CNN contributor who wanted to urinate on dead Afghans complains about TSA pat down

Get short URL email story to a friendprint version Published: 15 October, 2012, 23:25 TAGS: Sex, USA, Security, TSA Screenshot from youtube.com @Dana Loesch Conservative radio host and CNN contributor Dana Loesch says she was molested by TSA agents over the weekend when a routine security pat-down ended with federal agents repeatedly touching her vagina all the while refusing her a public screening. Loesch, 34, says the incident occurred on Sunday at the Phoenix International Airport in Arizona as she prepared to board for a flight. After passing through a primary screening without incident, Loesch says she was told she tested positive for explosive residue and required a secondary pat-down behind closed doors. “TSA said I was covered in explosives, took me to a private room and touched my vagina. So how was your day?” the commentator writes from her @DLoesch Twitter account. Loesch’s husband managed to catch some of his wife’s encounter with Transportation Security Administration agents on camera in a clip that has quickly accumulated thousands of hits on YouTube. On the page where she’s uploaded the footage, Loesch goes further into detail about the day’s event and the “enhanced screening” that she describes as “pressing down repeatedly upon the front of my vaginal area.” “It began after I was ‘randomly selected’ for an additional screening which consisted of swabbing my hands with paper strips. The strips were then taken to a machine for analysis and an alarm sounded. TSA agents determined that I had a suspicious, possibly explosive, residue on my hands and required another, ‘enhanced screening,’” she writes. “They performed the regular pat-down and then the agent informed me that she would be using the front of her hands to "sweep" my groin. She pressed and swept across my crotch three times horizontally and three times vertically. In any other circumstance this would be sexual assault.” Loesch insists that she asked twice for a public screening but was denied both times, and on Twitter she writes she recited the agency’s official rules “as per their website” yet was still refused. Even still, Loesch says she doesn’t have a bone to pick per se with the TSA agents that subjected her to what she equates to sexual molestation. “The agents themselves were friendly and smiled, yet I was still denied a public screening and no witness of my own present for the screening itself (a second agent was in the room at the time). I had no reason to be angry with the agents themselves, yet I was angry, and still am, at the regulations which require them to routinely violate men, women, and children in the name of a false sense of security,” she writes. Even if there are no hard feelings with the agents involved, Loesch writes on Twitter that she intends on filing an official complaint with the TSA and asks others subjected to similar accounts to do the same. “It only continues because we allow it,” she writes. Back on YouTube, though, Loesch breaks-down with a health sampling of snark the TSA’s sometimes overzealous actions on account of counter-terrorism. “After concluding that I wasn’t a terrorist hiding weapons in my vagina, the TSA agents allowed me to go,” she writes. Just months earlier, however, Loesch had a much more open mind about what’s allowed for the sake of security. When video footage was leaked in January of US troops urinating on the corpses of dead Afghan fighters, Loesch chimed-in on her radio show by saluting the soldiers, saying, “I’d drop trou and do it too” and suggesting the guilty persons were worth of receiving “a million ‘cool points.’” “Come on people, this is a war,” she said at the time. And rightfully so: it’s the very same War on Terror that spawned the Department of Homeland Security and, consequentially, the TSA. In the name of war, however, lines must be drawn, and, apparently, airport security screenings are on the side that warrants speaking up about. But the desecration of slain humans? Cool points galore. =============== Scan scam? Full-body scan-maker denies faking test amid TSA probe Get short URL Link copied to clipboardemail story to a friend print version Published: 17 November, 2012, 11:40 TAGS: Conflict, Human rights, Terrorism, USA, Security, Transport, TSA A security officer examines a computer screen showing a scan from a RapiScan full-body scanner, being trialled by Manchester Airport, during a photocall at the airport, in Manchester(Reuters / Phil Noble) A US legislator says Rapiscan, the maker of controversial body-scanners used at American airports, may have falsified its software test results. The company denies the allegations, saying it’s cooperating with the TSA probe into the matter. The test made by a third party was to evaluate the producer’s attempt to address privacy issues with the machines. The company “may have attempted to defraud the government by knowingly manipulating an operational test,” Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Transportation Security Subcommittee, said in a letter to Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole on November 13, according to a Bloomberg report. Rogers said his committee received a tip about the faked tests. The company denied the allegations on Thursday, saying that in couldn’t have manipulated the testing because it was controlled by the government. “At no time did Rapiscan Systems falsify test data or engage in any fraudulent conduct,” said Ajay Mehra, president of Rapiscan Systems, in a statement. At a Thursday hearing before the committee Rogers was questioning John Sanders, assistant administrator for TSA’s Office of Security Capabilities. Sanders said the agency has no evidence that tests were manipulated. “At this