UK: Pirate Party Petitions against Digital Economy Act for Internet Freedom

From the UK Inquirer:

THE UK PIRATE PARTY is pushing voters to support an early day motion in parliament that could repeal some of the worst parts of the Digital Economy Act.  Tabled yesterday, the motion is backed by nine MPs and addresses plans to disconnect internet users suspected of illegally downloading copyrighted material.

The UK Pirate Party has consistently fought against the Act, and has seized on this latest opportunity to take it out.  "From the outset we have been vocal critics of the Digital Economy Act. The Act was forced through in the dying days of a discredited parliament and survived a judicial review. It has seen popular opposition and objection from business, it has been rejected by those who it will have an impact on as well as those who must enforce it," wrote Loz Kaye, the leader of the Pirate Party in a call to arms to voters.

"The Law now is still as bad as now as when it was first proposed. There is still hope though. This law is being challenged again."

Founder of Pirate Party Gets Behind Bitcoin

From City AM:

RICKARD Falkvinge, the Swedish IT entrepreneur and founder of the first Pirate Party, has announced he is piling all his money into bitcoins, a digital currency that is attracting a lot of online interest. Although the technology is groundbreaking and its security substantial, Falkvinge is nevertheless taking a huge leap of faith.

Satoshi Nakamoto, a Japanese computer programmer, set out his innovative idea for bitcoin in his 2009 paper: Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. Unlike every previous currency it doesn’t rely upon a central authority. It is stored virtually in the form of a file and digitally transferred. Once the money supply has reached 21m bitcoins – growing as the network grows – no more will be issued, thus prohibiting devaluation. Bitcoins can’t be frozen, tracked or taxed . . .

Canada: Pirate Party Nets Over 3000 Votes

From Straight:

The 2011 general election was the first for the Pirate Party of Canada, which only became a registered political party last year . . .  It fielded 10 candidates, including party leader Mikkel Paulson in Edmonton Centre, in the May 2 federal election . . .  With 71,472 of 71,513 polls reporting across the country, Pirates had hooked a total of 3,198 votes . . . 

Pirate Party Recognized in at least Two States, Florida Pirate Prepares for 2012 Campaign

The Pirate Party is now an officially recognized political party in at least two states.  The Massachusetts Pirate Party was certified in February, and just last month another state chapter was officially recognized in Florida.  From the announcement at the party's website:

As Chairman of the Florida Pirate Party, I am very pleased to announce we have achieved an amazing feat: We are an officially recognized political party in the state of Florida. This is an amazing achievement, and is due in no small part to Vice Chairman Bradley Hall, Chris Sheats of the Pirate Party Washington, and Christopher Ochman, a tireless pirate supporter in Virginia.

However this is a small step in what is sure to be a long and tiring journey for us all. We created this party because as I type this, entertainment industry lobbyists, information technology firms and authoritarian regimes around the world are currently working to bring the flow of information and ideals under their control. They view unencumbered free communication as a threat to their profit margins, or their grasp on power.

The Florida Pirate Party, like the worldwide Pirate movement exists as the protectors of freedom of press and expression across any and all methods of communication. We stand against the efforts of the RIAA and MPAA to make governments their personal minions for censorship. We stand against the unconstitutional pursuit by the United States Department of Justice to seize web domains without just cause or due process.

We stand for openness in government. All our leaders must be held accountable. A democracy that keeps secrets from it’s citizens is no democracy at all.

We stand for the reform of intellectual property laws. Lifetime plus 70 years of copyright is ridiculous. We believe in expanding the public domain and creative commons.

We believe the future should be a place where someone can surf the internet without wondering who is watching, or use the phone and not wonder if someone is listening. We should not live in fear of our government or our internet service provider.

And the Florida Pirates are wasting no time beginning their ballot access drive.  The state party's chairman, Ryan Moffitt, has already announced his candidacy for a seat in the Florida House, and begun the petition campaign to appear on the ballot:

It is my pleasure to announce that I have begun my campaign to become the Florida state House Representative from District 86, and become the first Pirate Party candidate for political office in the United States.

Once the paperwork has been certified by the Division of Elections, I will be cleared to gather donations, and begin gathering voter petitions to get a spot on the ballot in the 2012 general election. . . .

Let this be the beginning of the end of the monopolist copyright industry. Let this be the beginning of the end of back room deals and secret operations. Let this be the beginning of the end of warrantless wiretapping and censorship.

