[Infowarrior] - TSA tries to assuage privacy concerns about full-body scans

[Richard Forno]

TSA tries to assuage privacy concerns about full-body scans
By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 4, 2010; A03

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/03/AR2010010301826_pf.html#
It has come to this.

Already shoeless, beltless and waterless, more beleaguered air  
passengers will be holding their legs apart, raising their arms and  
effectively baring it all as they pass through U.S. airport security  
checkpoints.

Add the "full-body scan" to the list of indignities that some  
travelers are confronting in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, era of vigilance.

Federal authorities, working to close security gaps exposed by the  
thwarted Christmas Day terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound airliner,  
are multiplying the number of imaging machines at the nation's biggest  
airports. The devices scan passengers' bodies and produce X-ray-like  
images that can reveal objects concealed beneath clothes.

Forty units are in use at 19 airports, including Reagan National and  
Baltimore-Washington International Marshall airports. The  
Transportation Security Administration said it has ordered 150 more  
scanners to be installed early this year and has secured funding for  
an additional 300.

Passengers selected for a full-body scan can decline, but if they do,  
they must submit to full-body pat-downs by a TSA officer. The  
technology was introduced a couple of years ago, but U.S. airports  
have been slow to install the machines, partly because of privacy  
concerns raised by some members of Congress and civil liberties groups.

Seeing passengers beset by years of an ever-evolving airport drill --  
at first handing over belts, cellphones and laptops for screening,  
then shoes, and later, dealing with restrictions on gels and liquids  
-- some activists and experts are asking how much compliance is too  
much in the name of homeland security.

"The price of liberty is too high," said Kate Hanni, who as founder of  
FlyersRights.org, an advocacy organization for air passengers,  
shuttles regularly between her California home and Washington to lobby  
Congress. Hanni said many of her group's 25,000 members are concerned  
that "the full-body scanners may not catch the criminals and will  
subject the rest of us to intrusive and virtual strip searches."

To others, however, the scans are not so bad, and the reason is  
simple: They're virtual. Passengers walk through the machines fully  
clothed; the resulting image appears on a monitor in a separate room  
and conceals passengers' faces and sensitive areas.

"It covers up the dirty bits," said James Carafano, a homeland  
security expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

"I don't think it's any different than if you go to the beach and put  
on a bikini," said Brandon Macsata, who started the Association for  
Airline Passenger Rights.

Critics talk as if the machines produce images that are "Playboy- 
centerfold quality," said Jon Adler, head of the Federal Law  
Enforcement Officers Association.

"I don't consider the full-body scanners an invasion of privacy,"  
Adler said. "I think a bomb detonating on a plane is the biggest  
invasion of privacy a person can experience."

Dutch security officials have said that full-body scanners could have  
detected the explosives that suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab  
allegedly concealed in his underwear when boarding a Northwest  
Airlines flight in Amsterdam. But although the city's Schiphol Airport  
operates more than a dozen such scanners, none was used to check the  
Nigerian.

The Netherlands has since announced that it will require all U.S.- 
bound passengers to pass through full-body screenings before boarding  
flights.

And Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Sunday that full-body scanners  
will be introduced in Britain's airports.

Last week, the TSA launched a public relations offensive to convince  
passengers that its latest checkpoint innovation will make airports  
more secure. "It's a promising technology," spokeswoman Kristen Lee  
said. "It's designed to detect anomalies."

The issue is almost certain to be the subject of debate when Congress  
reconvenes this month. The House approved a bill in the summer  
limiting the use of full-body scanners, but the Senate has yet to take  
up the matter.

Critics say expanding the use of the machines is something of a knee- 
jerk reaction.

And, experts say, explosives can go undetected even in a full-body  
screening if potential terrorists conceal them in body cavities.

"It's definitely not a silver bullet," Carafano said. "There's a way  
to beat it. It's called a 'booty bomb,' where you actually insert the  
explosive inside the human being and then you detonate the explosive  
with a cellphone."

The TSA has tried to assuage privacy concerns by saying that the  
digital images produced by the machines would be deleted after  
passengers clear checkpoints. But critics are not reassured.

"TSA has said, 'Trust us, we've put the switch to the "off" position,'  
" said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy  
Information Center. "But it's not difficult to imagine a scenario  
where they might decide to put the switch to the 'on' position."

Such concerns are spreading quickly among networks of frequent fliers.  
Hanni said many of her group's members, particularly women, are  
"frantic" about the devices.

Some women do not want the shape of their naked bodies seen by others.  
As for Hanni, she said: "I don't mind."

"I'm from California. I grew up in a family that doesn't have any  
particular issues with nudity, so I really don't care if anybody sees  
the outline of my body," Hanni said. "I've got nothing to hide."