Stormy Daniels said that she will not run for U.S. Senate in her home state

NEW ORLEANS Louisiana-born porn star Stormy Daniels announced Thursday that she will not run for U.S. Senate in her home state, ending a yearlong flirtation with politics that began as Republican incumbent Sen. David Vitter was working to overcome a sex scandal.In an e-mailed statement, Daniels said she cannot afford a run for the Senate and, comparing herself to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, complained that the media never took her interest in the race seriously.

“To begin with, like Governor Palin, I have become a target of the cynical stalwarts of the status quo,” Daniels said. “Simply because I did not fit in their mold of what an independent working woman should be, the media and political elite have sought to relegate my sense of civic responsibility to mere sideshow antics.”

Daniels recently declared herself a convert to the GOP with a press release making light of news that the Republican National Committee had picked up a nearly $2,000 tab at a sex-themed California nightclub. But her political publicity has been handled by Democratic operative Brian Welsh.

If nothing else, a Daniels campaign for the Republican nomination would have been a constant reminder of the 2007 scandal that broke when Vitter’s phone number appeared in the records of a Washington prostitution ring. Other than admitting a “serious sin,” he has steadfastly refused to discuss the matter.

Meanwhile, his political career seems to have survived intact. He has raised plenty of campaign money while bashing the policies of President Barack Obama, who is not popular in the state.

At the end of last year, Vitter had about $4.5 million in campaign cash, compared with about $2 million for his Democratic rival, U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon. Updated campaign finance reports for the first quarter of this year were due Thursday at the Federal Election Commission. The Vitter campaign released a summary of the latest report showing more than $5 million on hand as of March 31, with $1.1 million raised and more than $618,000 spent during the quarter.

Vitter may yet gain another well-known rival because former Republican state legislator James David Cain has said he may enter the race as an independent. Vitter so far has no major opposition in the GOP primary.

Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford) said during a listening tour last spring that she decided to explore a possible campaign after fans tried to draft her in light of Vitter’s troubles.

“I completely ignored the whole thing for a while, and then I just got so much encouragement and feedback that I thought at the very least I owe it to myself and to the people to come out and see what they have to say,” Daniels said at the time.

An exploratory committee incorporated last year solicited funds through the Web site TeamStormy.com, but because Daniels never became a candidate, she was not required to report finances to the FEC.

The TeamStormy site has not been updated in months, nor have there been any posts on the TeamStormy Twitter account as of midday Thursday. On another Twitter site, Daniels has made no mention of the possible campaign, but has continued to promote her adult films and personal appearances – including one this week in Raleigh, N.C.

Her political story took a bizarre turn last summer when she was arrested on a domestic violence battery charge after she allegedly hit her husband at their home in Tampa, Fla., during a dispute about laundry and unpaid bills. Charges later were dropped.

Her arrest came two days after Welsh, the Democratic operative, said his parked 1996 Audi was damaged by fire outside his apartment in an upscale downtown area of New Orleans. She didn’t say much about her campaign after that until her announcement earlier this month that she was becoming a Republican.

Daniels accused Vitter of financing his campaign with special interest money but said she still might support him if he goes along with her proposal to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and the federal income tax in favor of a “fair tax” plan that includes a national sales tax.(AP)

Scanners force trade-off between privacy, security

the security gate at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO  As Ronak Ray hunted for his flight gate, he prepared for the prospect of a security guard peering through his clothes with a full body scanner. But Ray doesn’t mind: what he gives up in privacy he gets back in security.”I think it’s necessary,” said Ray, a 23-year-old graduate student who was at San Francisco International Airport to fly to India. “Our lives are far more important than how we’re being searched.”Despite controversy surrounding the scans, Ray’s position was typical of several travelers interviewed at various airports Wednesday by The Associated Press.Airports in five other U.S. cities are also using full body scanners at specific checkpoints instead of metal detectors. In addition, the scanners are used at 13 other airports for random checks and so-called secondary screenings of passengers who set off detectors.