With your help, we can bring the state of Florida into the new digital age, in a free and open manner run by the people, and for the people. We can end the old ideals, and the old guard who believe communication and creation should stay in the domain of ivory towers, marble halls or glass office buildings. The future belongs to us, the people.

Cross-posted from Poli-Tea.

MA: Pirate Party Approved by Elections Division

From Raw Story:

The Massachusetts Election Division has approved the Massachusetts Pirate Party as a political designation, allowing voters in the state to register as a "Pirate." The party strives to increase government transparency, promote personal privacy, reinforce the spread of knowledge through copyright reform, and abolish patents.

"We live in a country founded on the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," the Massachusetts Pirate Party said in a statement. "For many people, those ideals are not real. The Supreme Court and Congress have expanded the power of corporations and made them more powerful than people. Increasingly government officials ignore open meeting laws, make deals favorable to corporations behind closed doors and sell off our public information to private interests." . . . .

Politics and 2p comments:

It's finally happened, and the US has it's first official Pirate Party. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts approved the Massachusetts Pirate Party for inclusion on the ballot earlier this week, meaning that it's the first place in the country where you can 'vote pirate' . . .

Pirate Party Activist Joins New Tunisian Cabinet

From Foreign Policy:

After weeks of public protests on- and offline the Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali resigned and escaped the country last Friday. Today, the head of the transitional government, Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi, announced his new cabinet members which include a familiar name. Slim Amamou, the Pirate Party member and freedom of speech activist who was arrested just a few days ago, is now the (deputy minister) State Secretary of Youth and Sports. . . .

Pirate Parties Condemn Violence and Threats Against Wikileaks Staff

In recent weeks, numerous influential members of America's ruling political class have called for the death or assassination of Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks.  A number of chapters of the Pirate Party in Europe have released a statement condemning violence against Wikileaks staff.  From the Pirate Party UK:

In a joint declaration with other Pirate Parties, today the Pirate Party of the United Kingdom strongly condemns any attacks on Wikileaks infrastructure and more so any attacks on Wikileaks staff, as reported by Wikileaks in March and again by Julian Assange this week.

"Any democracy worth its name should distance itself immediately from any such actions" says Mark Wood, Vice-Secretary for Whistleblowing at Pirate Parties International and Member of the Board of Governors at Pirate Party UK. "Personal attacks and threats against anyone publishing information, are not what democracy is about. Should Wikileaks do anything illegal, they should be prosecuted through due process of law, which until now has - not surprisingly - not happened".

In a recent interview [2] Julian Assange, editor of Wikileaks, claims that two members of his staff have been murdered in Kenya, and that other staff have also been attacked in Luxembourg. These were new acts in a series of attacks against Wikileaks members as described in an earlier article [1]. Apart from these attacks, Wikileaks members were openly threatened by German BND [3] members.

"Again, we see many states, including some so-called democracies trying to inhibit the free flow of information that is inherent to the democratic principle" states Loz Kaye, Leader of Pirate Party UK. "It comes to show the sorry state our democracies have plunged to."

The Pirates Parties call for all democratic states to relent any attacks, to prosecute any persons or states that act through threats and violence and to actively condemn such activities for what they are: an attack on the freedoms that make up a democracy.
We urge each and every state and each journalist worth his reputation to investigate these attacks and shed the same light on them that Wikileaks has shed on this matter, which should concern all citizens.

Signed by the following parties:
- Pirate Party of Austria - Piratenpartei Österreichs
- Pirate Party of France - Parti Pirate français
- Pirate Party of Germany - Piratenpartei Deutschland
- Pirate Party of Italy - Partito Pirata Italiano
- Pirate Party Luxembourg - Piratepartei Lëtzebuerg
- Pirate Party of Switzerland
- Pirate Party of the United Kingdom

Leader of Sweden's Pirate Party Steps Down on Party's 5th Anniversary

From Torrent Freak:

Five years ago the first Pirate Party was founded in Sweden. In the years that followed the Party shook up the political climate in its home country and the European Parliament where it holds two seats. Now, five years later, founder and chief architect Rickard Falkvinge is stepping down as leader. He will focus on promoting the Pirate position internationally, while Party deputy Anna Troberg will take over the reins . . .

Czech Pirate Party Launches Wikileaks-Style Site to Expose Government and Corporate Corruption

If you see something, say something.  Or at least forward that information to someone who will publish it online.  Needless to say, the most suspicious activities we are confronted with on a daily basis are conducted by governments and corporations.  The Czech Pirate Party has set up its own Wikileaks-style site to expose government and corporate corruption.  From Ars Technica:

The Czech Pirate Party (Ceska piratska strana) announced the inauguration of its "PirateLeaks" information service earlier this month, to be officially launched on Tuesday. But now the organization says that there will be some delays due to security issues.
"We could host content immediately; that's straightforward," Jakub Michálek, editor-in-chief of PirateLeaks explained to the Czech Position news service. "But what isn't straightforward is insuring 100 percent anonymity for the informers."

The Czech Pirate Party is similar to the Swedish Pirate Party, which advocates for the rights of citizens to share files and publish or access information. The CPP registered as a political entity in June of 2009, and about a year later garnered 0.8 percent of the vote in the Czech Republic's Chamber of Deputies Parliamentary election.

The group has been a big supporter of Wikileaks for quite a while. In May it launched a "pirate copy" of the site—not just a redirect, "but an exact copy, which will be regularly updated," according to a translation of the announcement.

As for establishing its own version of Wikileaks, the CPP describes the project as a "great way to influence regional politics." PirateLeaks will faithfully operate along the Wikileaks methodology—soliciting documents from institutional insiders and getting help from news media in verifying their authenticity. . . .

Wikileaks: "AARGH! SWEDISH PIRATES SET SAIL FOR BRUSSELS"

A Wikileaked cable out of Embassy Stockholm from June 2009 provides a summary of the results from European Parliament election held in Sweden earlier that month, and emphasizes the importance of the Pirate Party's showing in the election.  With the subject heading, "AARGH! SWEDISH PIRATES SET SAIL FOR BRUSSELS," the cable states that the Pirate Party, along with the Greens and the Liberal Party, were the "big winners" of the election, and notes that the Pirate Party garnered "support from young voters unhappy with the government’s decision to shut down The Pirate Bay, a file-sharing bit torrent site that had become a target of the Motion Picture Association of America."

The cable reports that the Pirate Party campaigned on a platform calling for copyright and patent reform and opposing a wiretapping law that had been proposed by Swedish security services.  It goes on to state that the party attracted "young voters angry over the guilty verdict in the Pirate Bay trial, the unpopular EU Ipred directive, and new national laws criminalizing file sharing and authorizing monitoring of emails."  In addition, the cable underscores the Pirate Party's sense that "the classic political right-left scale is outdated."

Interestingly, the analysis provided in this cable would seem to support that proposition.  Considering the possible side-effects of the Pirate Party's sudden, and surprising, electoral victory, the cable states that the Pirate Party's success likely "reduced the chances for the far-right nationalist Sweden Democrats to gain representation in the EP," as the Pirate Party draws its support from "the same voter base – young men with mistrust of politicians."  

See a cache copy of the cable at Cable Search.

New York Pirate Party Joins International Effort to Keep Wikileaks Accessible Online

The New York Pirate Party has joined an international effort to keep the Wikileaks website and the corresponding materials accessible online.  A press release from the UK Pirate Party:

Pirate Parties from around the world, including the Pirate Party UK, today reaffirmed their commitment to whistleblowing worldwide. Concerned about freedom of information, opinion and press, the Pirate Parties have decided in a joint resolution to make Wikileaks available on a worldwide mirroring infrastructure.

The mirrors will guarantee that the release of US diplomatic cables can continue and previous publications will stay online.  The infrastructure created by the Pirate Parties is now hosting the Wikileaks content itself, not just redirecting traffic to one main server. "This decision does not mean that we specifically endorse the Wikileaks organisation", emphasises Loz Kaye. "We will also make this platform available to every other whistle-blower who needs to ensure that information is not deleted or blocked."

The current project includes Pirate Parties from many countries, and more parties are joining every day. The infrastructure is built in such a way that deleting or blocking part of it will not affect the availability of information as a whole.  Loz Kaye explains: "This is a fight for fundamental freedoms on the Internet. We will not accept governmental attempts to restrict access to free press and constrain freedom of speech."

As of this writing, there are at least 748 websites participating in the mass-mirroring effort, according to a tally by the NY Pirate Party. 

Pirate Party of Switzerland Helps Keep Wikileaks Online (Update)

From Torrent Freak:

After being cut off by its nameserver provider EveryDNS, Wikileaks has moved to a domain registered by Pirate Party Switzerland. EveryDNS was forced to stop its services to Wikileaks after continued DDoS attacks, creating yet another setback for the whistleblower site that has dominated the news this week . . .

