SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A government surplus vendor has Rapiscan Backscatter Body scanners listed for sale on ebay. The price - just $8K. Brand new they were $160K. These are the same units that were affectionately dubbed "porno scanners" before the TSA bowed to public pressure and yanked them out of commission. You might remember Rapiscan as the company that hired former Department of Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff as a way to guarantee their place at the trough full of sweet, sweet tax dollars.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 06 2014, @06:25PM
"before the TSA bowed to public pressure"
Did the TSA really 'bow to public pressure' or is it really that the contractors selling these machines involved already got paid and so no one cares at this point what happens to them?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 06 2014, @06:29PM
and before you know it the TSA will find some other machines to buy and then later sell at a huge discount making various contractors that offer politicians various favors millions of dollars in taxpayer money. That's just how government works.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 06 2014, @06:33PM
Those two narratives are not in contradiction. The pressure to pull the machines was less than the pressure to keep them, so they went. Whether the pressure to pull out was increased or the pressure to keep them was reduced, its still means public pressure won out.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 06 2014, @10:17PM
The pressure to use them probably was very close to zero. Heck, they wouldn't even have been bought if the TSA were allowed to transfer its budget to "security" companies without getting anything in return.