[Infowarrior] - TSA debuts new full-body scanners

[Richard Forno]

TSA debuts new full-body scanners

By Ashley Halsey III
The TSA demonstrates a new full-body scanner at Reagan National Airport. (By Ashley Halsey III / The Post)

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dr-gridlock/2011/02/tsa_debuts_new_full-body_scann.html?hpid=topnews

New airport security scanners designed to be less intrusive than machines that captured near-naked images will debut at the Las Vegas airport Tuesday.

They'll look just like the controversial scanners that were introduced last fall, but instead of sending a revealing image to be examined in a private security booth, new software will project a non-gender-specific silhouette on a small screen attached to the booth.

If the passenger is carrying any contraband items a red box will appear on the screen. Otherwise it will flash a green okay.

The new technology was put on display by Transportation Security Administration head John S. Pistole at Reagan National Airport Tuesday.

The new scanners will be coming to Reagan National and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport next. That will happen "in the coming weeks," TSA spokesman Greg Soule said.

The images produced by the current machines led to an uproar over privacy concerns. Pistole had said in the fall that he wanted to see modifications, but the technology that was being tested yielded too many false positives. Many passengers found the alternative, "enhanced" pat-downs by TSA agents even more disturbing.

In the demonstration at Reagan National Airport Tuesday, "passengers" filed through the scanners, some of them producing gray silhouettes with green "okay" screens, others producing the same silhouettes with red boxes where the machine detected something hidden.