Obama Pencils In $37 Billion Budget Increase For DHS, Naked Body Scanners

No austerity measures to deal with for the bloated security theatre overlords
Steve Watson
Prison Planet
Feb. 14, 2011

The Obama administration is to propose a $37 billion increase in federal spending for the Department of Homeland Security, earmarking funds for more radiation firing naked body scanners in airports around the country.

The DHS’ budget will grow by almost 3 percent over the 2011 budget level, as Reuters reports, while the overall national security budget will increase by almost 2 percent.

The 2012 budget proposal requests $43.8 billion for homeland security across the entire federal government, excluding the Defense Department, up $800 million from 2011.

The DHS plans to add an additional 275 naked body scanners to the 500 already installed and operated by the TSA at 78 airports nationwide.

The administration has proposed deploying 1,275 body scanners in airports by the end of 2012.

“The U.S. Transportation Security Administration hopes to buy more full-body scanners to detect explosives and other weapons potential attackers may hide on their bodies that cannot be detected by traditional metal detectors.” the Reuters reports suggests, failing to highlight the fact that the body scanners do not even have such capabilities according to their manufacturers.

Experts have dismissed the devices as "useless", have repeatedly warned that the machines cannot detect explosive material effectively and would not have prevented the Christmas Day bomber from boarding Flight 253.

Add to this the ongoing safety concerns of respected scientists, and one is left asking why is the government ploughing billions into technology that is ineffective and potentially dangerous?

The answer is security theatre.

A largely manufactured and over hyped threat is being met with a manufactured response, the net effect of which is an overwhelming stripping away of the basic freedoms of Americans while lining the pockets of security contractors.

The DHS is instituting a complete takeover of society, with it’s Walmart telescreens, its active citizen spy programs, its armies of agents frisking crowds at sports events, and even extending it’s tentacles into parking restrictions and the like.

In addition, at the same time as the announcement that a further $3 billion will be pumped into the DHS for protection against a chemical, biological, nuclear or radiological attack, a strange story has emerged of a port official in San Diego suggesting that such weapons have been found inside the U.S. by federal authorities.