I’m surprised this clip isn’t making more of the rounds in discussions on airport security, though it seems the editorial page at the New York Times would be on board with a plan to implement such technology:
The incident raises the immediate question of whether this country and others should now buy and widely deploy so-called whole body imagers, which can detect the presence of nonmetallic objects, including lethal chemicals, plastic explosives and ceramic knives.
The machines have been criticized by privacy advocates. We’ve had some qualms, too, especially with early versions that showed the outlines of a naked body too clearly. But security officials have managed to blur the images and adopted other procedures that should allay those concerns. What is needed is a rigorous and independent process of evaluation for whole body scanners and other equipment — the Transportation Security Administration has 10 at some stage of development — to figure out what provides the best security at the most rational cost.
In the meantime, we’ll all have to suffer “The Maddening Stupidity of the TSA Security Burlesque,” as explained by Jeffrey Goldberg.
