TSA denies it turned off body-scanners on “Opt-Out” Day — but where’s the proof?

Two weeks after declaring National Opt-Out Day a failure and renaming it TSA Appreciation Day, the agency charged with protecting our transportation systems has formally denied it turned off its full-body scanners in order to squelch the pre-Thanksgiving protests.

“As soon as the media started reporting that Opt-Out Day was a bust, reports started coming in from blogs stating that TSA had intentionally shut down the Advanced Imaging Technology machines,” the agency says in a blog post. “This claim is utterly and completely false as AIT operations were normal throughout the holiday travel period.”

There’s just one little problem. In denying that it cheated in order to disrupt Opt-Out Day, TSA has offered no credible evidence — other than its own word — that the scanners were working.

Rather than presenting us with hard evidence that the machines were turned on and being used (memos, directives, even testimony from screeners on the ground) TSA resorts to spin and conjecture.

“We tried to think of some reasons that people might have come to this conclusion,” the TSA blog muses.

It goes on to say that only 430 machines are deployed at 70 airports, suggesting that might be why no one saw full-body scanners.

But no one complained about the lack of body scanners, so it’s not entirely clear why TSA is talking about the absence of scanners.

Then TSA says even at airports with the so-called AIT machines, they are not yet deployed at all checkpoint lanes. Again, this has nothing to do with the reports that the machines were not being used.

“At times,” it admits, “machines could be shut down for routine maintenance, or maintenance issues.”

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.

So TSA isn’t denying that some of its machines might have been turned off. It isn’t even saying the reports of machines being powered down are false.

It adds,

If the technology just arrived at the airport, it’s possible passengers would see a unit in the checkpoint but not in use. Several things have to happen before we can start using them, they have to be installed, tested and we have to fully train officers on how to use the technology.

Again, none of this contradicts the multiple eyewitness reports that the body scanners were turned off. It just puts a TSA spin on them.

TSA doesn’t really dispute anything. Instead, it offers a second and true set of facts that it believes contradict the reports. But they don’t.

In order for its claims that the scanners were used on Opt-Out Day as they were any day to be believable, it would need to show us the memo that went out to every airport, instructing TSA officers to keep the machines on during Opt-Out Day. I would even settle for a redacted version.

How about a firsthand report from a TSO working that day, saying, yes, we used the scanners like we do any day and no we didn’t cut corners? I’d even settle for an anonymous comments from a TSO on this blog.

I don’t believe the TSA. I think it instructed its screeners to take certain liberties on Opt-Out Day.

The non-denial it issued today doesn’t change my mind. Nor should it change yours.

  • Me

    Well at ORD on the day before Thanksgiving I saw two people in body scanners. This claim is total BS, report on something useful.

  • MikeS

    Two things:

    1.Asking anyone, including the TSA, to prove they *didn’t* do something is kind of silly.

    2.I heard the AITs cost $150,000. I’m sure you don’t just order one and it shows up the next day. It’s pretty stupid to have this super-duper anti-terrorist thing that will save us all (heavy sarcasm if you didn’t notice) delivered, and then, after it is delivered, you think, “Hey, maybe we should train someone to use this thing!” You should have them trained before it is delivered.

  • cjr

    If only TSA spent as much time actually thinking about real security as they do thinking up propaganda.

    And TSA certainly enjoys taking liberties, mostly with our civil rights.

  • http://iwilloptout.org jon

    FlyersRights.org’s hotline calls and emails dropped from 1000/day up through the 23rd to virtually nothing over the Thanksgiving weekend. Eyewitnesses told of seeing scanners turned off and roped off at dozens of airports. I saw a report in the NY Times from some guy in Saint Louis who *wanted* the scanner and the TSA folks told him sorry, no.

    And yet everybody believes the TSA, with no evidence.

  • Me

    Let’s try this again:
    I was at ORD the day before Thanksgiving. For the two minutes I was in the security area I saw two people get body scanned. Your claim is obviously wrong.

  • Me

    @Mike S: it is like trying to use someone how to use a gun… without a gun. Some training is possible, but you can’t be totally trained until you have the device.
    @crj: lol
    @jon: Well, I saw all the evidence I needed – which was people getting body scanned. Unfortunately I was only through two security checkpoints in the US Thanksgiving week, the Sunday before, and the Wednesday before. Body scanners in use at both.

  • Sommer Gentry

    The TSA is a lie wrapped in a fib tied up in a prevaricating bow of mendacity. What’s really lovely is to take a detailed look at the TSA Blog. It seems to consist of: Blogger Bob spinning baldfaced lies, then dozens or even hundreds of skeptical comments and questions which “Bob” pretends he hasn’t heard. No direct question is ever answered. Here’s my favorite of those, the thread in which Blogger Bob lies about the scanner’s capability to store images and two hundred people line up to call him out on it:
    http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/11/tsa-has-not-will-not-and-our-advanced.html

    One respondent says: You know what, Bob? We don’t believe you. Your boss is either telling you lies, or you are just making them up for him out of blind obedience. Computers store images, that’s what they do. If it’s in RAM for a millisecond, it can be stored. Go ask the NSA how the arrange that files do not leave a machine: it involves technology your vendors is not selling you, and we know it. So we know you are lying, so we don’t believe you.

