Peninsula Daily News news sources
SEATTLE — Security checkpoints at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport will be outfitted with scanners that give inspectors a full-body image before the end of next month.
The first advanced-imaging technology (AIT) units at Sea-Tac are part of a nationwide installation, said Dwayne Baird of the Transportation Security Administration.
The scans, which effectively allow agents to see through clothes by scattering low-dose X-rays at a passenger’s front and back, produce a blurry nude image that can be screened for nonmetallic items such as weapons and explosives hidden under clothes.
To quell privacy concerns, TSA is making the screening optional, has agreed not to store the images and has set up a system so the pictures are viewed by a screener in another location where passengers can’t be seen in person.
“Every passenger has the option to refuse to go through these” and walk through a metal detector instead, Baird said. Those who do will be subject to a pat-down, a procedure that takes extra time, but one that privacy experts recommend for those who feel uncomfortable.
“People should not just accept this as a foregone conclusion,” said Ginger McCall, staff counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. Her organization has filed sued to stop the use of body scans, charging they are the equivalent of a digital strip-search.
That group and others also cite heath concerns over radiation exposure, “and there are substantial concerns about effectiveness,” said McCall, when it comes to the kinds of threats the machines will be able to detect.
The Department of Homeland Security ramped up installation of full-body scanners after a failed Christmas Day attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called “underwear bomber,” who hid powdered explosives in his pants while on board a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit.
But a report by the Government Accountability Office said the scanners might not have detected the bomb, and critics say they are not designed to find objects hidden in body cavities.
The TSA, however, says the scanners have been effective in finding potentially threatening objects, and attests to their safety, saying the radiation exposure is no more than a passenger would experience flying for two minutes at 30,000 feet.
Scientists at the University of California and New York’s Columbia University, however, have raised red flags and called for more study.
“The majority of their energy is delivered to the skin and the underlying tissue,” the California scientists wrote in what they titled a “Letter of Concern” in April.
While the dose of radiation would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high, they said.
“There are concerns among frequent fliers and airline crews who may be going through these scanners several times a day as they travel around the country,” said Steve Lott, U.S. spokesman for the Geneva-based International Air Transport Association, whose members include 230 U.S. and foreign airlines.
His group fears the TSA is moving too fast, with not enough long-term planning to predict problems.
“There’s a concern about who’s keeping up these machines,” said McCall. “Who’s going to be checking them to make sure they’re not emitting more radiation than anticipated?”
Kate Hanni, head of FlyersRights.org, a passenger rights organization, says her group is particularly worried about children flying alone.
The California scientists said the risk of radiation emission to children and adolescents did not appear to have been fully evaluated.
The machines, bought with federal stimulus money, cost $130,000 to $170,000 each.