But many more air travelers may have to get used to the idea soon. The Transportation Security Administration has ordered 150 more full body scanners to be installed in airports throughout the country in early 2010, agency spokeswoman Suzanne Trevino said.Dutch security officials have said they believe such scanners could have detected the explosive materials Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab of Nigeria is accused of trying to ignite aboard a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight Christmas Day.Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport has 15 full body scanners, but none were used to scan Abdulmutallab when he boarded. In Europe and the U.S., privacy concerns over the scanners’ ability to see through clothing have kept them from widespread use.

The technology was first used about two years ago to make it easier for airport security to do body searches without making physical contact with passengers.The idea of an electronic strip search did not bother Judy Yeager, 62, of Sarasota, Fla., as she prepared to depart Las Vegas. She stood in the full-body scanner Wednesday afternoon and held her arms up as a security official guided her through the gray closet-sized booth.”If it’s going to protect a whole airplane of people, who gives a flying you-know-what if they see my boob whatever,” Yeager said. “That’s the way I feel, honest to God.”George Hyde, of Birmingham, Ala., who was flying out of Salt Lake City with his wife, Patsy, on Wednesday after visiting their children and grandchildren in Park City, Utah.”I’d rather be safe than be embarrassed,” Hyde said. Neither he nor his wife had been through a body scanner before.”We’re very modest people but we’d be willing to go through that for security.”

Trevino said the TSA has worked with privacy advocates and the scanners’ manufacturers to develop software that blurs the faces and genital areas of passengers being scanned. In all cases, passengers are not required to be scanned by the machine but can opt for a full body pat-down instead.At Salt Lake City International Airport, fewer than 1 percent of passengers subjected to the scanner chose the pat-down since the machine was installed in March, said Dwane Baird, a TSA spokesman in Salt Lake City.On Tuesday, some 1,900 people went through the scanner and just three chose not to, he said.Critics of the scanners said the option to opt out was not enough.”The question is should they be used indiscriminately on little children and grandmothers,” said Republican U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock of California. McClintock co-sponsored a bill approved by the House 310-118 in June prohibiting the use of full body scanners for primary screenings. The bill is pending in the Senate.

He said the devices raised serious concerns regarding constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.”There’s no practical distinction between a full body scan and being pulled into a side room and being ordered to strip your clothing.”To further protect passenger privacy, security officers looking at the images are in a different part of the airport and are not allowed to take any recording devices into the room with them, Trevino said. The images captured by the scanners cannot be stored, transmitted or printed in any way.But the TSA still has some public relations work ahead of it, judging by the reactions of passengers in Albuquerque, N.M., who were worried about what would happen to their images once they were scanned.”Are they going to be recorded or do they just scan them and that’s the end of them? How are these TSA people going to be using them? That’s a real concern for me,” said Courtney Best-Trujillo of Santa Fe, N.M., who was flying to Los Angeles on Wednesday.

The six airports where full body scanners are being used for what TSA calls “primary screenings” are: Albuquerque, N.M.; Las Vegas, Nev.; Miami, Fla.; San Francisco; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Tulsa, Okla.The remainder of the machines are being used for secondary screenings in Atlanta, Ga.; Baltimore/Washington; Denver, Colo.; Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas; Indianapolis, Ind.; Jacksonville and Tampa, Fla.; Los Angeles; Phoenix, Ariz.; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Richmond, Va.; Ronald Reagan Washington National; and Detroit, Mich.

Though most passengers interviewed by The Associated Press felt security trumped other concerns, Bruna Martina, 48, a physician from the coast of Venezuela, said the scanners still made her feel uncomfortable.”I think there has to be another way to control people, or to scan them, but not like this,” she said as she headed back home after a vacation in Miami with her husband and two sons. She also does not think the scanners will thwart another attack.”They’ll find another way,” Martina said. “There is always somebody cleverer than the rest.”(Ap)