100th Monkey
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The invasive process of going through today's U.S. airport safety checkpoints are no longer simply a matter of removing your shoes and submitting to Transportation Security Administration gropings. Controversial new body scanners have turned every flight into an opportunity to have a naked scan of your body shown off to security agents. Thankfully, that's all about to change.
According to a report in Bloomberg, the TSA will cancel its contract with OSI Rapidscan, the makers of the body scanners that use backscatter technology to determine whether or not a passenger is carrying a weapon of some sort. Much of the controversy around the scanners has centered on the fact that the scans appear to show off a near-nude version of a person's body, but another concern for many passengers is the low-dose X-ray radiation the machines use to create the body scans.
As recently as last month, the TSA posted a notice on its website indicating that testing regarding the effects of backscatter Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) was in the works. However, the removal of the scanners is actually due to OSI's inability to meet a deadline to come up with software that would make the body scans less revealing.
The TSA removed 76 of the machines last year and will now ditch the remaining 174 in operation at U.S. airports. If for some reason you haven't flown in the last few years and so haven't had the extreme pleasure of experiencing one of these body scans, you can see how it works in the video below.
More:
http://dvice.com/archives/2013/01/strip-show-over.php