Print Story: Phoenix airport to test X-ray screening on Yahoo! News

link to story: "Phoenix airport to test X-ray screening

Fri Dec 1, 7:02 AM ET

Sky Harbor International Airport here will test a new federal screening system that takes X-rays of passenger's bodies to detect concealed explosives and other weapons.

The technology, called backscatter, has been around for several years but has not been widely used in the U.S. as an anti-terrorism tool because of privacy concerns.

The Transportation Security Administration said it has found a way to refine the machine's images so that the normally graphic pictures can be blurred in certain areas while still being effective in detecting bombs and other threats.

The agency is expected to provide more information about the technology later this month but said one machine will be up and running at Sky Harbor's Terminal 4 by Christmas.

The security agency's Web site indicates that the technology will be used initially as a secondary screening measure, meaning that only those passengers who first fail the standard screening process will be directed to the X-ray area.

Even then, passengers will have the option of choosing the backscatter or a traditional pat-down search.

A handful of other U.S. airports will have the X-rays machines in place by early 2007 as part of a nationwide pilot program, TSA officials said."

Why don't we just go to the airport nude? This is a really big invasion of privacy! What if you have a colostomy, or a penile implant, do you want some smarmy TSA screener to know, and worse, do you want your naked photo in a federal data base? When will Americans rise up and say ENOUGH ALREADY! How many liberties do we think we should give up?

As I see it, I'll just volunteer to strip at the TSA counter like I did at the Senate office building in DC when they told me I had to remove all my protest buttons in order to go through the x-ray machine. The guards were alarmed. Scared of a 55 year old women stripping to her bra? Oh sad too bad.

Let's all strip in protest! Particularly all of you who have said you having nothing to hide where wire tapping is concerned. Are you ready to get naked at the airport?

Let's let our legislators to go first, and see just how brave they are.