FOXNews.com: TSA to junk naked body airport scanners

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TSA to junk naked body airport scanners Jan 18th 2013, 19:17 Those airport scanners that leave nothing to the imagination are being scrapped by the Transportation Security Administration. The agency is ending a contract with Rapiscan, which manufactures the scanners which produce a naked image of travelers who pass through them. Privacy rights activists have complained that the scanners, first rolled out in 2007, constitute a virtual strip search. The TSA plans to continue using a scanner that is considered less invasive, and which makes a generic image showing where agents should look for an object on the traveler's body.  The TSA says the X-ray scanners will be gone by June because Rapiscan was not able to come up with a software fix to make the scanners comply with a Congressional mandate that the scanners better protect passenger privacy. Opponents of full-body scanners argue that strip searches without probable cause violate basic human rights. Governments do not have the right to make strip searches routine and mandatory, regardless of whether the strip search is done by physically removing clothes or by using technological means to remove the clothes. Advocates say the machines are efficient at spotting threats and are much faster than administering strip searches. But they have also generated complaints from critics who say the X-ray exposure they subject passengers to could be a health risk. The European Union last year banned the use of backscatter scanners at European airports over health concerns. "While TSA has told the public that the amount of radiation emitted from these machines is small, passengers and some scientific experts have raised questions about the impact of repeated exposure to this radiation," said Sen. Susan Collins (r-Maine), last month.

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