House Curbs "Virtual Strip Searches" At Airports

By: Declan McCullagh
Topics: Domestic Issues

(CBS)

WASHINGTON--The Transportation Security Agency's plans to use X-rays to peek under air travelers' clothes may soon be shelved.

In a 310-118 vote on Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation that curbs the growing use of what critics call "virtual strip searches" at airport checkpoints.

Privacy groups say that the low-energy backscatter X-rays allow "a highly realistic image to be reconstructed... of the traveler's nude form" that's "detailed enough to show genitalia." The TSA, on the other hand, says it has made improvements to its scanning technology including a "privacy algorithm" that will provide the operator with vaguer outlines of body parts. (See related CBS News video.)

The House vote attached an amendment drafted by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, to a broader TSA bill.

Chaffetz's amendment says that whole body imaging "may not be used" as the primary method of passenger screening, and that passengers have the right to refuse it and "shall be offered a pat-down search" as an alternative. It also prohibits the storage or transmission of the whole-body images after they're no longer necessary for screening.

"Whole-body imaging is exactly what it says; it allows TSA employees to conduct the equivalent of a strip search," Chaffetz said in a statement after the vote. "Nobody needs to see my wife and kids naked to secure an airplane."

Chaffetz had first introduced the measure as a standalone bill in April. His original bill made it a federal crime for a TSA screener to share or copy a passenger image; that penalty vanished in the final version attached as an amendment.

Backscatter X-rays are relatively low-power and are believed to be safe even for frequent flyers. One manufacturer, Rapiscan Systems, boasts that its equipment can detect "explosives, narcotics, ceramic weapons" such as ceramic knives that traditional metal detectors can't. (A competing technology is called millimeter wave.)

On May 31, a coalition of advocacy groups including the ACLU, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Gun Owners of America, and the Consumer Federation of America sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano asking her to "suspend the program until the privacy and security risks are fully evaluated."

TSA says that it's currently using millimeter wave technology at 19 U.S. airports, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Washington Reagan National.

During the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., Peter Pietra, the TSA's director for privacy policy and compliance, defended full-body scanning technology. (See CNET's 2006 interview with Pietra.)

"It's much better for me than going through a magnetometer," Pietra said. There's "an awful lot of work that's gone into it." Any suggestions on how to improve the privacy of the screening process, he said, could be sent to tsaprivacy@dhs.gov.

On Thursday, the full House approved the Transportation Security Administration Authorization Act by a vote of 397 to 25. Now the bill heads to the Senate, which could choose to preserve or strip out the privacy amendments.

Declan McCullagh is the chief political correspondent for CNET. Declan previously was a reporter for Time and the Washington bureau chief for Wired and wrote the Taking Liberties section and Other People's Money column for CBS News' Web site.
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by ge556 June 6, 2009 11:03 PM EDT: Chaffetz is one of the politicians from Utah, the reddest of all the states. I thought liberals opposed the efforts to fight terrorism not a supposed Republican like Chaffetz! This Utahn says shame on Chaffetz!!!!!
Posted by denn034 at 4:39 PM : Jun 6, 2009

I'm glad to see that your blindness to any issue other than fighting terrorism is nonpartison.; Reply to this comment


by denn034 June 6, 2009 7:39 PM EDT: Chaffetz is one of the politicians from Utah, the reddest of all the states. I thought liberals opposed the efforts to fight terrorism not a supposed Republican like Chaffetz! This Utahn says shame on Chaffetz!!!!!; Reply to this comment


by sjc_1 June 6, 2009 5:42 PM EDT: I suggested right after 9/11 that they use long wave infrared digital photography. It "looks" right through clothes without violating privacy. Anything strapped to the body shows up, because body heat can not pass through.; Reply to this comment


by gravyboat3000 June 6, 2009 4:09 PM EDT: Damn! I just applied for a job as the person who gets to see the x-rays. Why bother now?; Reply to this comment


by Jim1900 June 6, 2009 4:03 PM EDT: I am so annoyed with the airlines over delays and canceled flights the past few years that we are driving now, and seeing a lot more of the country.; Reply to this comment


by nofoolling June 6, 2009 3:03 PM EDT: Never, never, never, ever submit to these incredibly unncessary and totally ridiculous cyber porno strip searches.

Grow a backbone and stop letting these pathetic chicken little war mongerers cry wolf over nothing.

If they can't secure an airplane without these kind of extreme invasions, they should park every dam one of them.

Especially considering all this overkill ridiculousness of treating citizens as common criminals at airports was prompted by the inside black-ops job pulled off by Bush and Darth the Cheney on 911, as part of their scare us into war plan, its beyond heinous to even consider submitting to their porno-jollys.

Next they'll be talking about routine body cavity searches, and non-invasive exploratory surgery to check your liver for nitro.

Or maybe they'll make us fly nude locked in one of those little cages they use to transport pets!

Just say no!

Loudly!

You don't scare me Darth. I'd rather live free than die quaking in my boots.; Reply to this comment


by PVperson2 June 6, 2009 1:30 PM EDT: It doesn't matter, as soon as the news reports cloth being woven from explosive material, we'll all be traveling nude anyway.; Reply to this comment


by taxchurches June 6, 2009 1:20 PM EDT: Americans are such incredible *******.; Reply to this comment


by riob678 June 6, 2009 1:12 PM EDT: Follow the money! You can bet you're virtual search that a politician, or former politician, is directly connected to the manufacturer of the equipment. Wanding and pat down searches are repugnant; E-searches are perverse and unwarranted. TSA personnel who are impressively undereducated can't be held responsible for performing their jobs. However, the fearmongers who implemented the TSA in the first place, and who are now Joe Private
Citizens, should be thoroughly investigated, brought to trial, and then E-searched on their way through the prison doors.; Reply to this comment


by harpoot June 6, 2009 12:39 PM EDT: OK, so there's gonna be more hand waving in toilet stalls as the senators can't get their scan DVD's for free any more.; Reply to this comment