundaries that are laid out by the constitution. so we can get that done, will be obvious back to where we wear, which was better than this. >> thank you, michael. i like to continue with a question for kate hanni, founder, executive director and ceo of flyer right.org. many of us are taking different approaches as individual

citizens. for example myself i'm switching to low-cost airlines because a leaf out of washington national reagan airport, they fly out of the low-cost terminal, which happens to be terminal eight and i feel safer on two accounts. first, i do believe that terrorists who are on a suicide mission may not be as price-sensitive as other people said they fly at a low cost. [laughter] but most importantly, it's because the low-cost terminal is don't have money for the high cost centers. the plant appeared in terminal eight come you don't have to go to the skin or patdown. you go through a regular metal detector. other approaches for manufacturing and marketing scanner proof underwear for those americans who prefer to do that. you can have -- a serious question as what can passengers

do in response to this new trend? what is next on the horizon for them to try to join forces and try to put a stop to the scanning and patdown movement? >> well, if you go to flyer talks, which is a popular blog -- can hear me? good, i love it. so we were actually looking for an elected was was do a google search looking for a list of airports who don't have the scanners. and flyer talk has an entire list of all the airports in the u.s. and the terminals that you can go to the don't have the scanners. and if you don't have a scanner, you won't be subjected to a super intrusive pat down. people with disabilities and will be subject it to those intrusive pat downs either, which i find fascinating. so for many people, that could be a good alternative. the way people can advocate, we have an infrastructure it fires

right by design meant to help people get a hold of their congressmen and senators and the tsa and any other government authority who is willing to listen. when folks call our hotline or the e-mail us or they block or they are on our forum, where tracking authentic dignity and we are communicating with anyone who can't access in any way about how they can be a bit. when it was regarding airline passenger rights issue, i was writing to the department of transportation and their congressmen and senators. now it's the tsa and their congressmen and senators and also forming events. our plan is to form events that will be visually demonstrable at airports in the future. and assuming we can make them really effective, we should be able to make some headway with dhs and tsa. unfortunately, many events are planned were very effective because many people do travel on the day before thanksgiving.

with the media kind of missed was that travel was found. the reports we were getting from our members over the holidays were that the lines were empty and scanners were turned off and that people were being waved through the metal years. so in that sense, all of the impetus and drive behind we won't fight a national opt-out tag analysis programs did work. it was just misguided media. some are going to be similar demonstrable events and having our members participate in those all over the country over the coming months. >> thank you, kate -- kate hanni with lightweights.org. i next question is for activists and founder of we won't fly.com, james babb. and the question is this. one can imagine that right now were talking about the scanners only in the context of airports.

but should this technology prove popular in the citizens accept it, one could imagine that you have to go through similar things to get your daughters into school, to visit the institutions at the smithsonian air and other museums all over the world and to access your place of work or petition the government. what do you think the grassroots movement that you have surrogates can do in order to put a halt to what seems like difficult to stop the progression? >> you raise an excellent question in a good point that this technology is not limited to airports. there is no reason to believe that it's going to stop there and we can really stop fighting to avoid this abuse. they are already experimenting with and train stations, subways, even bus stations. people are subject to to these invasive social.

it's totally unacceptable everywhere. so if activists, we just have to say no. we have to resist at every turn. we have to draw the line here and now that this is absolutely unacceptable under any circumstances. there's nothing they can say to us but should justify submitting our families to this kind of abuse. it is absolutely unacceptable for human beings. if we do nothing now, we will see it on the streets, at the train, at the schools. we will not be able to escape it. we are at a turning point right now. this is why we must take and not compromise, not let them say look, we're going to macer groping because they won't end it. they need to end a firmly and without compromise right now. [applause] >> thank you very much, james.

i'd like to move on and ask a question to another person who is here at the table, marc marc rottenberg about devices being used in locations other than airports. >> to weave a lawsuit? is that the question? i think we do and were going to talk about it on the next panel. it's a conjugated lawsuit, so we decided to take an hour at our conference, so we gave ourselves an hour. >> thank you, marc. this is for the people, by the people come us would like to take questions from the audience were from the online participants. >> high [inaudible] i would like to ask mr. babb and

michael roberts, the pilot, you both spoken out very strongly come the whole panel has about the invasive pat downs and the scanners, and you're saying we should basically turn this over to free enterprise i believe. i know some people are saying that. but can you give us some hard and fast examples of what you would do to fix it, what you do to change a? because we haven't really heard that yet. >> sure. airlines invest billions of dollars in their hardware. they have incredibly valuable employees that require a huge amount of training. they have their entire customer base to protect. do you think stockholders will have an interest in keeping these assets secured? of course they have an extreme motive to protect these

incredible assets. the motive for politicians are very different. that's what we have right now. politicians need to look like they're doing something. that's why we end up with security theater. that's why we end up with a centralized bureaucracy. we get 67,000 tax theaters participating in a make work program and that becoming a assault. so the point is trust of the incentives -- trust in the incentives that the airlines. they have the best motive to protect us. [inaudible] >> should we go away from the machinery and focused more on training the people who work for the tsa who are giving us the pat downs and interrogating us and asking of personal questions? i for example was born in morocco. i had my passport stolen in paris several years ago.

