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New concerns arise over body scanners – Chicago Tribune

As the government begins deploying whole-body imaging machines to replace metal detectors at airports nationwide, some security experts worry that the new technology could make it easier, not harder, to sneak weapons and explosives onto airplanes.

In the wake of the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing, the Transportation Security Administration decided to double its investment in the new machines, with a goal of installing 450 across the country by the end of the year and 1,800 by 2014.

The machines are best-known for the privacy issues they pose, because they can peer through clothes and present screeners with an image that some have likened to a virtual strip search. The government has addressed those concerns by obscuring the faces of those being screened, preventing examiners from seeing the passengers, and allowing the option of a physical pat down.

  • Wimpie

    Let me get this right.

    2 million passengers per day (in the US only) for the past 9 years (since 9/11) equals about 6.5 BILLION passengers.

    One nut tries to blow up a plane with explosives in his underwear which failed. (BTW: You can’t put enough explosives in your underwear to down a plane) and now OUR GOVERNMENT want to strip search or physically pat down all AMERICAN travelers at a cost of billions of dollars.

    Nobody has been killed by terrorists on an American aircraft since 9/11!

    Odds: 1 in 6.5 billion ? or less? the bombs didn't work!
    Powerball 1 in 40 million?
    State lottery 1 in 14 million.

    I'm 162 times more likely to win the state lottery, than to be killed by terrorists on a plane!

    WHAT ARE OUR LEGISLATORS SMOKING?

    What about the 300,000 killed in car crashes in the same period?

    What's wrong with this picture? Anybody see it like me?