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With full-body X-ray, a closer look at

air travelers

ByFaye Bowers, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor / February 26,2007

PHOENIX

Most passengers asked to submit to a full-body X-ray at Security Checkpoint B didn'tbat an eyelash. Nine in 10 gamely stepped up to a scanner about the size of a vendingmachine, placed their feet on the red footprints painted on the carpet, and raised theirarmsall in the name of airport security.

The aim of the new technology unveiled Friday at Phoenix Sky Harbor International

Airport: to allow officials to detect weapons

such as plastic explosives strapped tothe bodythat metal detectors and other security measures might miss.

A potential sticking point is that this machine, known as a backscatter, can seethrough clothes. Its deployment at the Phoenix airport is a test to see how well itworksand to assess how air travelers respond to its use. If passengers at Terminal 4who were asked to undergo body scans are an indication, security trumps privacy.

"Sure, I'd be happy to do it," said Ella Adams from Atlanta, who had stopped inPhoenix on Friday to catch a connecting flight to San Diego. "Privacy to me isn'tnearly as important as our security, especially if they assure me the X-rays aren'tharmful."

In all, the Phoenix airport has seven security checkpoints, and the body- scanningmachine has been installed for this pilot program at just one. About 8,000 travelers aday move through this checkpoint, says Paul Armes, security director at Sky Harborfor the federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

The backscatter will not be used for everyone who passes this way, at least not at first.A traveler would have to have set off alarms on the routine metal detector, or berandomly selected for further screening. Even then, travelers have two options: the

new X-ray machine, or a pat-down, which has caused passenger complaints aboutinvasiveness.

What the backscatter 'sees'

Privacy advocates remain wary of backscatter technology. Barry Steinhardt, directorof the technology and liberty program for the American Civil Liberties Union, likensit to a "virtual strip search." He hasn't seen a demonstration of the latest version of thetechnology, but he saw an earlier one at a Los Angeles city jail.

"The one I saw was very graphic, almost like a

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nude picture," he says. The technology has not been installed at airports until nowbecause of questions about privacy and how well it can detect possible weapons, addsMr. Steinhardt. "Utility is ... important here. People are being asked to trade theirprivacy for security. But first show us there is some security [benefit]."

Backscatter technology has been around for years, says Joe Reiss, vice president ofmarketing for American Science and Engineering Inc. (AS&E), which makes thebackscatter being tested in Phoenix. The technology has been used, for example, tocheck large cargo containers and passenger vehicles.

"About 15 years ago, this technology was incorporated in personal [body] scanningsystems," Mr. Reiss adds. For airport use, AS&E has adjusted the technology so thatwhat's depicted is only an outline of a passenger with private parts blurredand anyobjects on him or her, such as "a handgun, or a blade of a ceramic knife that wouldn'tbe discovered by a metal detector."

"This technology gives us an additional layer of capabilities to detect objects," saysMichael Golden, a technology expert for Southwest Airlines, who is on loan to theTSA. "This actually will show us where prohibited items are on the body," he says,though he declines to name all objects this machine can detect. "We think it is a goodbalance between security and privacy."

Other officials say the backscatter will be able to detect several items that othersecurity technologyincluding metal detectors cannot. Those items include plasticor ceramic knives, plastic explosives, and some liquid explosives. They say it can atbest prevent a bomb plot like the one uncovered in London last summer, in whichalleged terrorists planned to attack using liquid explosives.

What the screened passenger does

Here's how the screening is working so far. A traveler, after agreeing to the X-ray, iswalked through the process by a TSA employee. He or she stands on the red-paintedfootprints facing the scanner, with arms raised as if a police officer had yelled,"Hands up." Then the traveler turns around for a back pose.

Another TSA employee in a tiny, walled room about 50 feet away assesses the image.A man views images of male passengers, and a woman views images of women. The

images are not stored, government officials say, and they aren't transmitted anywhereelse. The process should take about 30 seconds.

Kenneth Johnson, a Vietnam veteran with artificial shoulder joints and an artificialknee, was among the first to be pulled out of line Friday for closer screening. Hechose the backscatter X-ray over the pat-down, saying he didn't mind it a bit.

As the TSA decides whether to buy the $100,000 machine, its pilot project is expectedto last up to 90 days. It may be expanded later this year, using another manufacturer,at Los Angeles International Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport inNew York.

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"We want to look at the operational capabilities of this machine and have a dialoguewith the public about their perceptions of its use," says Ellen Howe, assistantadministrator for the Department of Homeland Security.