i'm american. when i come into country on transamerica for any country, i am always say you were born in morocco. when i say yes, but i left when i was two, they dropped the subject. they then asked me about my stolen passport. and eventually they moved back from the record because it was wasting their time and mine. and israel, you get the same question, but they notify more quickly. another example is a friend when she came back from egypt she was asked by somebody over here, did you meet any egyptians? and she said well, you know, what do you think? shoes american. but it just seems to me that the tsa, instead of going to the conference has in the sunny places when it's cold every year, they should maybe be sending the people who were all

complaining about, give us the pat downs and teach them a better way to screen for would-be terrorists. it's as much as about mr. luttwak was saying, but we're not complaining about getting any solutions and that's what i would like to see as a frequent traveler. >> if i may, what you're describing is you would like to see professional security procedures. and in order to have that, we need to put the decision-making process in the hands of professionals and not, as she made the point, in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats who are driven by other motivations. officials care about the mission. you know, i'm flying the airplane, thinking about what i'm doing, not business does the background and take x and anything else. i'm thinking about what my job is right in front of me, professional security, people

who work in that industry, whether they do it in-house with the airlines or his contract there's. and i'm not talking about using contractors to carry out tsa's mandates. i'm talking about the decision-making process being placed in the hands of people who have a vested interest in the quality of their work, legitimate professionals. that's what you want. that's what she does describe and good luck getting that from the state. >> very good. >> i'd like to take a stab at answering from a flyers wright's perspective. they think is what you are hearing as we all agree that the scanners in the new intrusive genital pat downs are something we can't live with the need to be abolished released named as a secondary screening method for people who do present a risk. but in the beginning, like i said i was reluctant to take on this issue because they represent airline passengers, most of them travel a lot.

their primary concern was their safety and security when they travel. and many people weren't initially, last january, at all convinced after abdulmutallab that they were safe. and so. and so they dogmatically works at the least intrusive measures. well, i began an exploration with a number of professors and people who are expert in different types of detection. and it does appear to me that there was no exploration by the tsa into many alternatives. they appear to have signed contracts in 2006 in the prior administration that they were committed to keeping the order for these units were made in october 2009, 2 months before abdulmutallab, the plane. he benefited in terms of convincing the u.s. but this was the only solution to solving our security issues. the canines are actually much better detect or of explosives.

so if we're committed to finding explosives, that would be one possible solution and they are used around the world. biometric technology, which has been mentioned here, where you can give an iris scan and fingerprints and how they background check is done to be an acceptable way of creating a low risk group of what you would call a fly list of people who can move pretty quickly for the security process can wear the focus can be used on people who do present a risk. so there are other answers out there that would not create a sexualized intrusiveness that she now have with the scanners and these new pat downs. and maybe other alternatives that we haven't heard about -- the thing i've been negatively impressed by with all those was the idea that corporations seem to be driving all of the technology implementation into tsa. and it has nothing to do with

what is best for us. >> any audience questions here in the room? >> i was just wondering, being head of the organization. i was in west virginia and every person i talked to at my job was a thousand people. every single one of them give up their rights because the governments correct. and in canada we have never even heard of these things. [inaudible] have you found this? it's a major problem. [inaudible] people are going to jail. this is a group of people are quite avid on their rights.

[inaudible] [inaudible] >> i think what we noticed and we talked about many of our conference calls before this event. ralph nader actually set it at first was that people who didn't have experience come the people at first last year when they found about scanners being implemented, a lot of people overwhelmingly, partly because they were afraid we're saying i'll give up my rights. i don't care. but none of the scanners were in the airports yet and they hadn't introduced these new pat downs. to anyone who had not experienced it or who really hadn't thought through what was actually going on at the tsa checkpoint was more willing to give them up then after they had experienced it. and once they started rolling out the scanners and then when they added this player is

ridiculously intrusive pat downs. and we believe, our group believes pat downs are implemented entirely to force people through the scanners because people weren't -- i travel a lot coming from california and people were not an akamai of the international airport in san francisco, where two lines one through scanner and the two metal detector. terrific bp will delight the metal detector and three in line for the scanner. no one in history have you ever seen people choose the longest security line, right? so i think you make a great point. the first letters that i began receiving were people with small children. the very first letter academy announced the implementation of the new pat downs was from the father of a 3-year-old who was writing starwood hotels. and he was pleading with starwood hotels to come to his aid and help the americans

flying public to not have to go through these pat downs because he wanted to be able to travel and take his family, but he refused with an tsa agent who was not screened for american thought and a backroom look at his 3-year-old daughter or allow her to be patted down. he said i'm still going to travel, but only by card. overwhelmingly since the scanners in the pat downs have been implemented, the poles send me surveys that are being implemented over the last four months continued to show a larger and larger group of people seem to find alternative means of transportation if these were the methods that were going to be used in the airports and they couldn't get around it and it finds another way to get to their institution or not travel anymore. [inaudible] >> -- and i think it makes a good point. a lot of it is fight ignorance. a lot of people don't know what

