Privacy concerns over so-called "nude" airport security scanners have again been raised after a website published 100 scans of passengers. Technology blog Gizmodo published the scans last week after removing identifying features.
The scans were sourced from a courthouse in Orlando, Florida, where, Gizmodo reported, US marshals had improperly stored the images. US authorities have repeatedly assured the passengers that body scans could not be stored and would therefore never be made public.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has stated that the technology "cannot store, print, transmit or save the image. In fact, all machines are delivered to airports with these functions disabled." The TSA began rolling out full-body scanners at US airports in 2007, but stepped up deployment of the devices this year when stimulus funding made it possible to buy another 450 of the advanced imaging technology scanners.
About 315 "naked" scanners are in use at 65 US airports, the TSA said. Gizmodo said the leaking of the scans is evidence that the privacy concerns are well founded. "That we can see these images today almost guarantees that others will be seeing similar images in the future," Joel Johnson wrote on the website.
The leak coincides with the introduction of new security procedures at US airports, including a more extensive pat-down for passengers who refuse to go through an electronic body scanner.
The changes have met with protests from passengers, with some likening the pat-downs to sexual assault. An internet campaign has urged Thanksgiving travellers to boycott the scans.
America's airport security chief has urged take part in the protest on Wednesday - one of the busiest flying days of the year - as the government tightens security during the holiday season.
"We all wish we lived in a world where security procedures at airports weren't necessary," TSA chief John Pistole said on Monday, "but that just isn't the case." A loosely organised internet campaign is urging people to refuse the scans on Wednesday in what is being called National Opt-Out Day.
The extra time needed to pat down people could cause a cascade of delays at dozens of major airports, including those in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta.
Despite tough talk on the internet, there was little if any indication of a passenger revolt on Monday at many major US airports, with very few people declining the X-ray scan that can peer through their clothes Those who refuse are subjected to a pat-down search that includes the crotch and chest.
Many travellers said that the scans and the pat-down were not much of an inconvenience, and that the stepped-up measures made them feel safer. "Whatever keeps the country safe, I just don't have a problem with," Leah Martin, 50, of Houston, said as she waited to go through security at Atlanta airport.
At Chicago's O'Hare Airport, Gehno Sanchez, 38, from San Francisco, said he didn't mind the full-body scans. "I mean, they may make you feel like a criminal for a minute, but I'd rather do that than someone touching me," he said.
More than 400 imaging units are being used at about 70 airports. Since the new procedures began on November 1, 34 million travellers have gone through checkpoints and fewer than 3 per cent are patted down, the TSA said. The American Civil Liberties Union has received more than 600 complaints over three weeks from passengers who say they were subjected to humiliating pat-downs at US airports, and the pace is accelerating, according to ACLU legislative counsel's Christopher Calabrese.
At the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs said the government was "desperately" trying to balance security and privacy and would take the public's concerns and complaints into account as it evaluated the new security checks. Stories of alleged heavy-handed treatment by TSA agents captured people's imagination.
A bladder cancer survivor from Michigan who wears a bag that collects his urine said its contents spilled on his clothing after a security agent at a Detroit airport patted him down roughly. Tom Sawyer, 61, a retired special education teacher, said the experience on November 7 left him in tears. "I was absolutely humiliated. I couldn't even speak," he told MSNBC.com.
During an appearance on CBS, Pistole expressed "great concern over anybody who feels like they have not been treated properly or had something embarrassing" happen. A video showing a shirtless young boy resisting a pat-down at Salt Lake City's airport has become a YouTube sensation and led to demands for an investigation from Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz, an outspoken critic of TSA screening methods. The video of the unidentified boy was shot on Friday by a bystander with a mobile phone.
The TSA said in a blog posting that nobody has to disrobe at an airport checkpoint apart from removing shoes and jackets. According to the TSA, the boy was being searched because he triggered an alarm inside a metal detector, and his father removed the youngster's shirt to speed up the screening. The boycott campaign was launched on November 8 by Brian Sodergren of Virginia, who works in the healthcare industry.
"I just don't think the government has the right to look under people's clothes with no reasonable cause, no suspicion other than purchasing a plane ticket," Sodergren said. He said he had no idea how many passengers plan to opt out on Wednesday, but added: "I am absolutely amazed at the response and how people have taken to it. I never would have predicted it. I think it hit a nerve."
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