point we don’t know what has occurred,” Sanders said. “We are in contact with the vendor. We are working with them to get to the bottom of it.” Rapiscan machines use backscatter radiation to detect objects concealed beneath clothes. The company is one of the two vendors supplying full-body scanners under a contract with the TSA. The other, L-3 Communications, uses a different type of technology for the same purpose. US authorities accelerated introduction of full-body scanners in 2010 following an alleged attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight. This was met with a publicity backlash, as privacy advocates and passengers protested against the revealing images produced by the scanners. Activists said being subjected to the machines equated to a strip search. In a bid to quell the outcry, the TSA asked the producers to adjust the scanners so that a generic outline of the body was displayed in place of the actual image of the person being searched. L-3 Communications managed to do this while Rapiscan failed, Bloomberg says. Instead the TSA places operators of the backscatter scanner in a separate room, where the feedback cannot be seen by the public. If an operator notices anything suspicious, he or she communicates with officers at the checkpoint via radio and asks for further screening. Recently the agency said it was moving backscatter machines from big airports to smaller ones to address the extra time they take for screening. But eventually it moved 91 units to a warehouse instead of redeploying them. As a result, Sanders told the committee, the same number of lines can now process an additional 180,000 more passengers per day. They will stay there until the privacy software issue is resolved, he said. At present the TSA has 174 backscatter machines, according to David Castelveter, a TSA spokesman. Rapiscan has a contract to produce 500 for the agency at a cost of about $180,000 each. The TSA believes backscatter technology is still effective in screening for suspicious objects. =============== Scan scam? Full-body scan-maker denies faking test amid TSA probe Get short URL Link copied to clipboardemail story to a friend print version Published: 17 November, 2012, 11:40 TAGS: Conflict, Human rights, Terrorism, USA, Security, Transport, TSA A security officer examines a computer screen showing a scan from a RapiScan full-body scanner, being trialled by Manchester Airport, during a photocall at the airport, in Manchester(Reuters / Phil Noble) A US legislator says Rapiscan, the maker of controversial body-scanners used at American airports, may have falsified its software test results. The company denies the allegations, saying it’s cooperating with the TSA probe into the matter. The test made by a third party was to evaluate the producer’s attempt to address privacy issues with the machines. The company “may have attempted to defraud the government by knowingly manipulating an operational test,” Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Transportation Security Subcommittee, said in a letter to Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole on November 13, according to a Bloomberg report. Rogers said his committee received a tip about the faked tests. The company denied the allegations on Thursday, saying that in couldn’t have manipulated the testing because it was controlled by the government. “At no time did Rapiscan Systems falsify test data or engage in any fraudulent conduct,” said Ajay Mehra, president of Rapiscan Systems, in a statement. At a Thursday hearing before the committee Rogers was questioning John Sanders, assistant administrator for TSA’s Office of Security Capabilities. Sanders said the agency has no evidence that tests were manipulated. “At this point we don’t know what has occurred,” Sanders said. “We are in contact with the vendor. We are working with them to get to the bottom of it.” Rapiscan machines use backscatter radiation to detect objects concealed beneath clothes. The company is one of the two vendors supplying full-body scanners under a contract with the TSA. The other, L-3 Communications, uses a different type of technology for the same purpose. US authorities accelerated introduction of full-body scanners in 2010 following an alleged attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight. This was met with a publicity backlash, as privacy advocates and passengers protested against the revealing images produced by the scanners. Activists said being subjected to the machines equated to a strip search. In a bid to quell the outcry, the TSA asked the producers to adjust the scanners so that a generic outline of the body was displayed in place of the actual image of the person being searched. L-3 Communications managed to do this while Rapiscan failed, Bloomberg says. Instead the TSA places operators of the backscatter scanner in a separate room, where the feedback cannot be seen by the public. If an operator notices anything suspicious, he or she communicates with officers at the checkpoint via radio and asks for further screening. Recently the agency said it was moving backscatter machines from big airports to smaller ones to address the extra time they take for screening. But eventually it moved 91 units to a warehouse instead of redeploying them. As a result, Sanders told the committee, the same number of lines can now process an additional 180,000 more passengers per day. They will stay there until the privacy software issue is resolved, he said. At present the TSA has 174 backscatter machines, according to David Castelveter, a TSA spokesman. Rapiscan has a contract to produce 500 for the agency at a cost of about $180,000 each. The TSA believes backscatter technology is still effective in screening for suspicious objects. ================

