Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

BRAVE NUDE WORLD ?

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION | 09.12.2004 13:42 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Repression | World

You've just got to accept it the next time you travel with your good looking wife or daughter: of course their breasts are firm like Semtex. And when they or you are fingered, just ask yourself: where's your spine ? Are you going to protest ?



BRAVE NUDE WORLD ?

Some people have said they felt uncomfortable, seeing themselves nude on the screen.

by Henk Ruyssenaars

FPF - The Netherlands - 09-12-04 - Ever had that dream of finding yourself stark naked in the middle of a busy shopping mall, or on the local square?

And you could run, but not hide.?

That dream has become reality, and the next thing you may know is standing quite in the nude in Los Angeles Airport for instance, or at London's Heathrow Airport where it is already used. It's apparently being tested in Orlando.

Thanks to modern technology and the despicable American Patriot Act II, in the nearby future you may stand naked at whatever airport, with professional 'Peeping Toms', which are paid to literally 'handle' your most intimate and private parts.

Not only checking your luggage, but your body as well, all in the name of this so called and non existent 'security', which is meant to control everything and everybody on this planet. 'Human dignity' now is an unknown entity, nearly extinct, because it has - by brainwashing - been by you accepted' as 'collateral damage'. Like McLuhan said: "The media are the massage". And it works.

Your humiliation is called 'security'.

Last June 8, the ''PEN USA First Amendment Action Committee'' said it was concerned about 'security measures' at the Los Angeles airport, since several foreign journalists (representing millions) in a rather brutal manner were detained, maltreated (not all) and extradited.

They had not been informed by US-Customs or consuls, embassies etc. - about ever newer 'security measures'. Drawing criticism from Reporters Without Borders (RWB), an international journalists 'watchdog' group. And just imagine what they wrote and said in their media, about the treatment they received in the new American Empire, which many of them liked before.

But now it's our turn to be further humiliated, and be undressed by security guards, who already - according to a new directive by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) - are allowed to pat down private areas of the body, including breasts, pubic areas and buttocks.

You've just got to accept it the next time you travel with your good looking wife or daughter: of course their breasts are firm like Semtex. And when they or you are fingered, just ask yourself: where's your spine ? Are you going to protest: say or do something ?

Some passengers are finding the searches intrusive.

But that's nothing compared to what the I-team of 9News.com* wrote: "Far more intrusive, at least in the minds of some, is a new X-ray technology that TSA officials would like to begin using. It's called the 'Backscatter X-ray' which essentially does a low-level full body scan. The waves go right through clothing but bounce off the skin leading to a screen image that leaves nothing to the imagination.

Weapons or plastic explosives worn under clothing are readily visible, but so is every crease of skin and fold of fat. Some passengers have said they felt uncomfortable seeing themselves nude on the screen. TSA officials, though, say for many people it's less intrusive than physically patting down the body.

TSA Customer Support Manager Bob Kapp says the machine is still in the testing stages. It's said to be in use at London's Heathrow Airport and is being tested in Orlando. Passengers are given the option of pat downs or X-ray screening. Denver International Airport does not have one of the machines yet, but Kapp says' it has been requested'. He says it's much more thorough than a physical search and would speed up the screening process for passengers."

Not quite understanding anymore what formerly was known as 'Human Dignity', nor 'humiliation'. It's all crushed under the present 'Befehl ist Befehl'-structure, the inhumane 'Orders are Orders' mentality, with armed people in black or brown uniforms again wrecking the world.

There's an interesting study on this: "Those acts of humiliation that are committed accidentally, will clearly never be eliminated. However, many other acts of humiliation could in fact be avoided. Raising awareness of the destructiveness of acts of humiliation, for example, could diminish the likelihood for acts of humiliation being inflicted.

What currently seems to be lacking, in particular, is an awareness for the fact, that humiliating people more often than not proves to be counterproductive, rendering angry enemies instead of friends.

Here we have the whole source - and the roots - of the global resistance against the United States, Israel's Holocaust of the Palestinians, and all the despicable collaborators with their humiliating US foreign policy and killing corporate geopolitical greed. While faking and fomenting terror and fear.

Having no clothes nor nipples - like in the US...

In maybe the most influential theater play from 17th century Spain, Pedro Calderon de la Barca's ''La Vida Es Sueno'' (Life Is a Dream), Calderon cleverly shows how fragile the reality around us can be.

His hero, Prince Sigismundo, appears in a theatre-cum-futuristic-nightclub where people are wearing battery-powered glasses that enable them to see others naked, but without nipples...

Clopping hooves migrate from the loudspeakers to the theater itself, sounds of torture, blood-curdling shrieks and moans emanate from behind the screen, a location whence people are intermittently dragged, struggling. Intimations of violence escape the screening process and infiltrate the spatial texture of ‘daily’ living.

When the hero discovers that a police station is situated here, he realizes that the uncanny feeling he is experiencing comes from ‘someone being beaten’.

That is a feeling we all must have now. It's the 'American Reich': Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib all over, showing how fragile and hostile the reality for a US-citizen - and us globally - has become.*

This fake reality called the ''American Dream'',
is now being very undressed and very dead.

Awaiting the global 'Grapes of Wrath'.


Henk Ruyssenaars


US' Global terror - Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/6d9sa

John Kaminsky knows - Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/54e8f

Suggested: Desmond Morris 'The Naked Ape''
Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/3rfmb


FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
 http://tinyurl.com/4fjsc
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
 http://tinyurl.com/2ghoh
The Netherlands
 FPF@Chello.nl

Blog:  http://tinyurl.com/4yg4l

The Dutch author has this far worked abroad for 4 decades for international media, as a foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East.

Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism ! (US Senator Hollings agrees:  http://tinyurl.com/2ylmv )

Help the troops come home ! We need them badly to fight our 'governments':
 http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

HR

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information.
 http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
- e-mail: FPF@CHELLO.NL

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

This is a very stupid article

09.12.2004 15:36

Firstly, because most of what he describes is rubbish.

The claim is that the X ray back scatter will show every skin fold. Would he care to post such a picture [tastefully edited to preserve our modesty] to show this claim?

Of course, a little bit of salacious comment [breasts like Semtex, indeed] always helps. Plus a nice dose of sexism.

And secondly - it'll only apply if you're travelling to the US. Simple rememdy - don't. After all, if it's such a deeply nasty country, you wouldn't want to anyway. And I'm sure people on Indiemedia are far too ecologically conscious as to actually fly there.

sceptic


Techie media coverage

09.12.2004 19:56

This issue has been featured on The Register:

'See through clothes' scanner gets outing at Heathrow

By John Lettice

Published Monday 8th November 2004 13:39 GMT

A security scanner that sees through clothes and produces a nude image of passengers has made its debut in a trial at Heathrow Terminal 4, according to a report in the Sunday Times.

 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/08/heathrow_scanner_pilot/

Also on Slashdot:

New Body Scanners Installed In Airports

Posted by emmett on Fri Dec 31, '99 09:23 AM

from the x-ray-spex dept.

KahunaBurger writes "The Boston Globe has an article today titled "Rights backers fight scanner that gets under clothes". The US customs service has installed new scanners in five major US airports "that can see through passengers' clothes and search for contraband with an image that shows the naked body." Rights activists are equating this to a 'electronic strip search.' I don't know; getting frisked always makes me feel like a bad guy on COPS.

 http://slashdot.org/articles/99/12/31/1029224.shtml

/.'er


fine

10.12.2004 10:45

I am more concerned about the radiation than a police wanker looking at my body

huri


EU to introduce 'virtual strip searches' at airports by 2010

04.10.2008 05:10

And here we go again:

Quote from the article: "The new imaging technology creates an image of an unclothed body which privacy critics argue "amounts to a virtual strip search" has been tested on a voluntary basis at Heathrow's Terminal Four. But the trial has now been discontinued, said a Heathrow spokeswoman."

EU to introduce 'virtual strip searches' at airports by 2010

Digital body scanners which leave little to the imagination will be used by airport security on passengers travelling across the European Union within two years.

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels

UK Telegraph 01 Oct 2008 - According to a draft European Commission regulation, seen by The Daily Telegraph, the new millimetre wave imaging scanners are to be used "individually or in combination, as a primary or secondary means and under defined conditions" to provide a "virtual strip search" of travellers.

The new EU regulation, which will be binding on Britain, is intended to enter into force across the continent by the end of April 2010.

Dominic Grieve, Shadow Home Secretary, stressed that while body scanners may be an effective security tool "the implementation must be carried out by the British government in a proportionate manner, based on UK security requirements rather than the dictates of Brussels".

"Ministers need to explain publicly and transparently what these proposals are and why they are suitable to the UK," he said.

The new imaging technology creates an image of an unclothed body which privacy critics argue "amounts to a virtual strip search" has been tested on a voluntary basis at Heathrow's Terminal Four. But the trial has now been discontinued, said a Heathrow spokeswoman.

Air passengers scanned by the new technology walk into a large booth where electromagnetic waves are beamed on to their body to create a virtual three-dimensional "naked" image from reflected energy.

Many travellers have been alarmed by the graphic nature of the black and white images body scanners generate – including revealing outlines of genitalia – raising concerns about privacy.

Gareth Crossman, Director of Policy at Liberty, said: "I don't think people are aware of what these scanners can do and how demeaning it is to have your body on display. Heathrow was right to discontinue their use and they should not be used in Britain except as an alternative to strip searches."

Security officials in the United States have pioneered use of the scanners at New York and Los Angeles airports because the technology reveals the contours of the body, picking up hidden items, such as guns or knives, more effectively than standard physical "pat-down" checks.

Tony Bunyan, the editor of Statewatch, fears that Brussels is rushing to follow the US by introducing a technology that could subject "people including women, old people and children to such a shameful and undignified experience".

He added: "It would appear that this is yet another case of 'if it is technologically possible it should be used' without any consideration of proportionality, privacy and civil liberties."

Paolo Costa, Chairman of the European Parliament's Transport Committee, is concerned over the safety of the new technology and how "nude" images of passengers will be viewed, then stored, by security officials.

"What will the impact of the use of body scanners be on passenger health? What will the impact be on passenger privacy?," he wrote in a letter to the Commission last week.

"How will the image data be held and how will it be destroyed?

Timothy Kirkhope, a Conservative Euro-MP who sits on the transport committee, is concerned that the new security regulations will be introduced without discussion or consultation with the travelling public.

"It must not be the case that unelected Commission officials, or security bureaucrats, can introduce these measures without elected MEPs or MPs being able to anything about it," he said." - [end story]

No more questions, your Honour!







Henk Ruyssenaars
mail e-mail: fpf@chello.nl
- Homepage: http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=sfp&p=%22Henk+Ruyssenaars%22


Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech