Part two of a report by Crikey political correspondent Bernard Keane on the awarding of an airport body scanner contract by the Australian Government without conducting a risk analysis

So who is the real beneficiary of the government’s decision to impose body-scanning technology on international passengers?

Step forward L-3 Communications, a key member of the US defence establishment and one with links to some of the worst scandals of the past decade.

The company will reap $28 million dollars from the government’s obsession with security theatre that has no demonstrated security benefits, through its provision of body scanners.

L-3 began as an orphan company after a Lockheed merger saw several business units sold off to two former Loral executives funded by Lehman Brothers, which still has a big stake in the company and a board seat. Since then, L-3 has grown into one of the top 10 US defence contractors. The company earned nearly a billion dollars in profit in 2010, from revenues of more than $15 billion.

Along the way, it has been involved in some of the US’ biggest defence and procurement scandals. In the late 1990s, the company’s lobbyist Linda Daschle helped the company get a Federal Aviation Authority contract to supply airport baggage scanners courtesy of legislation passed by her husband, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. The scanners were later revealed to be faulty, but the FAA was obliged by Daschle’s legislation to continue to purchase them.

The company later acquired defence contractor Titan, which has been implicated in several procurement scandals. Titan provided “interpreters” at the US Army’s Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and the company was sued by a victims of US torture and abuse there, until the US Supreme Court finally dismissed the case in 2011. In 2010, a division of the company was suspended from providing any services to the US government after it was found using US government networks to spy on competitors. There have also been several lesser procurement scandals typical of the US defence industry.

But even as the US looks to cut back defence spending, with flow-on effects for big suppliers such as L-3, the fertile field of security theatre has opened up as a revenue source — there’s little or no political will to cut war-on-terror funding. By 2010, the company had provided nearly $US40 million worth of body scanners following the “underwear bomber”, having massively ramped up its lobbying effort. Not unhelpful is the fact that several US congressional representatives have big L-3 shareholdings, including former 2004 Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry.

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In 2010 the FBI invaded the homes of peace activists in several states and seized personal possessions in what the FBI--the lead orchestrator of fake “terrorist plots”--called an investigation of “activities concerning the material support of terrorism.”

Subpoenas were issued to compel antiwar protestors to testify before grand juries as prosecutors set about building their case that opposing Washington’s wars of aggression constitutes giving aid and comfort to terrorists.  The purpose of the raids and grand jury subpoenas was to chill the anti-war movement into inaction.

Last week in one fell swoop the last two remaining critics of Washington/Tel Aviv imperialism were removed from the mainstream media. Judge Napolitano’s popular program, Freedom Watch, was cancelled by Fox TV, and Pat Buchanan was fired by MSNBC.  Both pundits had wide followings and were appreciated for speaking frankly. 

Many suspect that the Israel Lobby used its clout with TV advertisers to silence critics of the Israeli government’s efforts to lead Washington to war with Iran.  Regardless, the point before us is that the voice of the mainstream media is now uniform. Americans hear one voice, one message, and the message is propaganda.  Dissent is tolerated only on such issues as to whether employer-paid health benefits should pay for contraceptive devices. Constitutional rights have been replaced with rights to free condoms.

The western media demonizes those at whom Washington points a finger. The lies pour forth to justify Washington’s naked aggression:  the Taliban are conflated with al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, Gaddafi is a terrorist and, even worse, fortified his troops with Viagra in order to commit mass rape against Libyan women.

President Obama and members of Congress along with Tel Aviv continue to assert that Iran is making a nuclear weapon despite public contradiction by the US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and the CIA’s National Intelligence Estimate.  According to news reports, Pentagon chief Leon Panetta told members of the House of Representatives on February 16 that “Tehran has not made a decision to proceed with developing a nuclear weapon.” http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_19978801?source=rss   However, in Washington facts don’t count.  Only the material interests of powerful interest groups matter.

At the moment the American Ministry of Truth is splitting its time between lying about Iran and lying about Syria. Recently, there were some explosions in far away Thailand, and the explosions were blamed on Iran.  Last October the FBI announced that the bureau had uncovered an Iranian plot to pay a used car salesman to hire a Mexican drug gang to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the US. The White House idiot professed to believe the unbelievable plot and declared that he had “strong evidence,” but no evidence was ever released. The purpose for announcing the non-existent plot was to justify Obama’s sanctions, which amount to an embargo--an act of war--against Iran for developing nuclear energy. 

As a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty, Iran has the right to develop nuclear energy. IAEA inspectors are permanently in Iran and report no diversion of nuclear material to a weapons program.

In other words, according to the reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the US National Intelligence Estimate, and the current Secretary of Defense, there is no evidence that Iran has nukes or is making nukes.  Yet, Obama has placed illegal sanctions on Iran and continues to threaten Iran with military attack on the basis of an accusation that is contradicted by all known evidence.

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Personal Statement from Kurt Haskell, Delta 253 Passenger Kurt Haskell.

I wish to thank the Court for allowing me these 5 minutes to make my statement. My references to the government in this statement refer to the Federal Government excluding this Court and the prosecution. On Christmas Day 2009, my wife and I were returning from an African safari and had a connecting flight through Amsterdam. As we waited for our flight, we sat on the floor next to the boarding gate. What I witnessed while sitting there and subsequent events have changed my life forever. While I sat there, I witnessed Umar dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, being escorted around security by a man in a tan suit who spoke perfect American English and who aided Umar in...

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Video here: http://www.corbettreport.com/tsa-tyrants-sucker-america/

by James Corbett
BoilingFrogsPost.com
February 21, 2012

Welcome. This is James Corbett of The Corbett Report with your Eyeopener report for BoilingFrogsPost.com.

Of all of the myriad agencies, bureaucracies, laws and legislation that have sprung up to oppress the American citizenry in this age of the unending war against an abstract noun, perhaps none have garnered as much ire and opprobrium as the innocuously named Transportation Security Administration.

Created in the wake of 9/11 under the pretext of “fixing” the system that had “somehow” allowed 19 men with box cutters to supposedly commit the most egregious violation of American airspace in history (aided in no small part by the...

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A new model of the way the THz waves interact with DNA explains how the damage is done and why evidence has been so hard to gather

Great things are expected of terahertz waves, the radiation that fills the slot in the electromagnetic spectrum between microwaves and the infrared. Terahertz waves pass through non-conducting materials such as clothes , paper, wood and brick and so cameras sensitive to them can peer inside envelopes, into living rooms and "frisk" people at distance.

The way terahertz waves are absorbed and emitted can also be used to determine the chemical composition of a material. And even though they don't travel far inside the body, there is great hope that the waves can be used to spot tumours near the surface of the skin.

With all that...

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On tonight's show I am joined by Josh Jackson, to discuss the escalating middle east crisis in the wake of news that the Iranian oil bourse will start trading oil in currencies other than the dollar from March 20.

This development is discussed in the context of the crony capitalist system, which uses currency manipulation as the base tool for global domination.

We reflect on the possibility that the Iranian "nuclear threat" was concocted in order to provide a justifiable cover for obliterating Iran, whose real threat to the west is in its economic power, derived from the fact that Iran holds the third largest oil reserves in the world.

The ruthlessness of the plan of the globalist powers to destroy Iran is highlighted in the attempt to overthrow the Syrian...

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No cost-benefit analysis was conducted before the government’s decision to impose body scanning on international passengers departing the country, the government has revealed.

On Sunday Transport Minister Anthony Albanese announced that a $28 million program to install scanners at international airports would proceed after “a successful trial” at Sydney and Melbourne airports. Passengers selected for scanning who refused would not be permitted to fly, the same policy as applies in Britain (in the US, passengers who refuse have the option of a highly invasive pat-down search).

However, when asked what evaluation of the trial had taken place or whether a cost-benefit analysis was conducted by the Office of Transport Security within the Department of Infrastructure, a spokeswoman for the minister advised that “the decision was made based on accuracy and minimising inconvenience to the travelling public”.

The decision to roll out scanners at the nations airports had its origins in the knee-jerk response to the “underwear bomber” Umar Abdulmutallab during Christmas 2009, when his plan to blow up an airliner using a small quantity of liquid high-explosive failed. A later experiment suggested the aircraft would not have crashed even if the terrorist had succeeded in detonating the explosive he had secreted in his underwear.

However, governments across the world immediately rushed to roll out airport scanning technologies claimed to detect liquids, including the Rudd government, which announced it was introducing scanners and allocated money in the 2010 budget.

X-ray-based scanners are now banned in Europe after serious health risks were identified. The scanners used in Australia are millimetre wave scanners that have no known safety issues. The scanners can also be set to not display anatomical features of the scanned individual and not record scans. There have been several instances overseas of scanner operators keeping images of, ogling or commenting on the anatomy of passengers and co-workers.

But the scanners cannot detect liquids secreted within body cavities, are prone to generating false positives, particularly from perspiration, and suffer the same problems of operator error as other forms of scanning equipment: a US Transportation Security Agency official carrying a firearm was able to pass through a scanner at a US airport. They are also supposed to be coupled with a form of profiling to ensure suspicious passengers are more likely to be scanned than the rest of us; anyone who has travelled within the US will know that in fact they’re used by officials if they don’t like your attitude or simply take a dislike to you.

