1-5-2010 Global:
Since explosive materials were sneaked onto a U.S. domestic flight on Christmas Day, full-body scanning machines are far more likely to make their way to security lines at your local airport, even though they might not have detected said materials.
While the Transportation Security Administration already has 40 such devices in place, it just bought 150 to be placed in U.S. airports and says it plans to buy 300 more (they go for $170,000 apiece). On Wednesday, the Netherlands announced that these scanners would be used on passengers for all flights out of Amsterdam to the U.S., and there is talk of scanners in Nigeria as well.
So, setting aside the non-health-related question of whether the scanners will work in detecting explosive materials, are they safe?
These full-body scanners fall into two main categories: millimeter wave and backscatter. The first directs radio waves over a body and measures the energy reflected back to render a 3D image. The latter is a low-level X-ray machine that creates 2D images.
The scanners are supposed to be the high-tech (and energy-inefficient) version of a pat down, and can detect items such as nonmetallic weapons and explosives not picked up by metal detectors. (They only scan surfaces, so body cavity stashing may soon get all the more popular.)
Millimeter wave scanners produce 30 to 300 gigahertz electromagnetic waves, and reveal explosives if they are denser than other materials. This means that these scanners emit less radiation than a typical cell phone, according to TSA. Whether cell phones are harmful is of course the topic of many debates.
The backscatter machines, meanwhile, are low-level X-ray machines that expose bodies to as much radiation as about two minutes of flying in an airplane does. In other words, if you already use a cell phone and you already fly, you are already exposing your body to more radiation than these scanners will.
David Brenner, professor of radiation biophysics at Columbia University and co-author of a report on radiation scanning systems (PDF here), tells me that the risks associated with these low-level radiation scanners are extremely small.
"As far as we know there are no risks associated with the millimeter wave scanners, so my own view is that if you have a choice, you'd want to use the millimeter wave scanners, not the X-ray scanners," he said. "But that being said, the risks, if they exist, are very small. The issue is that small risk multiplied by a very large number of people gives you some population concerns."
As for privacy concerns, TSA writes:This state-of-the-art technology cannot store, print, transmit or save the image. In fact, all machines are delivered to airports with these functions disabled...Each image is automatically deleted from the system after it is cleared by the remotely located security officer.
According to TSA, six full-body scanners are being used at airports in Albuquerque, N.M.; Las Vegas; Miami; San Francisco; Salt Lake City; and Tulsa, Okla. The other 34 are used for secondary screening of people who set off a metal detector in Atlanta; Dallas/Fort Worth; Denver; Detroit; Indianapolis; Jacksonville and Tampa, Fla.; Los Angeles; Phoenix; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Richmond, Va.; and two airports in the Washington, D.C., area: Baltimore/Washington and Reagan National.
If you'd rather not give TSA officials a sneak peek at your body's personal contours, you'll have to put up with a physical pat-down instead. Hey, at least somewhere along the way there's a personal choice on precisely what form one's invasion of personal space will take. ..Source.. by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore
January 5, 2010
Can full-body airport scanners harm you?
Child Porn Laws Impede Airport Searches
1-5-2010 Global:
British Government Outlines New Airport Security Crackdown
The British government today outlined its plans for security crackdowns at airports but said it will need to examine the legalities of the new security regulations, as well as scramble to implement them in the wake of the Christmas Day bomb plot.
The disruption caused by Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab's failed attempt to destroy a Northwest Airlines plane with a bomb hidden in his underwear has highlighted the gaps in air travel security, and has led the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to begin an overhaul of airport safety regulations.
In an address today to the British Parliament, the U.K. Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, said the new security directives at British airports would be made effective within three weeks.
He said all British airports must now possess explosion trace detection equipment, and that the British Airports Authority was already in the process of training its staff to catch any signs of suspicious or unusual behavior in passengers that would require closer inspection.
"We will be considering all the issues involved, mindful of civil liberties concerns, aware that identity-based profiling has its limitations," Johnson said, "but conscious of our overriding obligations to protect people's life and liberty."
Full-Body Scan of a Child: Indecent Image?
Much has been made of the issue of profiling minors under the age of eighteen and safeguarding any images captured of them. Britain's child pornography laws currently prevent young people from being searched by body scanners. A scan could be a violation of laws that protect children from having indecent images taken of them.
"The government has a problem and so do the airports as the laws governing child protection are very tightly drawn," said Terri Dowty, Director of Action on Rights for Children. "The way the law stands at the moment, it is an offense for anyone to make an indecent image of a child and the legal advice is that any image that shows a child's genitals is highly likely to be indecent.
"We can't have people misapply this law for their own convenience," she said. "They would face prosecution, it's a fundamental principle. If it is inconvenient we have to go back to parliament."
Airport screeners who operate the high-tech scanners are being specially trained, and their vetting for the job includes a check of the British sex offenders' register.
The issue of civil liberties is one that the British Government will have to address carefully. The body scanners are being tried out at Manchester airport in the north of England.
When a passenger enters a body scanner, a radio wave is emitted that penetrates clothing and bounces off the body, creating an image of the person's naked body and any objects that are hidden in clothing.
Critics say the procedure amounts to a strip search.
As the passenger stands in the scanner, the naked image of the passenger is transmitted to a sole, remote operator who is stationed in another part of the airport and will not see the face of the person inside the scanning machine. The operator will then mark any objects present on the passenger and send a schematic diagram of the person's profile to the officers operating the scanner for further examination
"There are two options available if the passenger has to undergo a further search -- they will either go in the scanner machine or go undergo pat-down search if they refuse to go through the machine, which is what is open to everyone at the moment," John Greenway, Manchester Airport's press officer, told ABC News. "There will be no way to communicate between the remote officer and the machine operator, so tip-off of celebrities that come through will not be possible."
Human rights groups are questioning how the scanner will be used. It is not practical to give every passenger a full body-scan, which raises the issue of profiling.
"There are real concerns about profiling people based on race, religion, ethnicity, and it's potentially counterproductive and allows those who you wish to profile to change tactic," Isabella Sankey, Director of Policy at Liberty, an independent civil liberties group, told ABC News, "We all accept that there is a sensitivity surrounding this and that you can pick-up on a behavioral profile, but anything done based on stereotyping or racial profiling would be worrying".
British government officials say they are only doing "passenger profiling" -- a term which would rule out scanning of very young or older passengers. They say searches would not be done on the basis of race or ethnicity but would be based on behavioral profiles and suspicious conduct. ..Source.. SONIA GALLEGO
