Security scanner can see through clothes
By TERRY TANG, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 26 minutes ago
PHOENIX - Sky Harbor International Airport became the country's first to begin testing a controversial new federal screening system that takes X-rays of passenger's bodies in an effort to find concealed explosives and other weapons.
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The Phoenix airport started testing the new technology on Friday. It can see through people's clothes and show the body's contours with blush-inducing clarity.
Critics have said the high-resolution images created by the "backscatter" technology are too invasive. But the Transportation Security Administration adjusted the equipment to make the image look something like a line drawing, while still detecting concealed weapons.
During testing, the machine will be used only as a backup screening measure. Passengers who fail the standard screening with a metal detector will be able to choose between the new device or a pat-down search.
"It's 100 percent voluntary, so if the passenger doesn't feel comfortable with it, the passenger doesn't have to go through it,"
TSA spokesman Nico Melendez said.
Passengers selected for screening by the device are asked to stand in front of the closet-size X-ray unit with the palms of their hands facing out. Then they must turn around for a second screening from behind. The procedure takes about a minute.
"It seems faster. I'm not uncomfortable with it," said Kelsi Dunbar, 25, of Seattle, who chose the machine. "I trust TSA, and I trust that they are definitely trying to make things go quickly and smoothly in the airport.
But one expert said the machine's altered image is ineffective, while the clear picture is an invasion of privacy.
"The more obscure they make the image, the more obscure the contraband, weapons and explosives," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Project at the ACLU in Washington, D.C. "The graphic image is a strip-search. You shouldn't have to be strip-searched to get on an airplane. Millions of Americans would regard them as pornographic."
The machine will be tested for up to 90 days at a single checkpoint at Sky Harbor International Airport's largest terminal, which hosts US Airways and Southwest Airlines, the two busiest airlines in Phoenix.
The technology could be left in place after the trial period, and the TSA hopes to roll out similar machines at the Los Angeles airport and New York's Kennedy Airport by the end of the year.
The security officer who works with the passenger going through the screening will never see the images the machine produces. The pictures will be viewed by another officer about 50 feet away who will not see the passenger, the TSA said.
The machine cannot store the images or transmit them and "once we're done screening the passenger, the image is gone forever," Melendez said.
He said the device at Sky Harbor costs about $100,000 but is on loan from the manufacturer, American Science and Engineering Inc. of Boston.
Mind you, this technology is not new, but it is invasive...
Calif. woman fights for passenger rights
By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Writer Thu Feb 22, 8:38 PM ET
NAPA, Calif. - For more than eight miserable hours, Kate Hanni sat aboard a grounded plane at a Texas airport, yards from apparently empty gates. A few weeks after that December ordeal, the brassy real estate agent from California's wine country took her fight for a passengers' bill of rights to Capitol Hill.
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And politicians are listening.
On Saturday, as JetBlue was in the middle of a meltdown that left some passengers trapped aboard planes for almost half a day, Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., introduced a bill that would prohibit airlines from keeping travelers stuck on the tarmac for longer than three hours.
And Hanni's congressman, Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson (news, bio, voting record), plans to file a similar bill in the House. He credits her with calling the issue to his attention.
"We need the legislation right now because the airlines won't police themselves," Hanni, 46, said recently in an interview in her bright Napa living room, where windows frame vineyard-covered hillsides.
A mother of two who moonlights as the lead singer of a funk band, Hanni has become the unlikely leader of a gathering movement. She has apparently tapped into a deep well of anger among many travelers.
Hanni's American Airlines flight was diverted from Dallas to Austin on Dec. 29 because of storms. The agonizing wait on the tarmac, she said, was only the beginning of her frustrations.
Hanni, her husband and two sons waited another 2 1/2 hours at the baggage claim before being told the bags would remain on the plane because the flight would continue on in the morning, she said.
American offered the put-out passengers only $10 discount vouchers for hotel rooms, Hanni said. (A spokesman for American could not confirm the amount but said the customer contract makes clear the company does not fully cover lodgings for weather-related cancellations.)
When she finally arrived in Dallas the next day to make her connecting flight to Mobile, Ala., Hanni said, a gate agent informed her that her bags were on the next flight to Mobile, but she was not.
"We're not going to quibble with the fact that we put our customers in a situation that they never should have been in," American spokesman Tim Wagner said. Passengers were kept on the plane in hopes of still getting them to Dallas that same day, he said.
In the end, Hanni said, it took her, her husband and two sons 57 hours to travel from San Francisco to Mobile, finally arriving at their ultimate destination, a lavish Gulf Coast spa, late on New Year's Eve.
Hanni said her December trip was supposed to be a restorative vacation, after she was jumped and beaten in June by a man in a ski mask at a house she was trying to sell. She ended up spending a big part of her trip in cramped airline seats and hotel rooms, wearing the same clothes day after day.
After returning home in January, Hanni began gathering the stories of fellow passengers' frustrations by e-mail. She posted many of them on a blog that quickly became the focal point of the passengers' bill of rights campaign.
By the end of the month, Hanni was in Washington, lobbying for pro-passenger legislation.
The movement gained momentum last week when a snowstorm left passengers trapped inside JetBlue planes at New York's Kennedy Airport for up to 10 1/2 hours. JetBlue introduced its own customer bill of rights earlier this week.
Along with imposing the three-hour limit, Boxer's bill would require airlines to provide food, water and sanitary bathrooms to passengers stuck on the tarmac.
Thompson's bill would also require airlines to keep passengers updated on the reasons for the delays, reveal which flights are chronically delayed and strive to return lost bags in 24 hours.
Airlines oppose such legislation, arguing they know better than politicians how to fix the problems.
"We think that inflexible standards that would be imposed through some sort of mandatory legislation could easily have the unintended effect of inconveniencing customers more in some situations," said David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, the airlines' main industry trade group.
Since Dec. 29, when 67 American flights were stuck on the tarmac for more than three hours, the airline has revised its policy to ensure passengers do not spend more than four hours in grounded planes, Wagner said. The company has sent out apologies and ticket vouchers to about 5,000 passengers affected that day, he said.
Nevertheless, Hanni said she does not plan to give up her fight to make air travel less unpleasant.
"I'm going to take it all the way," she said, "no matter what it takes."
___
On the Net:
Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights: http://strandedpassengers.blogspot.com
My solution is simple. Ride a motorcycle!
Okay, sure I'm making light of these situations. But really! That kind of garbage to deal with just to get somewhere... annoys me. I've flown once since 9/11 and it was very, very different. I didn't like it and I'm dubious I'd do it again anytime soon. I'd rather ride.
Except I may have a personal trip in a couple months that requires a flight. Drats! Darn this inflexible job!
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