TSA ends contract with Rapiscan

Over on the TSA News Blog a guy using Bob as his handle is saying that as of right now the ASE backscatter machines have not been authorized for use. As I understand the situation based on Bob's remarks ASE has a contract to supply some test units and up to the $245 million dollars contract limit if they can get the ATR (automatic target recognition) software to work with a backscatter strip search machine. If ASE machines are placed in airports they look very much like the Rapescan machine. One or two telephone booth size boxes. Not the clear plexiglass units that are the identity marker for MMW.

 

Thanx

 

NewsMax: Rep. McCaul to Probe Cost of Naked-Scanners Pulled From Airports

House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul wants to hold a hearing to figure out how much the government spent on the dozens of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) scanners that are being removed from airports.

The TSA is getting rid of 174 Rapiscan “back-scatter” machines that create near-naked images of passengers. The agency acted after it became clear that Rapiscan can’t meet a congressional deadline to install privacy software that prevents near-naked images.

“I want to have a hearing on, how much did this mistake cost us?” the Texas Republican told Politico. “Those machines are pretty expensive. I don’t have a figure yet.”​

...​

 

OK, now I get it. What the TSA spokeshole is REALLY saying is that the TSA is going through the legal procedures to do what the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) calls "abandon in place." They put a 30-day notice in the Federal Register asking if any other government agency wants the Cancer Boxes. This procedure is akin to a team placing a ballplayer on waivers. If, at the end of the 30 days, no government agency wants the Cancer Boxes (who would???), they become the property of Rapiscan (even though the government has paid for them once before). The company is now free to sell them for a second time to whoever (government, private sector, overseas, etc) wants to buy them. If someone just as fascist as the TSA want to buy them, Rapiscan and Chertoff get to sell them TWICE. What a deal...

Anyone with time on their hands is encouraged to check the on-line Federal Register. Since the TSA has proclaimed that it will take until June for Rapiscan to remove all 174 of them, I would think that the 30-day clock (and the notice) won't appear until late June or early July.

 

Maybe one of the cancer boxes can be purchased for legitimate testing purposes. The results of such tests could prove helpful to future civil suits.

 

Utterly disgusting statement on the part of FBI spokeshole Sandra Berchtold:

ABC News: Half-Jewish, Half-Arab Woman Sues FBI, TSA, Frontier Airlines Over 9/11 Strip Search

Popular opinion is irrelevant. The Constitution -- and especially the Bill of Rights -- exist to protect our inalienable rights from oppression by a majority. The abusive search of Shoshana Hebshi was a clear abrogation of the Oath of Office that every FBI agent swears:

​

Law officer working for other agencies and TSA pretend cops all swear similar oaths prior to their employment.​

​

Scum that cannot or will not uphold the Constitution should not be working for these agencies.​

 

Agreed. Popular opinion is what made Executive Order 9066 "acceptable."

As Heinlein says, "'Vox populi, vox dei' usually translates into 'My God, how did we get into THIS mess?!"

 

It's not a surplus auction that the GSA periodically holds for old office furniture or government cars. Under the terms of abandon in place, the Cancer Boxes once again become the property of Rapiscan. They can sell them for whatever they can get. "Surplussing" the Cancer Boxes would be a completely different process and one for which the TSA would face embarrassment because they would have to admit that the Cancer Boxes either didn't work (and they accept the liability) or are obsolete.

 

Two have shown up on YouTube, one in the south central U.S. that went for a pittance, except that the buyer had to pay freight, and one in Europe, for which I don't know the results of the sale.

 

Seems awfully convenient that the x-ray machines are going away just in advance of the independent testing slated to be done later this year. TSA can now argue that they don't use "these x-ray scanners" and substitute newer versions without any pressure to test them.

They probably expect the MMW devices to get exempted or slide right through testing, so two problems solved with one device swap.