http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2005-05-15-airport-xray-bottomstrip_x.htm?POE=NEWISVAThe agency in charge of the nation's air security expects later this year to begin using a controversial X-ray machine that will show airport screeners a clear picture of what's under passengers' clothes — whether weapons or just bare skin.
The new system makes it easy to see possibly dangerous devices.
Screeners plan to test the "backscatter" machines at several U.S. airports, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says. The refrigerator-sized machines are considered a breakthrough in scanning technology but have been labeled "a virtual strip search" by the American Civil Liberties Union. (Related story: Airports test 'futureworld' devices)
Security workers using the machines can see through clothes and peer at whatever may be hidden in undergarments, shirts or pants. The images also paint a revealing picture of a person's nude body.
The devices can potentially be used to screen hundreds of millions of air travelers each year, although TSA says more study is needed to determine how the devices may be used at U.S. airports. The agency declined to say when and where it expects to test the machines.
Backscatter technology has been waiting on the sidelines for nearly four years but seems poised now to move to the forefront of aviation security. The machines are already used by U.S. Customs agents at 12 airports to screen passengers suspected of carrying drugs. They're also getting a test run at a terminal in London Heathrow Airport, the first major airport to use them.
The ACLU says the scanners invade personal privacy. "This leads directly to a surveillance society," says Barry Steinhardt, who runs the group's technology program.
But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a Senate subcommittee last month that he wants to employ the technology and doesn't want an "endless debate" over privacy issues.
Security consultant Douglas Laird says the machines are essential to spot explosives, which aren't detected by metal detectors.
The $100,000 machines bounce low-radiation X-rays off a person's skin to produce photo-like computer images of metal, plastic and organic materials hidden under clothes, says American Science and Engineering. The TSA is testing its BodySearch machine.
― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 16 May 2005 02:43 (twenty-one years ago)
Bugger the privacy issues, who wants their kidneys fried every time they get on a plane!??
― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 16 May 2005 02:57 (twenty-one years ago)
I wonder if it looks weird to see titties that are "naked" and held in place by a bra at the same time -- maybe sort of like the effect of implants.
― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 16 May 2005 03:17 (twenty-one years ago)
Hell yeah, that gun *totally* doesnt match her necklace at all!
― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 16 May 2005 08:27 (twenty-one years ago)
I trialled a new machine at Heathrow two weeks ago - I wonder if it was this one*? If so, Trayce, the guy said that the x-rays were the equivalent radiation you get from 2 minutes on a plane, so I wouldn't worry about your kidneys too much :)
*if it is, there are now pictures of me naked and posing like a ballerina (they make you strike odd poses, hands above your head, legs as if you're walking) in existence. A chilling thought.
― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 16 May 2005 09:54 (twenty-one years ago)
I get the feeling this reporter's heart isn't really into this one.
He apparently interviews someone from the ACLU -- as difficult as picking up a phone -- and selects one, and only one sentence with which to illuminate the arguments held by the presumably significant number of "anti" human-X-rays-in-airports people: it will "lead directly to a surveillance society." Uh okay, but how? Why? Erected by whom? For whose benefit?
When one is abent-mindedly constructing an arbitrary dialectic for the sake of at least technically fulfilling your first graf's promise of a controversy, one must of course flesh out the "other side," in this case a recitation of something the Homeland security chief said to Congress once about not wanting to debate the "privacy issues" of the device.
Whatever those are.
Not your best work, Mr. Frank.
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 16 May 2005 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)
Of course, there might have been fantastic stuff in there that got snipped. The oddly foreshortened quality of the "debate" makes it hard to believe there wasn't.
Maybe USA Today's still looking for a full-time editor for this section.
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 16 May 2005 21:42 (twenty-one years ago)