May 26, 2005
Airport-Screeners Could See X-Rated X-Rays
"...backscatters... use X-ray imaging technology to allow a screener to scan a body. And yes, the body image is detailed. Let's not be coy here, ladies and gentlemen:
"Well, you'll see basically everything," said Bill Scannell, a privacy advocate and technology consultant. "It shows nipples. It shows the clear outline of genitals."
The Homeland Security Department's justification for the electronic strip searches has a certain logic. In field test after field test, it found that federal airport screeners using metal-detecting magnetometers did a miserable job identifying weapons concealed in carry-on bags or on the bodies of undercover agents.
In a clumsy response late last year, the department instituted intrusive pat-downs at checkpoints after two planes in Russia blew up from nonmetallic explosives that had apparently been smuggled into the aircraft by female Chechen terrorists. But it reduced the pat-downs after passengers erupted in outrage at the groping last December.
Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security secretary, told a Senate subcommittee that "technology is really what we ultimately have to use in order to get to the next level" in security.
Thwarting body-scanning technology would be simple (Steve Elson, a former Federal Aviation Administration investigator) argues. Because of concerns about radiation, body scanners are designed not to penetrate the skin.. All that's needed is someone heavily overweight to go through the system, he said. I won't quote him directly on the details; suffice it to say he posits that a weapon or explosives pack could be tucked into flabby body folds that won't be penetrated by the scanner.
Homeland Security has not identified the airports that will test backscatters. More than a dozen have been selected...
~Even with their "miserable job identifying weapons" how many US airplanes have been commandeered or endangered by non-metallic explosive, ceramic knife, or even gun packing terrorists, nut-cases, disgruntled employees, etc., in the years airport screeners have been using magnetometers and ignoring baggage X-rays? What do the Israelis' do?
I smell pork-barrel security. But there's nothing like the threat of fiery death coupled with whiz-bang technology to negate centuries-old customs of modesty and justify new federal security jobs. It smells inevitable.*
When the use of these X-ated X-rays become popular (not only in airports?) will there be an increase in the number of fat travelers and others who fit security profiles contracting radiation-related cancers as screeners selectively use (Homeland Security classified) backscatter machines designed to get to THAT level of security?
Millimeter wave technology from security specialist Qinetiq is designed to detect not just metal but other threats, like ceramic knives and *hidden drugs. [image/caption: 1 of 2 with article]
~Is that a knife or is he just happy to see someone while wearing a glow-in-the-dark condom? (It's a knife in a glow-in-the-dark condom!)