How the US uses sexual humiliation as a political tool to control the masses

UK Guardian


by Naomi Wolf

Believe me, you don't want the state having the power to strip your clothes off. And yet, it's exactly what is happening

In a five-four ruling this week, the supreme court decided that anyone can be strip-searched upon arrest for any offense, however minor, at any time. This horror show ruling joins two recent horror show laws: the NDAA, which lets anyone be arrested forever at any time, and HR 347, the "trespass bill", which gives you a 10-year sentence for protesting anywhere near someone with secret service protection. These criminalizations of being human follow, of course, the mini-uprising of the Occupy movement.

Is American strip-searching benign? The man who had brought the initial suit, Albert Florence, described having been told to "turn around. Squat and cough. Spread your cheeks." He said he felt humiliated: "It made me feel like less of a man."

In surreal reasoning, justice Anthony Kennedy explained that this ruling is necessary because the 9/11 bomber could have been stopped for speeding. How would strip searching him have prevented the attack? Did justice Kennedy imagine that plans to blow up the twin towers had been concealed in a body cavity? In still more bizarre non-logic, his and the other justices' decision rests on concerns about weapons and contraband in prison systems. But people under arrest – that is, who are not yet convicted – haven't been introduced into a prison population.

Our surveillance state shown considerable determination to intrude on citizens sexually. There's the sexual abuse of prisoners at Bagram – der Spiegel reports that "former inmates report incidents of … various forms of sexual humiliation. In some cases, an interrogator would place his penis along the face of the detainee while he was being questioned. Other inmates were raped with sticks or threatened with anal sex". There was the stripping of Bradley Manning is solitary confinement. And there's the policy set up after the story of the "underwear bomber" to grope US travelers genitally or else force them to go through a machine – made by a company, Rapiscan, owned by terror profiteer and former DHA czar Michael Chertoff – with images so vivid that it has been called the "pornoscanner".

Believe me: you don't want the state having the power to strip your clothes off. History shows that the use of forced nudity by a state that is descending into fascism is powerfully effective in controlling and subduing populations.- [Full Article]

Supreme Court Ruling Allows Strip-Searches for Any Arrest

New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband. - [Full Article]

3 elderly women say TSA agents made them pull down pants, underwear

Local10.com

NEW YORK -

With age come such things as catheters, colostomy bags and adult diapers. Now add another indignity to getting old — having to drop your pants and show these things to a complete stranger.

Two women in their 80s put the Transportation Security Administration on the defensive this week by going public about their embarrassment during screenings in a private room at John F. Kennedy International Airport. One claimed she was forced to lower her pants and underwear in front of an agent so that her back brace could be inspected. Another said agents made her pull down her waistband to show her colostomy bag...[Full Article]

Grandma Got Molested At The Airport

Another Elderly Woman Says She Was Exposed At Kennedy Airport

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Lenore Zimmerman, 85, was angry and embarrassed after what she claims was a strip search at Kennedy Airport Tuesday. Now another woman in her 80′s at the very same terminal says she was exposed one day before.

From her home in Sunrise, Florida, 88-year-old Ruth Sherman says she knows for a fact senior citizens are being violated at a screening checkpoint at JFK.

“I felt like I was invaded,” she told CBS 2′s Dave Carlin.

Sherman says week-long Thanksgiving holiday with family in New York ended with an ordeal that started when the screeners wanted to check the bulge from Sherman’s colostomy bag.

“This is private for me. It’s bad enough that I have it,” she said. “I had to pull from my sweatpants and I had to pull my underwear, my underwear down.”

“You don’t do that anybody,” she added. “I felt like I was invaded.”...[Full Article]

85-year-old woman may sue TSA after being strip searched at JFK Airport

'I really look like a terrorist,' 110-pound Long Island grandmother says

NY Daily News

ROTHSTEIN, Gary I/ ROTHSTEIN , GARY I FOR THE NEW

Lenore Zimmerman, 85, shows injury she says came during strip search by security at JFK Airport.

