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Monday January 3, 12:24 AM
Controversial Airport Scanners Perform Electronic Strip Searches
Celebs like Diana Ross as well as everyday air travelers have complained about intrusive physical searches by security agents at the world's airports. Now, thanks to some new x-ray technology, airline guards no longer have to rely on their fingers to do the walking.
In Monday's editions, Britain's Electronic Telegraph reports that a new x-ray scanner can now penetrate the clothing of suspect passengers, revealing their naked bodies to customs officers as they pass through security checkpoints. What's more, the new contraption, dubbed "The Body Search Machine," has been in place in New York and five other American cities for several months.
"Security officers can look at pictures of the human body in outline regardless of how much clothing passengers are wearing," reports the London publication. "According to a spokesman for the manufacturers, the images of the body are not clear, although genitals and breasts are clearly distinguishable."
Cogizant of the potential public anxiety caused by the high-tech strip searches, a spokesman for the device's manufacturer was careful to insist, "It is not like you are getting a photograph of a naked person."
And Raymond Kelley, former New York City Police Commissioner and now head of the US Customs Bureau, explained that the new machines were the lesser of two evils. "People object to being physically touched and in response to that we brought in the scanners."
Previously, the only option for agents who suspected drug or weapons smuggling was to order passengers to submit to a full body cavity search. The practice has resulted in several lawsuits against the Customs Service, mainly from women and members of ethnic minorities, claiming discrimination in singling out passengers for body searches.
Not everyone is pleased with the new science. The American Civil Liberties Union's Gregory Nojeim told the paper that his organization was considering legal action to prohibit use of the new strip search technology. "If there is ever a place where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, it is under their clothing," complained Nojeim.
For now, the Customs Bureau refuses to say which airports besides New York currently feature the new "Body Search Machine." But an agency spokesman did tell the Telegraph that it planned to install the strip search x-ray scanners at all international airports in America by next June.
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