http://www.azcentral.com/news/articl...-tsa30-ON.html
Thomas Frank
USA Today
Nov. 30, 2006 04:30 PM
WASHINGTON - The federal government plans to launch the nation's first airport screening system this month that will take potentially revealing X-ray photos of travelers in an attempt to find bombs and other weapons.
Transportation Security Administration screeners will test the system at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport, using an X-ray machine that has broad implications for both security and passenger privacy.
The system, known as backscatter, could vastly improve weapons detection but has been called a "virtual strip search" by the American Civil Liberties Union because it can show remarkably clear images of passengers' nude bodies.
A few other airports will begin tests next year and the TSA will also look at using the machines in subways, TSA assistant administrator Randy Null said Thursday.
"It's time to get them out and get feedback from screeners and the traveling public," Null said. The TSA has been considering the machines since 2002 while struggling with privacy issues.
Barry Steinhardt, head of the ACLU's technology and liberty program, said operating the backscatter machines at airports will pave the way for widespread use - and abuse. "It's absolutely predictable that as this technology becomes commonplace, you're going to start seeing those images all over the Internet," Steinhardt said.
The machines scatter low-intensity X-rays to produce graphic photos. At airports, they will be programmed to shade or blur travelers' bodies and medical devices. Screeners will view the images in remote rooms and delete them instantly.
"We're very comfortable with the progress on privacy," Null said.
In the upcoming airport tests, the machines will be used only on travelers who require extra screening beyond a metal detector. Those passengers will be offered the option of being photographed from the front and back by the backscatter machine or undergoing the customary pat-down by a screener.
Null said the machines could replace metal detectors if they can operate faster than the 15-20 seconds backscatter takes to screen one passenger.
Backscatter machines, used in prisons and at Customs checkpoints to find drugs, have been touted as an improvement to metal detectors, which don't sound alarms for plastic or liquid explosives or ceramic knives. The Homeland Security Department's inspector general singled out backscatter last year as a way to close a vulnerability at checkpoints.
The Phoenix airport, the nation's eighth-busiest, will get one machine made by American Science and Engineering of Massachusetts. The images will show outlines of travelers and any item - from a wristwatch to a gun or explosives wiring - underneath clothes.
The machines "trade off detection for a level of privacy," company Vice President Richard Mastronardi said. With less-detailed photos, "you start to lose the ability to see that image of C4" explosives, he said.
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