Punching Stupid and Evil in the Face Since 1986!

"We are on strike, we the men of the mind. We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties."-John Galt

Monday, November 22, 2010

TSA could blur images, but they refuse.

As I have said all along, the TSA could be using full-body scanning technology that does not show a pornographic image of passengers passing through. In fact, they were informed of this technology in 2006, yet did nothing to implement it.
A cheap and simple fix in the computer software of new airport scanners could silence the uproar from travelers who object to the so-called virtual strip search, according to a scientist who helped develop the program at one of the federal government's most prestigious institutes.

The researcher, associated with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, said he was rebuffed when he offered the concept to Department of Homeland Security officials four years ago.

The fix would distort the images captured on full-body scanners so they look like reflections in a fun-house mirror, but any potentially dangerous objects would be clearly revealed, said Willard "Bill" Wattenburg, a former nuclear weapons designer at the Livermore lab. The scanners normally produce real-time outlines of the naked human body, and the Transportation Security Administration has been embroiled in controversy since installation of the new scanners began last month.

"Why not just distort the image into something grotesque so that there isn't anything titillating or exciting about it?" Wattenburg said.
A TSA spokesman goes on to say, he doesn't know "anything about it, that was another Administration." That's pathetic. This Administration is trampling our rights and stealing our freedom at every turn and their excuse is they didn't know about it. Doubtful.
The Livermore laboratory sent off a final application to the U.S. Patent Office on Nov. 23, 2006, and about three weeks later Wattenburg said he called the Department of Homeland Security to share the good news. The patent application is on appeal, according to government records, but the federal government owns the rights to the idea.

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