An 85-year-old Long Island grandmother says she plans to sue the TSA after a humiliating strip search on Tuesday by agents at JFK Airport.

Lenore Zimmerman, who lives in Long Beach, says she was on her way to a 1 p.m. flight to Fort Lauderdale when security whisked her to a private room and took off her clothes.

“I walk with a walker — I really look like a terrorist,” she said sarcastically. “I’m tiny. I weigh 110 pounds, 107 without clothes, and I was strip-searched.”[Full Article]

Justice Department: TSA Has Authority To Literally Strip Search People

Naked body scanners court case underway, throws up disturbing precedents

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
March 11, 2011

A government attorney has told federal appeals court judges that the Department of Homeland Security has the authority to literally strip search Americans inside airports if it determines that is the correct course of action to deal with “ever-evolving threats”.

The Transportation Security Agency (TSA) “should not have to stop every five minutes for comment and rulemaking” said Justice Department lawyer Beth Brinkmann in oral testimony before the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

In a hypothetical scenario, a three-judge panel, hearing testimony both for and against the use of body scanning technology within airports, questioned whether the TSA would be required to seek public input before initiating mandatory strip search procedures.

Judge David Tatel directly asked if the TSA would need to take public “notice and comment” before implementing such rules if “a terrorist gets through and blows up the airport.”

“No,” Brinkmann answered.

The government attorney added that Congress requires the TSA to use the scanners or any other “effective technology” to protect the airlines, so no public input is necessary.

“You may well be right,” Tatel responded.

Though she conceded that there would be “an overwhelming Fourth Amendment claim” against such an eventuality, Brinkmann added “You can’t hamstring the agency.”

The scenario was discussed in order to determine whether the TSA violated federal rules by not allowing a public comment period before Homeland Security instituted a full scale roll out of radiation firing body scanners in 2009.

The court heard that under The Administrative Procedures Act, government agencies are generally required to seek public input before implementing new procedures, should those rules significantly affect public rights and liberties.

The case was brought against the DHS by The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which is also arguing that the TSA is in violation of the Privacy Act, the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Fourth Amendment.

EPIC’s opening brief in the case states that the Department of Homeland Security “has initiated the most sweeping, the most invasive, and the most unaccountable suspicionless search of American travelers in history,”

The DHS has argued that the body scanners do not store images and therefore do not violate the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act, however, evidence obtained under the Freedom of Information Act has shown this to be untrue.

In addition, the DHS argues that it’s newer scanner software protects privacy by only showing a generic outline of travelers passing through it. However, EPIC has documents that prove the software merely places a filter over the naked image and, that the machine still store unfiltered naked images.

During oral testimony yesterday, the government attorney Brinkmann also argued that because passengers are not forced to go through naked scanners, and can opt out, they do not violate the Fourth Amendment.

Judge Douglas Ginsburg, seemed to agree, noting “No one is coerced into doing the full-body scanner.”

Rotenberg countered by stating that the signage informing the public that they had the option to opt out was far from adequate and that the enhanced pat-down “is not a meaningful option,” because it also violates privacy.

One might add that passengers are indeed coerced to go through body scanners by TSA agents. As we have extensively documented, anyone who refuses is pulled out of line to cries of “WE HAVE AN OPT-OUT” and is groped in full public view. This serves as clear intimidation, and coercion to not resist the scanners.

EPIC attorney Marc Rotenberg also argued yesterday that the body scanners are a potential health threat owing to the x-ray radiation they emit. The government countered by suggesting that studies have shown this not to be the case. However, as we have one again extensively documented, the only studies that do so are the government’s own tests.

Indeed, in a letter to the White House, John Sedat, a University of California at San Francisco professor of biochemistry and biophysics and member of the National Academy of Sciences, stated:

“it appears that real independent safety data do not exist… There has not been sufficient review of the intermediate and long-term effects of radiation exposure associated with airport scanners. There is good reason to believe that these scanners will increase the risk of cancer to children and other vulnerable populations.”

The case is ongoing. EPIC will also testify in a Congressional Hearing on the TSA body scanner program, which is scheduled for next Wednesday.

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.