Gizmodo filed a freedom of information request to force U.S. Marshals to give up images improperly retained from security checkpoint scanners. These machines were from a courthouse in Florida and show lower-res pictures than those produced by the Transportation Security Administration's newer machines. Nevertheless, this is a hundred people who didn't expect to be "naked" on the internet today.
At the heart of the controversy over "body scanners" is a promise: The images of our naked bodies will never be public. U.S. Marshals in a Florida Federal courthouse saved 35,000 images on their scanner. These are those images.A Gizmodo investigation has revealed 100 of the photographs saved by the Gen 2 millimeter wave scanner from Brijot Imaging Systems, Inc., obtained by a FOIA request after it was recently revealed that U.S. Marshals operating the machine in the Orlando, Florida courthouse had improperly-perhaps illegally-saved images of the scans of public servants and private citizens.
Beyond the usual issues of authoritarianism, tiresome security theater and illegal searches, it's also creepy how government intrusion can simply make the private public.
Rob Beschizza
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