On The Front Lines
John Whitehead Appears on Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano (Fox Business Channel) to Discuss Health Risks Posed by TSA’s Use of Body Scanners in Airports
WASHINGTON, DC — John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, will appear on Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano on the FOX Business Channel on Thursday, Nov. 17, at 8 pm EST to discuss the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) use of potentially cancer-causing body scanners to screen airline passengers. The recent revelation that X-ray body scanners, which had been touted as safe by government officials, actually pose a serious cancer risk to the millions of passengers who pass through them each year has sparked anger and frustration among the traveling public. According to an investigative report by ProPublica/PBS NewsHour, anywhere from six to 100 U.S. airline passengers each year could get cancer from the machines. Furthermore, the European Union has taken the step of banning the use of X-ray scanners in their airports due to the health risks. Despite the implications for civil liberties and public health, the federal government continues to implement the machines in airports throughout the country. By the end of 2012, the TSA intends to have 1,275 backscatter and millimeter-wave scanners covering more than half its security lanes, with 1,800 covering nearly all the lanes by 2014.
“No American should be forced to undergo a virtual strip search or subjected to such excessive groping of the body as a matter of course in reporting to work or boarding an airplane when there is no suspicion of wrongdoing,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “To do so violates human dignity and the U.S. Constitution, and goes against every good and decent principle this country was founded upon.”
The Rutherford Institute has been involved in a number of cases related to TSA security tactics, including the use of potentially cancer-causing body scanners and invasive full-body pat-downs. Institute attorneys filed Fourth Amendment lawsuits in federal court in 2010 against Janet Napolitano, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and John Pistole, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), challenging the constitutionality of the TSA’s airport security screening policy.
Most recently, The Rutherford Institute appealed to the D.C. Court of Appeals on behalf of airline pilots and passengers who refused to submit to virtual strip searches involving advanced imaging technology (AIT), which exposes intimate details of a person’s body to government agents, or submit to highly invasive pat-down searches during which TSA agents may go so far as to reach inside a traveler’s pants. Adrienne Durso, a recent breast cancer survivor, was repeatedly and aggressively groped by TSA agents in the area where she had undergone a mastectomy, even after informing agents of her condition. Chris Daniels, a frequent business traveler, was aggressively and repeatedly touched in his genital area after initial screening showed an abnormality in his genitals that was the result of a childhood injury. When Daniels asked to leave the security area and forego flying rather than submit to the intimate groping, he was told that he was not free to leave and would have to submit to the enhanced pat-down. The pilots, Michael Roberts and Ann Poe, in two separate incidents taking place in 2010, were on their way to work when told by TSA screeners they must submit to AIT scanning or be subjected to a full pat-down frisk of their persons. Upon refusing, both pilots were prevented from passing through security, and unable to report to work on the days in question.
