Sorry, But the TSA Still Wants to Scan You
Don't look now, but the TSA's full-body scanners are alive and well.
Late last week, news organizations breathlessly reported that the agency's X-ray scanners were being removed from America's airports , leaving many air travelers with the impression that the TSA had abandoned body scans as a primary screening method.
It hasn't.
The agency ended a contract with Rapiscan, which manufactured the X-ray "backscatter" scanners, after it failed to meet a congressional-ordered deadline to install privacy software on the machines. But only 174 units will be affected by the move.
The TSA will continue to scan airline passengers. In fact, the government is doubling down on so-called "advanced" imaging technologies, investing in supposedly less harmful millimeter-wave scanners.
Worse, the TSA seems to have no intention of turning its back on X-ray scanning technology, either. It’s simply switching to a manufacturer that makes better privacy software.
Pulling a fast one?
The initial reaction from readers -- and I'll admit, from me -- was relief.
"This is big news," I emailed to my editor after seeing the first reports.
"Horray!" exclaimed one reader.
"The scanners are out!" another traveler wrote to me.
We were all wrong, and in a way that only benefited the TSA. The agency couldn't have planned this one better if it had tried. Think about it: If people came away with the impression that the agency was pulling the plug on all of its scanners after hearing their health and privacy concerns, what a coup. Then, when we question the presence of the millimeter wave machines, it can just say those units are "safer" and that they "protect" your privacy.
I'm not sure we're that dumb -- or that the TSA is that smart.
No, this just looks like the same TSA we're used to, which throws a lot of untested technologies and screening methods at the figurative ceiling to see what sticks. The current X-ray scanners just peeled off. Time to try something else.
Unanswered questions
TSA's actions means we may never know how safe, or unsafe, the Rapiscan machines were. The agency reportedly glossed over the scanners' cancer risks, and critics claim they haven't been adequately tested. But now that the Rapiscan units are gone, who cares?
"I believe that they are burying potential problems," says Charles Leocha of the Consumer Travel Alliance, a Washington-based advocacy group I co-founded. Leocha serves on a TSA advisory panel.
"If all of the other studies about safety they claim were done proving the scanners were safe are valid, why not just release those results? Sadly, I have reached the conclusion that TSA has been lying to us and putting Americans' health in danger," he adds.
Maybe when TSA agents begin to get sick in high numbers because they worked near an X-ray scanner, we'll have some idea of how dangerous these decommissioned machines were. I already hear from a fair number of agents, who contact me through my consumer advocacy site. But by then it will probably be too late.
We also won't know what Rapiscan's X-ray scanners were truly capable of. Critics have likened the machines to a virtual strip-search. Former agents have confessed that they can see almost everything, right down to the stitches in a passenger's bra, and they aren't shy about sharing their views about your naked anatomy.
Just last week I heard from a reader whose entire family was screened by the machines. She, her husband and son walked through the scanners without incident. But an agent asked her attractive teenage daughter to return for a second scan. The reason? The first image was a little "blurry" according to an agent. She suspected (and so do I) that the TSA employees just wanted another look at her nude body.
I'm told that the scanners have several settings, ranging from detailed to grainy. When reporters were shown the technology a few years ago, the TSA used the "G"-rated setting, a colleague told me. Truth is, he said, the machines see everything.
Rapiscan couldn't develop software that sufficiently obscured our anatomy. That, in itself, should tell you something about what the machines could do. But it also suggests something about the other scanners. Maybe their manufacturers just write better code? Does that mean the privacy software on the remaining scanners is being used as intended? I wouldn't bet on it.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn that pictures of your naked body are still being taken and possibly stored somewhere.
The TSA should do what everyone thought it did last week. It should scrap all of its scanners and return to the common-sense metal detectors already used as a primary screening method for pilots, flight attendants, elite-level frequent fliers, foreign diplomats, active duty military and airport workers.
The easily-foiled scanners are a waste of your taxpayer money, an invasion of your privacy and most likely, a danger to your health.
By the way, after you've left a comment here, let's continue the discussion on my consumer advocacy site or on Twitter, Facebook and Google. I also have a free newsletter. Here's the signup form. Photo: Carolina Smith/Shutterstock
Customer Applications Manager at Health Level Inc
12 年@ John A - The bigger issue is the amount of radiation exposure that you and kids are receiving. In the medical field we now have to document and report exactly the amount of radiation that you get with a CT scan. These airport scanners give as much exposure. i attempted to wear a exposure meter thru the TSA scanner and was stopped. I know the technology behind this, i know what the software can do. it can read the writing on your underwear and see the dimples on your behind.