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Editor’s note: This is Part 1 of an extensive report by researcher Adam Taylor that exposes the fallacies and flaws in the arguments made by Popular Mechanics in the latest edition of Debunking 9/11 Myths. We encourage you to submit your own reviews of the book at Amazon.com and other places where it is sold.

Introduction

The revised version of Popular Mechanics’ book Debunking 9/11 Myths continues to defend myths that are scientifically impossible

A decade has passed since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and many people feel that we have still not had a real investigation into what really happened that day. Many believe that the investigations into the destruction of the three WTC skyscrapers by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) were either fraudulent or incomplete, and have joined the 1600+ architects and engineers at AE911Truth in calling for a real, independent investigation into the attacks. However, Popular Mechanics (PM) has been the primary cheerleader in the mainstream media in defense of the NIST reports ever since its book, Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand Up To the Facts, was published in 2006.

For the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, PM put out a second version of its book, which was updated in an attempt to dismiss new findings that corroborate the controlled demolition hypothesis. The main sections of the book that were revised are on the collapse of the Twin Towers and World Trade Center 7. This report demonstrates that PM has still not adequately explained the numerous anomalies surrounding the collapse of these three buildings that prove they were destroyed with explosives.

(Quotes from Popular Mechanics’ book are shown in red and with page numbers.)

World Trade Center Towers 1 & 2
The introduction to PM’s chapter on the collapse of the Twin Towers briefly discusses the main theory put forward by members of the 9/11 Truth movement regarding the Towers’ destruction: “The buildings were brought down intentionally—not by hijacked airplanes, but by government-planted bombs or a controlled demolition” (pg. 28). PM then goes on to give a few examples of people promoting this theory. One of the people they cite is a Danish writer named Henrik Melvang, who, according to PM, “markets his book and video claiming the Apollo moon landings were a hoax” (pg. 28). This is obviously an attempt on PM’s part to portray those who question the collapse of the Towers as conspiracy theorists who have irrational beliefs. PM also cites Morgan Reynolds, the former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor during President George Bush’s first term, as someone who believes that the Towers were destroyed through controlled demolition.

We must ask ourselves why PM would choose to cite these people as examples of those who question the collapse of the Towers. Why didn’t they cite anyone with experience in the fields of engineering and building construction? According to PM, it’s because the 9/11 Truth movement doesn’t have any technical credentials. In their 2011 book, they state that:

Though Reynolds and a handful of other skeptics cite academic credentials to lend credence to their views, not one of the leading conspiracy theorists has a background in engineering, construction, or related fields. (pg. 28-29)

This statement is by far one of the most remarkable passages in PM’s book. One need only look at what most consider the lead organization in the 9/11truth community, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, to see that there are currently over 1600 professional architects and engineers with backgrounds in engineering, architecture and building construction who question the destruction of the three WTC high-rise buildings. How can PM possibly have omitted over a thousand experts who agree that the Twin Towers and WTC7 were brought down with explosives? In PM’s entire 216 page book, there is not a single mention made of AE911Truth or its founder, architect Richard Gage, AIA.

Popular Mechanics did a poor job of updating their book, leaving in claims from their 2006 version (excerpt shown above) that no leaders of the 9/11 Truth movement have backgrounds in engineering. They completely ignore the hundreds of engineers at AE911Truth who have examined the WTC evidence and are demanding a real investigation

When one looks back at their 2006 book, we can see that this exact same statement appears on the exact same pages.

This fact shows how PM has decided to structure their new book: i.e., update it only where it benefits them. As we will see, this tactic is used more than once in PM’s grossly flawed book.

The debate over the airplane crash at the Empire State Building is irrelevant because the design of the Twin Towers was far more robust than that of older high-rises

1.1 The Empire State Building Accident
PM discusses the incident in 1945 where a B-25 bomber lost in the fog crashed into the side of the Empire state building. They claim that “some conspiracy theorists point to [this incident] as proof that commercial planes hitting the World Trade Center could not bring down the towers” (pg. 29). To counter this assertion, PM discusses the construction of the Towers compared to the construction of the Empire State Building and how the Towers’ structures “were in some ways more fragile” (pg. 30). They also quote structural engineer Jon Magnusson as saying that “These structures look massive, but they’re mostly air. They are air, punctuated with thin layers of concrete and steel” (pg. 30). While it is true that the Towers were mostly empty space by volume, this is true of any large skyscraper. The idea that the Towers were in some way less structurally sound than the Empire State Building is contradicted by a variety of technical sources, including this telegram written by Richard Roth, partner at Emery Roth & Sons, which was the architectural firm that designed the Twin Towers:

THE STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS CARRIED OUT BY THE FIRM OF WORTHINGTON, SKILLING, HELLE & JACKSON IS THE MOST COMPLETE AND DETAILED OF ANY EVER MADE FOR ANY BUILDING STRUCTURE. THE PRELIMINARY CALCULATIONS ALONE COVER 1,200 PAGES AND INVOLVE OVER 100 DETAILED DRAWINGS.
...
4. BECAUSE OF ITS CONFIGURATION, WHICH IS ESSENTIALLY THAT OF A STEEL BEAM 209' DEEP, THE TOWERS ARE ACTUALLY FAR LESS DARING STRUCTURALLY THAN A CONVENTIONAL BUILDING SUCH AS THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING WHERE THE SPINE OR BRACED AREA OF THE BUILDING IS FAR SMALLER IN RELATION TO ITS HEIGHT.
...
5. THE BUILDING AS DESIGNED IS SIXTEEN TIMES STIFFER THAN A CONVENTIONAL STRUCTURE. THE DESIGN CONCEPT IS SO SOUND THAT THE STRUCTURAL ENGINEER HAS BEEN ABLE TO BE ULTRA-CONSERVATIVE IN HIS DESIGN WITHOUT ADVERSELY AFFECTING THE ECONOMICS OF THE STRUCTURE.ⁱ

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Female passengers say they are being targeted by TSA screeners for sexual harassment, with one Texas woman being forced to pass through a naked body scanner three times so chuckling male TSA workers in a back room could get a good look at her “cute” figure.

The incident occurred at DFW International Airport earlier this month. Wife and mother Ellen Terrell was asked by a female TSA screener “Do you play tennis?” When Terrell asked why, the screener responded, “You just have such a cute figure.”

Terrell was then told to go through the naked body scanner not once but a second time. She then heard the TSA screener talking into her microphone saying, “Come on guys, alright, alright, one more time.”

After Terrell was forced to undergo a third blast of radiation...

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Announcing the launch of WeWillNotBeScanned.org!

Naked body scanners are an affront to human dignity with the sole purpose of training human beings to supplicate before the supreme authority of the state. We pledge to resist this attack on democracy and human rights using all legal means available.

Please leave your feedback and suggestions in the comments section at the end of this article.

Thanks!

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Body scanners will be introduced at all of Australia's international airports providing the travelling public with the most advanced passenger screening technology available in the world.

The Gillard Labor Government will introduce legislation this week following a successful trial of the technology in Sydney and Melbourne, with the new technology to be rolled out across airports from July this year.

The machines only produce a generic outline (attached) to display the location of metal and non-metal items under clothing.

To protect people's privacy, the image will appear as a stick figure so all men will have the same outline and all women will have the same outline with no defining features.

As an additional measure, the images will not be able to be...

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Today we bring you another broadcast from Radio Skid Row 88.9 FM Sydney, recorded on 9 February 2012.

On today's show we are joined once again by Karla Cryer.

Today's show contains a full 2 hours of discussion and music - unedited.

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Today we bring you an hour of unedited mayhem with Jack Frost and Hereward Fenton on Radio Skid Row 88.9 FM Sydney, recorded on 2 February 2012.

The show includes a long interview with Craig Isherwoord - Secretary of the Citizens Electoral Council, as well as banter, phone calls and robust debate.

Please enjoy!

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Anti-ACTA protest in the Polish Parliament

Just when you thought you could relax, after the defeat of the SOPA/PIPA bills in the US, another freedom-crushing legislation rears its ugly head. It's an international treaty called ACTA, which Australia signed back in September 2011.

From the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade:

Australia is among 10 countries, and the European Union, attending the signing ceremony, on October 1, for the new Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

Dr Emerson said the new ACTA showed Australia’s determination to secure international cooperation to develop trade in the most innovative areas of the global economy.

“ACTA builds on World Trade Organization standards to promote international trade in legitimate...

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Manny Badillo (right) with fellow 9/11 victim family member Bob McIlvane at Ground Zero

It's our great pleasure today to have Manny Badillo joining us via skype from New York.

Manny is one of the architects of the extremely effective Remember Building 7 campaign and was also instrumental in the NYC CAN initiative which garnered 80,000 signatures in a petition to re-open the 9/11 investigation.

During the interview Manny recounts the history of how he came to question the events of 9/11 after his uncle, who worked at Marsh & Mclennon was killed in the attacks. We discuss the recent intiatives in which Manny has been involved and the current state of the 9/11 truth campaign.

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