After being cut off, Wikileaks decided to move from the .org to a .ch domain, which was registered by the Pirate Party Switzerland in June this year . . . The Swiss Pirate Party confirmed that they are now indeed the registrants of the new ‘official’ Wikileaks domain, which had been forwarding to the Wikileaks servers for a few months already . . .

Update: Apparently, Wikileaks is now being hosted by Bahnhof, a Swedish web hosting provider, according to The Daily Beast:

should WikiLeaks worry that they might soon be homeless on the Interwebs? Not a chance, according to the company that took over hosting duties after Amazon shut the whistleblowing website down.

Jon Karlung is the CEO and chairman of Bahnhof, a Swedish Web hosting provider located near Stockholm that operates from a James Bond-style underground mountain bunker. As of Wednesday night, WikiLeaks had migrated its servers back to the company.
When reached by The Daily Beast, Karlung was playing defense for his controversial client, making it clear he had no plans to deny hosting services to WikiLeaks—despite Lieberman's request that foreign companies cut ties.

"The service is provided in Sweden—where Swedish law applies," Karlung wrote. "We are not subject to American law, Chinese laws or Iranian laws either, for that matter. WikiLeaks is just a normal business client. We do not treat them any different than any other client."

Earlier this year, it was reported that the Swedish Pirate Party had struck a deal with Wikileaks to host several Wikileaks servers to "protect the freedom of the press and help the whistleblower site to carry out its operation," according to an article at Torrent Freak.  

US Pirate Party Update

Earlier this week, TPID reported that there had been one confirmed and one unconfirmed resignation among the officers of the US Pirate Party in recent days.  On Monday, Legal Officer Andrew Norton published a letter at Politics & 2P explaining his decision to "quit the USPP."  TPID has confirmed that a second officer also resigned, but that this resignation is unrelated to the matters of concern to Norton, and not due to political or creative differences with the USPP.  TPID is not aware of any official statements from the USPP on these matters, as the party's website has been down all week, though there is some discussion of the matter and the appropriate response on the Pirate Party's Facebook page.

The above-linked post from TPID raised the question of whether the Pirate Party's website might have been the target of a DDoS attack, perhaps due to the party's official opposition to Anonymous's Operation:Payback, which was strongly supported by Norton.  One might also reasonably have wondered whether the site was also targeted in the attacks that brought down the Wikileaks website this week.  (Wikileaks is now reportedly being hosted by the Pirate Party of Switzerland.)  In a comment to that post, however, USPP Records Officer Brad Hall categorically denies that the USPP website was disabled by Anonymous, and writes, "we are told by our web host that the reason was due to them finding some type of malware on the site. We are on top of the situation and the site should be back online before the end of the week."

UK: Pirate Party Strongly Backs Alternative Voting Proposal

From the UK Pirate Party:

This week, members of Pirate Party UK have been voting on whether the party should officially endorse a 'Yes' vote in the May Referendum on changing the electoral system to AV.

Pirates across the country have overwhelmingly voted in favour of supporting AV, with over 90% of those voting expressing the desire to see us fight for reform this May. As a result, Pirate Party UK will now actively campaign for AV, and encourage its members to get involved in the fight for change, primarily through the Yes In May campaign.

Whilst some members may feel AV does not go far enough, we understand that the referendum on the Alternative Vote is a vital opportunity to move to a fairer system that helps to make politicians more accountable to the public. In this way, electoral reform fits in well with our policies on government transparency and accountability, including giving constituents a full right of recall when they have lost confidence in their MP.

US Pirate Party: Another Resignation? Faultlines Apparent in Response to Operation:Payback (Update)

The US Pirate Party appears to be in disarray following the resignation of at least one and perhaps two of the party's officers.  As noted here yesterday, the party's legal officer, Andrew Norton, resigned Monday in protest of the leadership's failure to confront Operations Officer Jay Emerson over a controversial immigration proposal that he had allegedly floated online.  That proposal was picked up and excerpted at TPID, but it has since been deleted from the website where it was originally published.  There is word that another officer has now resigned over the matter, but this has not been confirmed, as the Pirate Party's website is "temporarily unavailable" and inquiries for comment went unanswered as of this writing.  (Update: A post at the USPP's Facebook page links to yesterday's post here at TPID, and confirms that two officers have in fact resigned, without any further comment.) 

