Just as Oakland became the last of the Bay Area's three airports to install full-body scanners at security checkpoints this week, a new scandal has erupted.
The TSA has insisted all along that these machines cannot capture, store or transmit images of travelers' naked bodies.
But there's new evidence to show that the scanners can do just that.
According to a CNET report, another federal agency, the U.S. Marshall's service, admitted that it had actually stored over 30,000 images recorded by a full-body scanner used at a Florida courthouse.
A watchdog group called the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) obtained over 100 of the images and states on its web site that, "The images, which are routinely captured by the federal agency, prove that body scanning devices store and record images of individuals stripped naked." The group has filed a lawsuit to suspend the deployment of body scanners at airports.
EPIC also discovered that the TSA actually specified to manufacturers that the machines have the ability to send and store images. The TSA says that these functions are only for testing and training and insists on its web site that the airport body scanners are delivered to airports with storage and recording functions disabled...
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