In all seriousness, Becky, your post brings into view the TSA’s propaganda and laziness of reporters on what, exactly, the deal is with these “less-invasive” scanners. You jest when you say that the old methods are the more-invasive, obscene, methods of having agents in a private booth viewing naked images of passengers all day. But, it’s really just a return to metal detectors, a fact that the trusty reporter you link to may not even realize, since my experience is that TSA press releases get reprinted, as is, with no independent investigation.
The x-ray backscatter scanners continue to be obscene: requiring viewing by an agent in a private room. The alternative, millimeter-wave (MMW) scanners have been made available with an upgrade (really just a new software program and publicly-viewable display). Airports that already have the old obscene MMW scanners have been getting the upgrade to be “less-invasive,” and some airports that didn’t previously have any naked scanners are getting MMW machines with the upgrade pre-installed. This is always accompanied with a TSA press release reprinted by local media, that is quite vague on the fact that many times this is just a software upgrade to an existing device. And, more importantly, that the same data about passenger physique is getting collected, if not shown to a low-level goon.
When I saw this story, I couldn’t help but grin at the predictable ineptitude on display and cheer the small increase in freedom that passengers received on that day because there were no scanners available to undress them. Of course, who can doubt that if the software upgrade failed on these devices — but left the original software intact — some bureaucrat would figure out how to make this happen “accidentally.” For now, an increase in these events is likely just because the state is inept (recall the puffer debacle not so long ago).
11:01 pm on February 24, 2012