it entails. it's important to hear a description of it. we see that on tv. frisks another what law enforcement officers do with criminals when they're really trying to find out whether they are securing something that might kill them. it will first team is a very invasive, you know, rusting and it needs to be. so a lot of people that i've heard from, just tons of feedback, have said they really didn't think it would be such a big deal. they entered the security line 19 okay, i'll opt-out, like they are doing something that ought to know. i that word. but then after being groped and and all the rest, they come away feeling understanding after the fact they have really been violated. the pilot is a great example of that. he was just going to work. there was so rough and so disturbing to have that, you know, he was livid. he was offended, whatever you

want to say. was violated to the point he couldn't fly, but he didn't see that on the front end. there's a lot of confusion about what's really going on. another example is the 3-year-old mentioned a few times. the moms restraining and that's filming. i'm an attack on tv because he's a news reporter about what an outrage this is to my dad are in the airport. well, what's wrong with that picture? for you, dad and mom? we are confused as a people. i think we are collectively losing our minds. and i'm not saying that to pontificate. what is really going on? >> by blake to continue by posing a question by one of the remote participants. one of you asks whether this panel opposes the type elegy, the process are both

>> can i go first? i think that the technology could be used if it was voluntary. the problem is that is being forced on people. you know, if you want to say look, i'm going to fly on the scope and group airline, go ahead. as soon as you start forcing that as someone else, you're the bad guy. so the technology is inherently possibly dangerous and certainly have been a lot of risks associated with it. but as individuals, we have the right to choose the level of risk appropriate for ourselves. so i say security, make your own column. the overall procedures of what they're doing, absolutely opposed to that. the entire process absolutely opposed to that. >> other panelists? >> can you repeat the question? >> the question is one of the

remote participants is whether the people on this panel opposed the tech elegy, the process for both? >> okay, we oppose both as a primary screening method. we don't believe that regular human being should be presumed to be guilty of anything when they approach a security check point and they should not be automatically all of them put through the scanners are the pat downs. now, if someone presents a risk, then they can be used as a secondary screening method, which is what we are encouraging tsa to do. retire them to those who present a risk. did you have a question for me? [inaudible] >> my question is, does the fax gather -- [inaudible] you allow yourself to go through i understand the radiation.

my question is what they already oppose the security measures we've accepted with other detectors and x-ray of the bag and even some searchers and then they creep more and more for the technology another process is very skewed. i agree and i don't know why we're switching pilots because they fly the plane. you can have a gun. you could have explosives. take it all. you fly my plane. this is absurd. so my point is that the technology, isn't the process? >> it is my understanding that the millimeter wave scanners as was the backscatter scanners take an image of your body and that the millimeter wave scanners present life of a mediation risk, but i simply fundamentally and her group fundamentally believes that we were as safe just going to the

metal years. and if you look at what they can actually detect and there are some videos on youtube that were taken in the netherlands. a television crew had a rapid scan movement. about the millimeter. and the guy had declared that he had one pocket of low density powdered explosives before he went through the scan, went through the scan, came back and the rapiscan gentleman who was interpreting only saw this when he had a detonator does not come a powdered explosive in the fax, liquid stories in his pockets and he pulled them all out and it was clear that the scanners just simply aren't effective at finding what they're telling us that they will. my concern is when they are missing so much, what are they really doing for us that the metal detectors didn't? and why is that we're not looking more at the people coming to the airport and prescreening with risk-based

intelligence driven security? >> i agree with what you just said. my point is tomorrow there is going to be the next system. the next system is just a block and there is a blob. there's no person's body. fascistic color and a blue topic here in the shoulder area. >> machine i saw demonstrate that the backscatter blob machine. and from a lack of invasion of privacy standpoint, i'm sure it is. but this machine still have the radiation component. >> if my mate intervened. regrettably we are running out of time here, so i'd like to give the panelists just a few seconds to leave us with some last words. please, michael. >> while, i'll try to just continue to address your question there. i can tell you what my thought process was through the years about the metal detectors. it's kind of ridiculous.

like you say, not just because i am a pilot. is it unreasonable to search and seizure? yeah, probably is. to my shame, i parted that bit of my liberty to take off my shoes and go through the thing so i could get to work because they viewed it as they have sold more than a total violation, which is what i see going on now. but how about we use our brains? you know, stop using all of these expensive pieces of equipment because metal guns and objects somehow get through security, have for many years even with, have for many years even with, have for many years even with there's. so that's the fundamental approach the whole thing. the process, the technology -- technology might be useful if you were used in a lawful way. strip searching, virtual or otherwise come you don't do that until you have, you know,

exhausted other ways of screening and then it's probably time to get law enforcement involved if you're going to take somebody's clothes off and see what they've got underneath. so that's a big plot in the process and technology. i don't care if the scanners when it's justified, but it's not justified when you walk in the door. and i'm looking forward with technology, biometrics. is that a solution? you wait a few more weeks and months and you'll see that is the solution. well, stop strip searching. we'll start with a scanner and you'll be on your way. does that give the government more or less control over our comings and goings? i think we need to be real careful with that. >> kates, without debating, any last words? >> thank you. >>