Logan will install body scanners

Nicole C. Wong
Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 1, 2008

The Transportation Security Administration said yesterday it will beef up screening at Boston’s Logan International Airport with better X-ray machines to check carry-on bags and full-body scanners that can see through clothing to detect whether travelers are concealing objects.

The TSA plans to outfit the airport in October or November with more than one of these so-called whole-body imaging machines, which have raised privacy concerns where they have been tested. The scanners produce three-dimensional images of people’s naked bodies, but the agency says procedures have been modified to protect passenger privacy.

The technology “allows us to screen passengers for any prohibited items quickly and unobtrusively,” said George Naccara, the TSA’s federal security director for Logan. “Efficiency and effectiveness will improve with whole-body imaging.”

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According to sample images shown on the TSA website, full-body scanners can display images that show details such as muscle definition. But the machines will blur passengers’ faces, which is one of the improvements the TSA has made.

“They’ve turned down the intensity a bit so some of the images under the clothes will be fuzzy,” he said. “They’ve also remotely located the person viewing the images so that person can’t associate the image with the passenger. We don’t have any capability to store or to print any of these images.”

The machines can detect nonmetallic objects hidden under clothing, such as explosives, and will replace pat downs of travelers who trigger a metal detector or are flagged as a “person of interest.”

Officials say the security enhancements aren’t in response to new threats at Logan. The Boston airport is often among the first to deploy innovative technologies, a lingering effect of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in which the two hijacked planes that brought down New York’s World Trade Center departed from Logan.

“Anything that can increase security over what we currently do is a marvelous thing,” said Dennis Treece, Massport’s director of corporate security. “That being said, there are privacy issues we wanted the TSA to sort out before it got here.”

Full article here.

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3 Responses to “Logan will install body scanners”

1. MLynch Says:
   July 1st, 2008 at 2:39 pm

   Imagine low I.Q’d,low grade minions,looking,examining,drooling,admiring or even laughing at everyone’s body parts and then having your loving government keeping all this data for future references(blackmail)If everybody opts for the pat-down instead of this disgusting machine,it will disappear.

2. BeTrueSeekTruth Says:
   July 2nd, 2008 at 4:31 am

   Let’s see if I have this straight. The touted explanation is to scan a person to determine if they are hiding something dangerous that they’re wishing to smuggle on to the plane with the intent of harming the other passengers. Their face will be “blurred” and an off location person will view the image. If they are smuggling something, how then will the screener be able to identify them to the on location security? Will they also have an image of their clothed body so they can describe them by this means? What if a number of people are wearing the same clothing as the newly detected “person of interest”? Also, how many terrorists acts have occurred on an airline since or before 2001 where this would have prevented the act? Also, would the alleged 19 hijackers been apprehended by this method? What if the boxcutters were not on their person but in a carry on bag? Didn’t they screen bags before 2001? Didn’t they also run metal detectors over people attempting to board airplanes? Were the boxcutters metal?

3. CB Ford Says:
   July 2nd, 2008 at 8:20 am

   I live in Boston and have boycotted Logan, and all commercial air travel for the past two years. Needless to say will continue to do so. I urge others to do the same. Boston’s SS also stakes out random subway stations and ’swabs’ bags to ensure your safety. Boston police killed another young Bostonian after the Celtics victory a few weeks ago. This place used to be the cradle of Liberty, the home of the Boston Tea Party, and the seat of resistance to Redcoat Tyranny. Now it’s filled with drooling dolts, and vapid, vainglorious collegiate schmucks. The entire city’s transportation grid was practically shut down two years ago by a childrens’ Light Bright kit depicting one of Aqua Teen’s ‘Mooninites’. We do not deserve this city’s heritage–we disgrace it. If the Sons of Liberty were around today, they’d burn this mother down.