    The odious John Pistole, the man who orchestrated this mass molestation of hundreds of thousands of people, is such a practiced omitter of truths that he refused to tell Congress what an enhanced patdown is! How in hell can he claim that people consent to a search when they get in line at sexcurity (freudian slip) when this liar won’t even tell us what we are consenting to? http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dr-gridlock/2010/11/pistole_gets_the_pat-down.html

  • frostysnowman

    I don’t think they turned of ALL scanners (to Me’s point), but I do believe they turned of many of them.

  • cjr

    “Well, I saw all the evidence I needed”

    Well, you’ll excuse me if I take the evidence provided by many other fliers that weekend who reported on Twitter and elsewhere that the porno-scanners machines were shut down and nobody was being patted down. Of the media who finally got around to reporting the same after they were done calling National Opt-Out Day a failure.

    You can ‘lol’ all you want, but TSA cares far more about their image than your safety. As I said at the time, TSA decided that diffusing the situation in the name of PR and propaganda was more important than their security theater.

  • Lisa S

    I just came back from London, England (both Heathrow and Gatwick) and Luxor, Cairo, and Sharm El Sheik, Egypt. Security is as good or better at these airports given the decades during which both countries have had to deal with terrorism. And yet, neither country is spending $7 billion ($150K per machine) on these scanners. TSA is smoke and mirrors–and a way for residents in the US to lose more and more of their civil rights, while useless spending billions of dollars that could be used more effectively elsewhere.

  • Jacqui

    @ Lisa, what do they do in those airports? I always wondered that – if the whole process is similar, like ticketing, check-ins, and security. I haven’t really traveled outside of the US, but have always wanted to.

  • Allison

    I flew out of Boston on the Monday before Thanksgiving and had to walk around a body scanner, and out of Philly on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, where none of the lanes with a scanner were in use. It certainly seemed like they were avoiding using them!

  • Sarah Di

    Surely TSA has some sort of documentation showing percentage of passengers who used the body scanners on any given day. I would venture to guess that, even if they weren’t turned off or not used entirely, that percentage was down for Thanksgiving weekend. I also wouldn’t be surprised if number of passengers was down.

    No one would see that documentation of course because TSA wants it to appear that Opt Out day was a failure when it’s more than likely the fact that it wasn’t an option for most.

  • http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2010/11/five-words.html Lisa Simeone

    It’s amazing the cr*p the TSA keeps throwing out there, hoping some of it will stick. It’s become a cliche to say that it’s Orwellian, but it’s still true. It IS Orwellian. The TSA, its blog, its PR, the servility of the press, the acquiescence of so many citizens, it’s all Orwellian. Where will it end?

  • Joe Farrell

    I think Chris has been spending too much time dealing with car rental companies – he thinks someone has to prove a negative – i.e., that they didn’t do something – its kind of hard to prove – and Chris, being a journalist – COULD have driven to MCO on Nov 17 and stood there and tracked the number of travelers who went through the scanners and the number of working scanner – and then went back on Nov 24 [opt out day] and gotten some hard data – me thinks you protesteth too much here.

    I believe in DATA – not conjecture – not TSA’s and not Chris Elliott’s either- show me some hard data and I’ll believe either then.

  • Mary

    What I’d like to see is tracking data absolutely. I’d like to have independent agencies verify these things work— why do you think the military and FBI use dogs? Cos their cheap? No cos they work… When their life depends on it, it’s dogs. But since TSA themselves ain’t gonna be on any plane… They can score some juicy government contract and sell crap. They don’t need to be effective.

  • http://www.thetravelinggiraffe.com Crissy

    I’m not sure going by the accounts of people going through security is the best evidence that the TSA did or didn’t shut off body scanners.

    How do people know they were off? A lot of people traveling that day don’t travel all that much, most have probably never seen one and so would have no idea if it was on or off.

    Maybe they’re seeing them not being used – they could be in the process of set up, broken, etc. If they weren’t on line for long maybe no one was selected to go through or you missed the one person who was going through.

    Do I think TSA may have unofficially adjusted the use of them, I wouldn’t be surprised. But I highly doubt the TSA would have had them turned off, and I can’t imagine that they would even be stupid enough to make a memo saying to shut them off for the day. Hence, no paper trail. Or were you looking for a memo saying, “do not turn off your scanners for opt out day.”

  • Doug

    The day before Thanksgiving I flew BOS-ATL-SAT, all locations had scanners and all locations had them roped off. On Thanksgiving day I flew SAT-ATL-PNS, same thing in SAT and ATL again. The day after I flew SAT-ATL-RDU, no scanners in use. The next day (the Saturday after Thanksgiving) I flew RDU-BOS and scanners were in use as normal again.

    The scanners probably just needed a rest the times I saw them roped off and powered down.

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