Full-body scanners to arrive at Newark airport next month

Published: Friday, August 06, 2010, 6:16 AM - Updated: Friday, August 06, 2010, 3:17 PM

Susan Baer, director of aviation for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said Thursday the scanners would also be installed at John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports in September.

To date, 43 of the nation’s airports have been equipped with the technology, which is intended to enhance security at airport checkpoints by providing stark images of scanned passengers. The machines are viewed as more effective at protecting the nation’s skies than the metal detectors that have been in use up to now, because they allow screeners to detect even non-metal weapons or explosives that a would-be terrorist might be concealing within their clothing.

The Transportation Security Administration said the scanners would arrive as part of batch of 450 being shipped around the country by the end of this year. It is not clear how many machines will be installed at Newark.

The scanners will be installed under the TSA’s policy of screening every passenger, and not merely a sampling or select group fitting a profile. As at other airports, passengers may elect to avoid the scanners by submitting to a full-body pat-down and passing through a standard metal detector.

In March, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who overseas the TSA, announced a list of 11 airports that would be the first to receive the full-body scanners. It did not include any of the region’s three airports.

LaGuardia was included on a list of 20 additional airports announced in May, while Kennedy was on a list of 18 additional airports announced last month by Napolitano, who at the time said that still more airports would be named soon.

The anatomically precise imagery produced by the scanners — particularly the x-ray backscatter machines bound for Newark — is just one of the reasons the scanners have generated controversy. The Washington, D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, has sued the homeland security department to stop the use of the technology, charging it amounts to a virtual strip search of passengers that constitutes a violation of the Constitution’s protection against unreasonable search.

 

The x-ray machines have also raised health concerns because they expose scanned passengers to radiation. And while the dosage meets federal standards by the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies — the TSA says it’s the equivalent of two minutes of flying time in an airliner at cruising altitude — some researchers say the sheer number of passenger-trips Americans take every year means even an infinitesimal risk can add up to real consequences.

"That’s 800 million screenings per year," said David J. Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University. "If you multiply that risk by 800 million, then you’ve got a population issue."

Brenner is among those who have advocated using only the so-called millimeter wave scanners used by the TSA at some airports, which do not expose scanned passengers to radiation.

Ann Davis, a spokeswoman for the TSA, reiterated the agency’s position that the x-ray scanners, are safe. She said the agency has addressed privacy concerns by locating screeners and the monitors they use to view scanned images away from the public. If passengers are still prefer not to be scanned, Davis said, they can opt for a pat-down and metal detector.

There is also the potential for additional screening time the scanners will require, particularly while TSA staff and the flying public get used to the new machines.

Baer, who discussed the scanners briefly after a Port Authority board meeting today, acknowledged that "there could be" longer waits at checkpoints are a possibility when the scanners are implemented. But, she said, that is an issue for the TSA to grapple with.

Davis said actual screening time is five to seven seconds, plus another brief waiting period while a screener views the scanned image. The whole thing should take 20 seconds, she said.

But actual screening times have varied, in some cases taking more than a minute per passenger, which can be a considerable wait when hundreds of passengers are lined up waiting to get to the gate.

David Stempler, a spokesman for the Air Travelers Association, a passengers’ advocacy group, said that despite the various concerns, the organization supports full-body scanning.

"It does take a longer time, no question about that," Stempler said. "They’re a fact of life that passengers have to deal with now, and if it provides a safer system for passengers then we support it."