In February the Fiqh Council of North America issued a fatwa that decided going though airport screening scanners would violate Islamic privacy rules.
“It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women,” reads the fatwa issued Tuesday. “Islam highly emphasises haya (modesty) and considers it part of faith. The Quran has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts.”
The TSA assured us of the safety and privacy of the operation:
“TSA’s use of these technologies includes strong protections in place to safeguard passenger privacy. Screening images are automatically deleted, and the officer viewing the image will never see the passenger.”
Safeguard your privacy? Have a look and make up your own mind.
But hey, said Janet Napolitano, these machines don’t have the ability to store these images.
As sure as the sun rises in the morning, the adminstration lied to us once again:
For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they’re viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.”
Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.
Within a month of the issue of the fatwa two incidents occurred:
A delegation from a “tribal region” of Pakistan (that’s pahkeestan for you Obama acolytes) refused to submit to body scanners and went home without completing their travel plans.
Then two Muslim women were refused boarding of a Pakistan-bound flight.
The usual procedure for those refusing the body scanner is to go through a metal detector and a body pat-down if one sets off the alarm.
But only for the kuffar.
In perhaps one of the greatest ironies of our time, Muslims are likely to receive exemption to these rules.
CAIR has recommended that Muslims not be subject to body scanners:
CAIR said Muslims who object to full-body scans for religious reasons should know their rights if they are required to undergo a pat-down, including asking for the procedure to be done in a private place. In addition, CAIR offered a “special recommendation” for Muslim women who wear a hijab, telling them they should tell the TSA officer that they may be searched only around the head and neck.
That’s right- Muslim women are going to demand even more special treatment:
In the “special recommendations for Muslim women who wear hijab,” it states: “Before you are patted down, you should remind the TSA officer that they are only supposed to pat down the area in question, in this scenario, your head and neck. They SHOULD NOT subject you to a full-body or partial-body pat-down.”
It also states: “Instead of the pat-down, you can always request to pat down your own scarf, including head and neck area, and have the officers perform a chemical swipe of your hands.”
As for the rest of us, Janet Napolitano has let it be known that we can expect our liberties to be infringed in the name of her stature.
As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans’ civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
The full body scanners are a response to the use of PETN, which magnetometers cannot detect. PETN was the explosive of choice for Richard Reid and Umar Abdulmutallab. The problem is that even these scanners won’t find PETN if it is inserted into the rectum of an adult or a child.
Yes, it’s already been done.
Or placed on the bodies of Muslim women.
“Puffer” machines are probably the most effective tool for searching for explosives but they are being phased out because they require frequent maintenance. Thus Big Sis Napolitano has decided that the cost for maintenance outweighs the need for effectiveness.
In all of this something continues to be ignored, and it is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. There is no question that terrorist techniques can be expected to change over time. But there still is one absolute. The has been no change in who is trying to perpetrate these attempts at catastrophe. And we are likely to grant them exemption from these rules.
Aside from the loss of privacy, there are genuine concerns over the exposure to radiation, especially among aircraft cabin crew.
And there is more. A young Asian man was able to travel in the guise of an old man by wearing a well constructed silicone mask. So the terrible scenario becomes painfully clear. Imagine the next Mohammed Atta wearing a silicone mask making him appear to be a Muslim woman, wearing a hijab, loaded with PETN on his body and immune to a body scan or a full body pat-down.
About those full body patdowns.
I am a frequent traveler and I have noticed that screenings have become more and more invasive. And they have become astonishingly stupid. The agents always say “I have to tell you that if the wand alarm goes off I have to pat the area down.” I have an artificial left knee, it being replaced three years ago. Sure enough, my knee set off the metal detector and the guy wanded me. He waved the wand over the front of my knee and it beeped. And he patted my knee down. Then he wanded the back of ny knee and it beeped and he patted my knee down. Then he wanded both the inside and outside of my knee and it beeped over both areas and he patted down my knee on both sides.
I was wearing shorts. I have a five inch scar over the front of my knee and he patted it down repeatedly.
This is your tax money at work. I feel really safe with this sort of intelligence on my side. Again, no matter what the technique, it is going to be a Muslim who commits the act. Al Qaida is not about to take a Catholic, Baptist or a Jew into its confidence and train him or her how to be a suicide bomber. Only one “religion” promises afterlife rewards for blowing yourself up. This is an undisputable fact. And it’s the one we keep ignoring because we’re so abysmally stupid as we kowtow to one “religion” so as not to offend them.
So what happens after the next bomb goes off in someone’s rectum? Cavity searches for everyone who wants to fly because a Muslim wants to blow us up?
AYFKM?
Somewhere in a cave in Waziristan, Osama Bin Laden is laughing his ass off. He’s already won.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.