US widens use of full-body scan at airports

WASHINGTON - American transportation officials said Wednesday they will add 150 full-body scanners to the 40 already operating in US airports.
The move comes in response to a Nigerian mans Christmas Day attempt to bring down a Detroit-bound airliner with explosives sewn into his underwear, The Christian Science Monitor reported.
Experts say the full-body screening equipment could have detected the explosives used in the alleged terror attempt but the screening equipment has been used on only a small fraction of passengers amid concerns about privacy, costs and growing lines at airport security.
The 40 existing scanners are used in about 20 airports but mostly for secondary searches. The US House decided last summer the machines could not be used for primary screenings, The Monitor said.
Airline security reviews ordered by President Barack Obama are expected to include a recommendation for more widespread use of full-body scanners in US airports, Politico reported.
While many called for tighter airline security, including full-body scans, critics stepped up opposition to what civil libertarians called a virtual strip search that would invade passengers privacy.
ASSAULT ON PRIVACY
That degree of examination amounts to a significant-and for some people humiliating-assault on personal privacy to which travellers in a free country should not automatically be subjected, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement Wednesday.
The ACLU also questioned the effectiveness of the screening tool. Plastic explosives can be hidden from them, as can explosives hidden in body cavities, which al-Qaeda has already used to launch attacks, the ACLU said.
Others questioned the practicality and potential of the effort to boost security. You would have to put (scanners) in every airport from Nantucket to Namibia to make them effective, and even then, theyre not 100 percent effective, aviation expert George Hobica told the Monitor. Small airports and foreign airports are the chink in the armour.
In the Netherlands, where Flight 253 originated, Dutch officials said airports will immediately start compulsory full-body scans of US-bound travellers.
But concerns over privacy rights have slowed adoption of full-body scanning in European Union countries, the EU observer reported.
Reuters adds: The Netherlands and Nigeria said on Wednesday they would use full-body scanners at airports after a failed Xmas Day attack on a US-bound plane by a 23-year-old Nigerian suspect who passed through both countries.
Amsterdams Schiphol Airport will begin using the scanners-which see through clothing-within three weeks to check people traveling to the United States, after consultations with US authorities, the Dutch interior minister said.
Nigeria will equip its international airports with the scanners in the New Year, an aviation official said.
In the United States, the botched attack aboard the Detroit-bound US airliner has prompted congressional calls for greater use of body scanners that advocates say would have detected non-metallic items like explosives smuggled aboard.
The attack exposed what President Barack Obama on Tuesday called human and systemic failures in US security agencies, and spurred speculation that US intelligence chief Admiral Dennis Blair or Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano could be forced to resign.
The White House was standing by the two officials, saying Blair and Napolitano had the presidents support. This is not about one person or one agency, said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
Although the Christmas Day attack was on an inbound US flight where security checks abroad are critical, the September 11 2001, attacks all involved hijackers on internal US flights.
Current use of whole-body scanners is limited to 19 US airports and is optional, with pat-downs an alternative.
Full-body scanners, unlike the standard archway metal detectors currently used in airports around the world, use radio waves to generate a picture of the body that can see through a persons clothing and spot hidden weapons or packages.
Concerns over cost and privacy have so far hindered the widespread use of the technology, with critics arguing it is unacceptably intrusive.
Dutch Interior Minister Guusje ter Horst said standard procedures were followed properly in the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of trying to blow up the flight from Schiphol to Detroit on Christmas Day.
We will make these (scanning) machines, about 15 in total, available for flights to the United States within three weeks time, ter Horst told a news conference in The Hague.
But since Schiphol has twice as many gates for US departures as scanners, not all flights will be covered by the new machines. Passengers on flights not subject to the new scanners will instead receive thorough pat-downs.
Ter Horst said normal metal detectors could not spot explosives, and the use of the full-body scanners would have helped prevent Abdulmutallab from taking them onto the aircraft.
But she warned there was no 100 percent guarantee the new detectors would have enabled airport security to catch him.
Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority chief Harold Demuren said Nigeria had started the process of acquiring the body scanners.
These are new machines. Not many airports in the world are operating them right now, but Nigeria is determined because of the new face of the threat we are seeing, to acquire them, Demuren told reporters in Lagos.
This will be taking place in the New Year. We plan to acquire them at all our international airports, he said.
International airlines serve Nigerias capital Abuja and the commercial hub of Lagos from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. There are also direct flights to the United States.
There was no sign that other countries would rush to follow the Dutch and Nigerian leads. Representatives for the Paris and Zurich airport authorities, contacted by Reuters, said they had no plans to introduce body scanners.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper he had nothing against body scanners in principle but they could only be deployed after efficiency, health and privacy guarantees were met.