If this seems an overreaction to a single dispute over a blog post that has been deleted, it is worth considering that the immigration proposal controversy may have become a proxy for a simmering antagonism over Operation Payback.  In recent weeks, tensions have been building within the Pirate Party over the appropriate response to the Anonymous "Operation:Payback" campaign of DDoS attacks which began in September and appear to have ended on November 5th.  From Wikipedia:

Operation Payback is an ongoing, coordinated group of attacks on internet piracy opponents by internet activists. It started as retaliation to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on torrent sites, piracy proponents decided to launch DDoS attacks on piracy opponents in return. It snowballed from there into a wave of attacks on several major anti-piracy groups. Operation Payback is affiliated with Anonymous.

Encyclopedia Dramatica relays the initial "resolution" announcing the operation:

Anonymous is sick and tired of these corporations seeking to control the internet in their pursuit of profit. Anonymous cannot sit by and do nothing while these organizations stifle the spread of ideas and attack those who wish to exercise their rights to share with others. Anonymous will not just watch while others are attacked. Their servers have been shut down and they will remain so for as long as there is no true freedom of information and data.

Following retaliation against the original target, the operation expanded to include the websites of the MPAA, the RIAA and even Gene Simmons, among others.  In mid-November the US and UK Pirate Parties released an open letter to Operation:Payback calling for a cease-fire and urging activists to "seek out a legal method to express your frustration and disquiet with the copyright industry, and their perversions of copyright law for personal gain." 

In a post at Politics & 2P, then-Legal Officer of the US Pirate Party, Andrew Norton, stated that he was the "main architect behind the letter" and laid out his reasons for opposing the attacks.  The discussion that ensued in the comments section of an article at Torrent Freak relaying the letter gives one a good sense of the internal debate concerning Operation:Payback – is it merely vandalism, is it principled civil disobedience? – and exposes the fault lines over the issue within the US Pirate Party, as one "Jay Emerson" clearly states his opposition to Norton's position on the matter, writing that he is "in full support of e-activism."

Given this state of affairs, and the fact that the US Pirate Party website is down, is it unreasonable to wonder whether Anonymous has set its sights on the USPP?

OK Pirate Party Ballot Effort Profiled by Oklahoma City Deluxe

The Oklahoma City Deluxe is an independent crafts bazaar.  From Oklahoma City Deluxe:

At Deluxe, we have a soft spot in our hearts for the underdogs, the underrepresented, the minority. We like to give an opportunity to community groups and artists who might not find an outlet at many high-profile events. Today we’d like to introduce you to a group that will be at Deluxe collecting signatures for their petition regarding ballot access.

What is your organization’s mission?
The Pirate Party of Oklahoma is a new political party with the goal of promoting the Privacy Rights of Oklahomans, push for increased Government Transparency, advocate for Ballot Access Reform, and encourage reform of Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks. Our goal is to embrace the ideals behind the constitution, and to make sure these ideals are honored in a time filled with technology that our founding fathers could never have imagined.

Who is your target population?
All Oklahomas concerned about their privacy and being able to use technology in a meaningful way, as well as Oklahomas who are concerned about having accountability from their government. We don’t have a specific target population in mind, but a large portion of our membership comes from the generations that are more exposed to the constant advances in technology and are aware of the potential to use, and abuse, this technology.

US Pirate Party Legal Officer Resigns

You might recall this post from last week, reporting that member(s) of the US Pirate Party had considered helping international students in the US maintain their work visas.  A controversy over this individual's proposal, among other things, has apparently led the party's legal officer to resign in protest.  Andrew Norton explains his reasons for quitting his post with the party at Politics & 2P:

The main issue has been the flagrant, and repeated violations of the party Constitution, by one officer, Jay Emerson. In a period of one week, between 9 and 12 violations of the constitution were committed over three separate, documented instances, by this officer. Each of these violations has a penalty specified – 'may be removed from office with cause'. . . . 

On thursday November 18th, a 'news' article was posted [see update at end] (the disclaimer that '*Note: This is not officially proposed by the USPP, was added November 27th'), saying that the USPP was going to start employing people from overseas, because those people were having problems getting their student visa's supported . . .  Anybody with a high school education or better knows what this is called. “Immigration visa Fraud”. . . . It's about 8 different violations of the party constitution, and can even lead to the party being shut down.

