TSA Begins Testing New Airport Scanners
"Millimeter Wave" Machine Uses Radio Waves, Not Radiation; Alternative To Pat-Downs
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Play CBS Video Video High-Tech Airport Scanners The government will begin testing new airport security scanners, which will utilize Passenger Imaging Technology, a 3D-generated image of a person's body. Tara Mergener reports.
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Officials are trying to determine if the body-scan machines are a more effective search tool than a pat-down. (CBS)
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Tests were scheduled to begin Thursday at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport with passengers pulled out of the security line for secondary screening. Passengers may request the full-body scan - which blurs faces so the person being screened cannot be recognized - instead of the traditional pat-down used across the country.
"This way, they won't have to have anyone touch them, and they can get through the process very quickly," said Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Ellen Howe.
The new machine uses radio waves to detect foreign objects.
Officials are trying to determine if the body-scan machines are a more effective search tool than a pat-down. Both types of machines check for explosives, metal, plastic and liquids - anything hidden on the body, said Mike Golden, the Transportation Security Administration's chief technology officer.
The new type of device being tested, called a "millimeter wave" machine, doesn't use radiation, Golden said Wednesday during a demonstration for reporters at the agency's headquarters in Arlington, Va. Instead, it uses electromagnetic waves to create an image based on energy reflected from the body.
A similar machine, which does use X-ray radiation, will soon be tested at airports in New York and Los Angeles, reports CBS News correspondent Dan Raviv (audio).
Since February, the Phoenix airport has been testing a machine that uses so-called backscatter radiation to scan the entire body. The backscatter uses a narrow, low-intensity X-ray beam that scans the entire body at a high speed. The amount of radiation used during this scan is equal to 15 minutes of exposure to natural background radiation such as the sun's rays.
The non-radiation millimeter wave machine works like this: A person walks into a large portal - nearly 9 feet tall and 6 feet wide - pauses and lifts his arms while the machine takes two scans using radio waves. The scans take 1.8 seconds, and it takes about a minute for the image to appear on a computer screen in a separate location.
"You don't have to worry about being patted down, they don't have to have somebody there to pat you down. It'll save time, I think, if anything," traveler Mark Bongiovi told CBS News.
I continue to believe that these are virtual strip searches.
Barry Steinhardt, American Civil Liberties UnionTo protect privacy, the image will be shown on screens in a completely different area than where the screening is taking place. The TSA officer doing the screening will never see the computer image, and images will not be saved, TSA spokeswoman Ellen Howe said.
Reporters were only shown an example of a female body image, which was a three-dimensional image of a very fit woman in her brassiere and underwear. TSA describes this as similar to a "fuzzy photo negative."
Privacy advocates say the images are more graphic than that.
"If you want to see a naked body, this is a naked body," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's program on technology and liberty.
Steinhardt also received a demonstration of the new machine, which he says shows the same graphic image as the backscatters.
"I continue to believe that these are virtual strip searches," Steinhardt said. "If Playboy published them, there would be politicians out there saying they're pornographic."
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport and the Alexandria, Va., federal courthouse use the millimeter wave machines, TSA said.
TSA purchased eight of the millimeter wave machines, which cost between $100,000 and $120,000, and is considering deploying them at John F. Kennedy and Los Angeles international airports during the testing period. The results of the testing will determine whether to use these machines for primary screening, Howe said.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 21 CommentsNeed I remind you these boxes are packed by POSTAL EMPLOYEES....
It doesn''t matter how good the technology is. Technology will not stop everything. There are no guarantees out there. All you can do is protect yourself and those you love. Personal responsibility, yes, that''s what growing up is all about. By the way, name-calling isn''t necessary.
This is like the joke about the guy beating his pool cue on the pool table. Someone asks him why - he answers that he is "keeping the elephants away." "Elephants? There are no elephants within a thousand miles from here." His answer, "See, it is working!"
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Are you that iq-less? It''s a new technology to prevent problems like the subway bombings in England. This technology could have prevented that. But noooo, you would rather be complacent with terrorists knowing we won''t use such technology to prevent these dispicable acts. Yeah, grow up!
Posted by vbnvbn at 02:19 PM : Oct 11, 2007
Exactly how many facilities, airplains, subways, etc. have been saved with this intrusion into our lives?
This is like the joke about the guy beating his pool cue on the pool table. Someone asks him why - he answers that he is "keeping the elephants away." "Elephants? There are no elephants within a thousand miles from here." His answer, "See, it is working!"
there has to be a better way to protect ourselves than letting the government listen in to all our phone calls, read our email and strip search everyone riding an airplane
Dirty middle-aged male
This whole TSA endeavor ranges from the ridiculous to the sublime. From one day to the next, you never know which you will get. This new one is a *serious* violation of privacy.
Aside from the idiot who tried to set his shoelaces on fire, all I have seen were the day to day stress reactions to being treated like dirt, forced to endure delays, forced to sit in over-crowded conditions for hours and being herded like cattle.
TSA first response personnel are high school dropouts who get 5 hours of training before being armed and turned loose on the public. They have unlimited power, but no insight about using it. No matter how many new instruments TSA gets (that we are paying for), the methods being used will never catch what they want to stop. If you know how to do it, your thumb can be used as a weapon, if you can kick high enough, your foot can be used as a weapon. These people are idiots on taypayer payroll.
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