Women Singled Out for Body Scans in Dallas
CBS reports women at the DFW International Airport in Texas felt they were singled out for body scans because they were attractive. The initial complaint came from a woman who had been asked to step through the body scanner three times by a woman screener. The screener asked whether the woman played tennis because she had a "cute body". On the third time through, the woman apparently became frustrated with her male coworkers that were viewing the scanned images in the other room and told them, "Guys, it is not blurry, I’m letting her go. Come on out."
CBS requested the TSA documentation on complaints and found a consistent pattern. One result of this incident is Charles Shumer (D NY) is introducing legislation in the Senate that would require a passenger advocate in each airport.
Security researcher Bruce Schneier calls the whole screening process security theater, saying "We roll out full-body scanners, even though they wouldn’t have caught the Underwear Bomber, so they put a bomb in a printer cartridge. We ban printer cartridges over 16 ounces — the level of magical thinking here is amazing — and they’re going to do something else."
Dallas/FTworth and Love representatives say the body scan devices have been upgraded to a privacy enhancing variety.
Regular body scan:
image courtesy: http://www.kpbs.org/
Privacy Enhanced Scans:
image courtesy: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/
Top image courtesy: http://mundicogito.wordpress.com
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