Those full-body scanners that got fast-tracked into use by the Transportation Security Administration in the wake of the underpants bomber of last holiday season don’t seem to be upsetting passengers quite as much as anticipated. This is likely good news for road warriors and traveling execs who’ll be getting scanned more often than most citizen travelers.
The TSA anticipated that travelers would be squeamish about agents doing these full body scans, but it seems that after scanning about 4 million passengers with the 80 machines now in use at U.S. airports, only about 600 of those scanned are griping about the experience.
The big reservations: modesty and radiation exposure. Both these worries, however, seem to be fading into the background as travelers become accustomed to the new scanners.
Still, nobody at the TSA seems to want to rock the public’s boat, so the word is that being scanned won’t be mandatory even when the technology’s widely deployed. Airline passengers will always get the option of a hands-on, pat-down instead.
If you really want to kill some time in the airport, there’s always that option. Otherwise, it doesn’t seem as if getting a full-body scan is annoying enough to prompt too much protest.
By the end of the year, it’s expected that about 450 body scanners will be in use in the nation’s airports.
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Tags: airport, full body scan, security, Transportation Security Administration, travelers, TSA
June 16th, 2010 at 11:54 am
Let me see if I have this right.
2 million passengers per day (in the US only) for the past 9 years (since 9/11) equals about 6.5 BILLION passengers.
One nut tries to blow up a plane with explosives in his underwear which failed. (BTW: You can’t put enough explosives in your underwear to down a plane) and now OUR GOVERNMENT wants to strip search or physically pat down all AMERICAN travelers at a cost of billions of dollars.
Nobody has been killed by terrorists on an American aircraft since 9/11!
Odds: 1 in 6.5 billion ? or less? the bombs didn’t work!
Powerball 1 in 40 million?
State lottery 1 in 14 million.
I’m 465 times more likely to win the state lottery, than to be killed by terrorists on a plane!
WHAT ARE OUR LEGISLATORS SMOKING?
Billions to strip search Air Travellers? Teachers all over the country out of work?
Cities & Towns going bankrupt?
What about the 300,000 killed in car crashes in the same period?
What’s wrong with this picture? Anybody see it like me?