House to consider ban on airport body scans (6/1/09) — www.GovernmentExecutive.com
House lawmakers expect to take up legislation Wednesday that would prohibit government security officials from using controversial whole-body imaging machines to screen airplane passengers at primary airport checkpoints.The machines are being tested at 19 airports by the Transportation Security Administration, with six airports allowing passengers to voluntarily go through them at primary security checkpoints and the rest using scanners at secondary checkpoints.
The machines use millimeter-wave technology that shows a three-dimensional image of a passenger without clothes. The images allow security officials to determine whether somebody is hiding threatening objects under their clothes.
But lawmakers and civil liberties advocates say the machines raise too many privacy concerns.
