Airport Screeners Get X-Ray Vision

No more privacy...

A scanner the government is testing for airport screening reveals much more than meets the eye to be comfortable for most passengers.

Susan Hallowell, director of the Transportation Security Administration's security laboratory, sacrificed a large measure of her own modesty Wednesday to demonstrate the problem.

She stepped into a metal booth that bounced X-rays off her skin to produce a black-and-white image that revealed enough to produce a world-class blush.

Her dark skirt and blazer disappeared on the monitor, where she showed up naked - except for the gun and bomb she had hid under her outfit.

"It does basically make you look fat and naked, but you see all this stuff," Hallowell said.

The agency hopes to modify the machines with an electronic fig leaf - programming that fuzzes out sensitive body parts or distorts the body so it does not appear so, well, graphic.

Another option would be to restrict the screener to a booth so no passing peepers can see the image, said Randal Null, the agency's chief technology officer.

Null hopes to conduct pilot programs with the machines at several airports this year. A test run with volunteers at Orlando International Airport in Florida met with mixed results, he said.

Some were uncomfortable with the technology - called "backscatter" because it scatters X-rays - while others proclaimed it "a whole lot nicer than having someone pat me down," he said.

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They have already developed a way to modify the scanners to mak ethe body scanned gender neutral.

Since when has a security officer never seen a naked person? We act like nudity is some type of immortal enemy. Come on people, we all come out naked. Is it really that terrible to have a stupid little x-ray that shows you are male or female?

I dont care but you and I know that many people will complain.

well i don't see a problem with this at all. i think it's quite cool actualy. would you rather get strip searched by some one? i'd think not. this is a much better alternative.

Well, I suppose it wouldn't be too bad........but I thought that X-Rays were dangerous enough already, without being shot all over you!?

Still you know that there are people out there would not want to be seen naked. I would not really care. I think the X-ray system is cool. They should be everwhere.