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As Ronak Ray hunted for his flight gate, he
prepared for the prospect of a security guard peering through his
clothes with a full body scanner. But Ray doesn't mind: what he
gives up in privacy he gets back in security.


      "I think it's necessary," said Ray, a 23-year-old graduate
student who was at San Francisco International Airport to fly to
India. "Our lives are far more important than how we're being
searched."

      Despite controversy surrounding the scans, Ray's position was
typical of several travelers interviewed at various airports
Wednesday by The Associated Press.

      Airports in five other U.S. cities are also using full body
scanners at specific checkpoints instead of metal detectors. In
addition, the scanners are used at 13 other airports for random
checks and so-called secondary screenings of passengers who set off
detectors.

      But many more air travelers may have to get used to the idea
soon. The Transportation Security Administration has ordered 150
more full body scanners to be installed in airports throughout the
country in early 2010, agency spokeswoman Suzanne Trevino said.


      Dutch security officials have said they believe such scanners
could have detected the explosive materials Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab of Nigeria is accused of trying to ignite aboard a
Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight Christmas Day.


      Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport has 15 full body scanners, but none
were used to scan Abdulmutallab when he boarded. In Europe and the
U.S., privacy concerns over the scanners' ability to see through
clothing have kept them from widespread use.


      The technology was first used about two years ago to make it
easier for airport security to do body searches without making
physical contact with passengers.


      The idea of an electronic strip search did not bother Judy
Yeager, 62, of Sarasota, Fla., as she prepared to depart Las Vegas.
She stood in the full-body scanner Wednesday afternoon and held her
arms up as a security official guided her through the gray
closet-sized booth.


      "If it's going to protect a whole airplane of people, who gives
a flying you-know-what if they see my boob whatever," Yeager said.
"That's the way I feel, honest to God."


      George Hyde, of Birmingham, Ala., who was flying out of Salt
Lake City with his wife, Patsy, on Wednesday after visiting their
children and grandchildren in Park City, Utah.


      "I'd rather be safe than be embarrassed," Hyde said. Neither
he nor his wife had been through a body scanner before.


      "We're very modest people but we'd be willing to go through
that for security."


      Trevino said the TSA has worked with privacy advocates and the
scanners' manufacturers to develop software that blurs the faces
and genital areas of passengers being scanned. In all cases,
passengers are not required to be scanned by the machine but can
opt for a full body pat-down instead.


      At Salt Lake City International Airport, fewer than 1 percent of
passengers subjected to the scanner chose the pat-down since the
machine was installed in March, said Dwane Baird, a TSA spokesman
in Salt Lake City.

      On Tuesday, some 1,900 people went through the scanner and just
three chose not to, he said.


      Critics of the scanners said the option to opt out was not
enough.


      "The question is should they be used indiscriminately on little
children and grandmothers," said Republican U.S. Rep. Tom
McClintock of California. McClintock co-sponsored a bill approved
by the House 310-118 in June prohibiting the use of full body
scanners for primary screenings. The bill is pending in the Senate.

      He said the devices raised serious concerns regarding
constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.


      "There's no practical distinction between a full body scan and
being pulled into a side room and being ordered to strip your
clothing."

      To further protect passenger privacy, security officers looking
at the images are in a different part of the airport and are not
allowed to take any recording devices into the room with them,
Trevino said. The images captured by the scanners cannot be stored,
transmitted or printed in any way.

      But the TSA still has some public relations work ahead of it,
judging by the reactions of passengers in Albuquerque, N.M., who
were worried about what would happen to their images once they were
scanned.


      "Are they going to be recorded or do they just scan them and
that's the end of them? How are these TSA people going to be using
them? That's a real concern for me," said Courtney Best-Trujillo
of Santa Fe, N.M., who was flying to Los Angeles on Wednesday.


      The six airports where full body scanners are being used for
what TSA calls "primary screenings" are: Albuquerque, N.M.; Las
Vegas, Nev.; Miami, Fla.; San Francisco; Salt Lake City, Utah; and
Tulsa, Okla.

      The remainder of the machines are being used for secondary
screenings in Atlanta, Ga.; Baltimore/Washington; Denver, Colo.;
Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas; Indianapolis, Ind.; Jacksonville and
Tampa, Fla.; Los Angeles; Phoenix, Ariz.; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.;
Richmond, Va.; Ronald Reagan Washington National; and Detroit,
Mich.

      Though most passengers interviewed by The Associated Press felt
security trumped other concerns, Bruna Martina, 48, a physician
from the coast of Venezuela, said the scanners still made her feel
uncomfortable.

      "I think there has to be another way to control people, or to
scan them, but not like this," she said as she headed back home
after a vacation in Miami with her husband and two sons. She also
does not think the scanners will thwart another attack.


      "They'll find another way," Martina said. "There is always
somebody cleverer than the rest."

Gallery

Dutch to use full body scanners for US flights

Obama: 'Systemic failure' allowed airliner attack

Aviation security under the microscope

Social Issues

As Ronak Ray hunted for his flight gate, he
prepared for the prospect of a security guard peering through his
clothes with a full body scanner. But Ray doesn't mind: what he
gives up in privacy he gets back in security.


Travelers' choice: Shed shyness for security?

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