Cervical cancer vaccines may cut need for screening

Cervical cancer vaccines may cut need for screening

09 Nov 2011 00:01
Source: Reuters // Reuters

By Kate Kelland

LONDON, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Using GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix vaccine to protect girls against the HPV virus that causes cervical cancer is so effective that health authorities could reduce the need for later cervical screening, scientists said on Wednesday.

Researchers from Finland and the United States who published two studies in The Lancet Oncology journal found Cervarix "offers excellent protection" against two key strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), particularly when given to young adolescent girls before they become sexually active.

The studies also found the vaccine partially protects against several other cancer-causing HPV types that it is not specifically designed to target, giving protection against a group of strains that together cause about 85 percent of cervical cancer worldwide.

"Provided that organised vaccination programmes achieve high coverage in early adolescents before sexual debut, HPV vaccination has the potential to substantially reduce the incidence of cervical cancer, probably allowing the modification of screening programmes," said Matti Lehtinen from the University of Tampere in Finland, who worked on the studies.

He said that as a result of the findings health experts in Finland, one of the first countries to introduce nationwide HPV vaccination campaigns in 2007, should consider cutting cervical screening programmes down to just a once-in-a-lifetime test at around the age of 25 to 30 to check the vaccine has been fully effective.

"You should not have two measures on top of each other if one is already efficient enough," he said in a telephone interview. "This could certainly mean lots of savings in terms of costs of screening."

GSK's two-strain vaccine targets HPV types 16 and 18 that are responsible for about 70 percent of cervical cancers. Rival drugmaker Merck also makes an HPV vaccine called Gardasil which protects against 16, 18 and two other strains of the virus.

Cancer of the cervix is the second most common cancer in women worldwide, with about 500,000 new cases and 250,000 deaths each year, according to the World Health Organisation.

Virtually all cases are linked to genital infection with HPV, the most common viral infection of the reproductive tract.

Several developed nations have in recent years introduced nationwide HPV vaccination programmes for girls and young women.

In the United States, for example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends girls and women aged between 11 and 26 should get either Cervarix or Gardasil.

Lehtinen said these vaccinations could eventually cut the need for nationwide cervical smear screens that are usually done every few years in women from around the age of 25 onwards.

The two Lancet Oncology studies both looked at Cervarix.

The first, which included almost 20,000 healthy women aged between 15 and 25 from 14 countries across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America, found the shot gave high rates of protection against high-grade cervical precancers, early development of a condition called adenocarcinoma, and 12 other cancer-causing HPV types.

In a second study the vaccine showed increased cross-protection against other cancer-causing HPV types 31, 33, 45, and 51 in different groups of women.

"Our results show that cross-protective efficacy might provide substantial additional protection against cervical cancer," said Cosette Wheeler from the University of New Mexico in the United States, who co-led the second study.

In a commentary about the findings published in the same journal, Mark Schiffman and Sholom Wacholder from the U.S. National Cancer Institute said that increasing coverage, particularly of as yet sexually-naive young girls, "is now the most important public-health issue in HPV vaccination efforts".

(Editing by Greg Mahlich)