P h o t o g r a p h e D ' A r t
12 年I really don't understand all the fuss. Would I rather be scanned or be blown up by someone with C-4 in his underwear. simple choice I think..
AVSEC, ATC/ATM, C-T, MPA, AWCG, Author
12 年The DHS/TSA succumbed to “political correctness” this week when they withdrew the Rapiscan Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) AKA “Body Scanner.” It is not yet clear whether the DHS or the TSA made this decision. What is clear, at least to me, is that this was a major error on the part of whoever made this decision. Anyone following this subject will know that the TSA has been under fire for the past two years from selected minority elements of the scientific community and the privacy community to stop using this technology at TSA airport security screening checkpoints. The AITs Body Scanners are a major advancement in imaging/detection capability for the detection of contraband being carried by passengers under their clothing. The opposition groups claims that the AITs are 1) potentially injurious to one’s health, 2) are too graphic, and 3) are ineffective detectors. Privacy proponents of eliminating this technology objected to the graphic images portrayed by the two AIT operating units 1) the Rapiscan low-dose X-ray units, and 2) the L-3 Millimeter Wave (MMW) units. The TSA, in response to the privacy objections demanded that the manufacturers/suppliers of these units replace the graphic images with “stick-figures.” L-3 was able to quickly do so – Rapiscan has been unable to replace their graphic images with “stick-figures.” Rapiscan Low-dose X-ray units use ionizing (radiation) energy (L-3 MMW does not) to produce the graphic images. Some of the scientific communities (with and without credible credentials) have advanced claims about the possibility of adverse affects on the human body from the cumulative exposure to this ionizing radiation. Other members of the scientific and medical community have stated that the potential adverse effect from this exposure is minimal – equivalent to 10 minutes at 30,000 feet in a normal airplane flight. These events notwithstanding one privacy organization, along with their supporters, managed to obtain a ruling in a U.S. Federal Court in 2012 to require the TSA to conduct studies to prove that the exposure to the Rapiscan Low-dose X-ray Body Scanners is not harmful to humans. However the Federal Court also ruled that the TSA could continue to use the Rapiscan Low-dose X-ray units while this scientific study was being conducted. All of these factors have been exploited by the main-stream media and the lunatic fringe media elements in their publications as well as in selected Internet blogs. The DHS/TSA actions in deciding to withdraw the 174 Rapiscan Low-dose X-ray Body Scanners appears to be an attempt at “political correctness” as opposed to any real probability of any harmful medical results from the use of the Rapiscan units. Moreover, the DHS/TSA has used the excuse that Rapiscan cannot meet a June 2013 deadline to replace the graphic images with “stick-figures” as the reason to withdraw the Low-dose X-ray Body Scanners from use at TSA checkpoints. In taking this action the DHS/TSA has figuratively shot themselves in both feet (and all four feet considering both the DHS and the TSA). The DHS/TSA capitulation to the fringe scientific and privacy community along with the media seeking to sensationalize these minority views is doubly harmful to the DHS/TSA’s continued authority to deploy technology for the protection of the flying public. Their unwise DHS/TSA actions have empowered their minority opponents, i.e. the objecting minority segment of the scientific community and the privacy organizations. The DHS/TSA quit the fight without continuing to the point that would have resolved the claims by the DHS/TSA that the Rapiscan AITs are safe – and disproving the opposition’s claims that they are un-safe. The DHA/TSA has also left unresolved the issue of the privacy objections notwithstanding the TSA’s extensive actions to confine the viewing of any images to a select few TSA screening personnel. The U.S. public shares the DHS/TSA’s loss in power and the loss to the safety protection of the U.S. flying public in this unwise action for non-meritorious purposes. Likewise, the DHS/TSA has dis-empowered themselves in any similar future confrontations. Finally, what the U.S. does in regard to the technology and security measures often sets the standards to be followed by other nations in the aviation community. All in all this capitulation by the DHS/TSA is a major loss to the world’s aviation security systems.
AVSEC, ATC/ATM, C-T, MPA, AWCG, Author
12 年Your comment " the TSA seems to have no intention of turning its back on X-ray scanning technology, either. It’s simply switching to a manufacturer that makes better privacy software. " is totally incorrect. The L-3 millimeter wave (mmw) scanners that the TSA is retaining are not ionizing X-rays. You need to get your facts correct about technology before making unsupportale statements.
I've never gone through the invasive body scanner nor do I plan to.