The party leadership's non-responsiveness to Norton's concerns is among the primary reasons for his resignation.  Read the whole thing.  On a different note, see also Norton's recent article, "Breaking the 2-Party Two-Step."

Pirate Party Considers Helping Students Maintain Work Visas

From the Free Speech Zone blog:

At my University I learned that there were problems with students from "flagged" countries getting to the U.S. to flee the oppressive regimes they live under.  They wished to come to the U.S. through student visas yet those are being held up by the government and the university is not making an effort to get the paperwork and bureaucracy corrected.. . .

The United States Pirate Party is classified as a 527 PAC.  This means that we can do something called "I-9" in terms of contracting workers from foreign nations so they can do work for the USPP.   However, we will have them "work" but the pay will be low so the work will be minimal.  The point is that the work visas will allow the student to maintain legal residency while still being able to go to school in the U.S. . . . 

Pirate Party: Stop the Internet Censorship Bill

From the Pirate Party of Oklahoma:

a group of Senators decided to move the United States one step closer to being able to censor the internet. The Senate Judiciary committee voted in favor of passing the “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act“. Oklahoma’s own Senator Tom Coburn is a cosponsor of this bill, and also serves on the committee where he voted in favor of it.

Critics of this bill include the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as Reporters without Borders. The biggest problem with this bill is that it gives the Department of Justice the ability to declare any website as infringing on copyrights and then remove that website from the internet. There are two main problems with this ability . . . 

Read the rest. 

Pirate Party Exclusive: DHS/TSA Security Theater is Reactive and Ineffective, Aims at Compliance and Submission

The importance of protecting and strengthening the rights to privacy and transparent government are emphasized at the very top of the Pirate Party of Oklahoma's platform.  As the Pirate Party has also long been critical of full-body scanners and "enhanced pat-downs," I contacted the Administrator of the PPOK, Marcus Kessler, for comment on the recent uproar and controversy over the DHS/TSA's new security protocols.  Markus was kind enough to provide a detailed response, which is published in full below.

TPID: What is the Pirate Party's response to the TSA/DHS's roll-out of the new and highly invasive body scanner screening procedures and "enhanced pat-downs"?

Marcus Kessler:  The Pirate Party is really not surprised that the TSA is pushing heavily to get these machines deployed. Every time a new plot is discovered, such as the "Christmas Bomber" or the "Printer Cartridge Plot", it becomes more obvious that the current tactics and security theatre orchestrated by the TSA are ineffective. Not surprisingly, instead of realizing that the current system does not provide any meaningful safety, the TSA responds to each incident with further reactionary and ineffective directives. A good example is the current use of "Trace Explosive Detection Technology". These devices are used to swab carry-on luggage and passengers hands to test for the presence of explosives including PETN, the type of explosive reported to have been found inside the [bomb-rigged] ink-toner cartridges last month. The TSA reports that we have spend $15 million on this technology in 2010, and the 2011 federal budget calls for $39 million to be used to purchase this technology. Since ink-toners are now at risk of containing PETN, we are no longer allowed to bring toner and ink cartridges over 16 ounces on a plane. It appears that we are spending over $50 million on technology that is so ineffective, the TSA thinks it is safer to just ban these objects from the sky, instead of trusting this expensive technology.  

We also take great issue with the current use of the "enhanced pat-down" as a punitive measure to ensure greater compliance and submission to the enhanced imaging devices. There have been multiple reports that the strategy employed by the TSA is to make the pat-down so intrusive that passengers will choose to be viewed naked on screen instead of being touched. We don't think that having to choose between "show your scrotum on screen or let us touch your scrotum" qualifies as a reasonable search according to the constitution. The physical pat-down is also more time consuming, often requiring passengers to wait on a qualified employee that has been trained on the enhanced pat-down, or an employee of the same gender. At the same time, many airports that use the imaging devices have reduced the number of lanes that can be used for screening. This leads to longer wait times which requires passengers to decide whether to allow the TSA to view their naked body, or opt-out of the screening and risk missing their flight.

The only real surprise to the Pirate Party of Oklahoma is the fact that only lately there has been a large outcry about these operations. The use of enhanced imaging devices has been a target of the PPOK since our formation in January, and our members have been vocal opponents of this technology since it was introduced. We are glad to see that people are becoming more aware of this issue, but at the same time we are sad to realize that for a long timeframe people did not mind having this technology render them naked.

Marcus Kesler
Administrator
Pirate Party of Oklahoma