Thursday, July 21, 2011

o'sama laughed - new TSA body scanner software within weeks (at some locations)

It's just as I opined some months ago that the TSA scanners could be modified to eliminate the image of a person's body revealing only suspicious articles without intruding on one's personal privacy.   Why the government didn't require this from the onset of the TSA body scanning program is a mystery other than its "rush to judgement, knee jerk mentality" to a perceived crisis and coincidentally funding their deployment into a company with close ties to the Obama administration.   Regardless, if the TSA makes the change to all body scanners then the considerable objections to their use would be minimized.  In fact, I might be less inclined to rag on the TSA's tendency to 'put its boot on the throat of our 4th Amentment' abuses.  -- rfh

Cleveland Hopkins could get new TSA body scanner software within weeks

Published: Thursday, July 21, 2011, at http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2011/07/cleveland_hopkins_could_get_ne.html
Alison Grant, The Plain Dealer By Alison Grant, The Plain Dealer






ATR Screenshot.jpgView full sizeTransportation Security AdministrationThe Transportation Security Administration announced Wednesday that it has begun installing software on screening units that will give passengers more privacy. The new software enables the machines, which use radio frequency energy, to show a standard silhouette of the person being scanned -- something like a cookie-cutter outline -- instead of a see-through-clothes image that gives more bodily detail.




CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Passengers flying out of Cleveland can expect less revealing body scans at airport security checkpoints by the end of summer.
     The Transportation Security Administration announced     Wednesday that it has begun installing software on screening units like the one at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport that will give passengers more privacy.
     TSA spokesman Jim Fotenos said Thursday the agency doesn't have an airport-by-airport schedule on when the software will be in place. But he said all 41 airports with millimeter wave scanners will be updated within a couple months.
     The new software enables the machines, which use radio frequency energy, to show a standard silhouette of the person being scanned -- something like a cookie-cutter outline -- instead of a see-through-clothes image that gives more bodily detail. The agency faced a public backlash last year over what critics called a "virtual strip search."
     The updated machines send a person's image to a small screen attached to the scanning booth. If suspicious items are detected, they show up as little boxes outlined in red. Passengers who trigger an alert and people who refuse the scanners will get enhanced pat-downs.
     The TSA said body scanners are the best technology available today for detecting well-concealed non-metallic explosives, considered one of the most severe threats.
     The agency tested the software changes on millimeter wave machines at airports in Atlanta, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C., before the nationwide rollout.
     Another 78 airports have different security equipment, the backscatter scanner, that uses low-intensity X-rays. The TSA plans to begin testing the new software on those scanners later this year.