Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, wants to make Americans’ summer trips a little more comfortable and a lot less invasive with his first legislative initiative.
The freshman congressman introduced legislation last week to regulate the use of whole-body imaging technology to conduct a virtual “strip search” of passengers at airport security checkpoints. The technology, which is currently in use on a trial basis at Salt Lake City International Airport, provides Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials with the ability to see underneath an individual’s clothing using digital imaging.
“Whole-body imaging is exactly what it says; it allows TSA employees to conduct the equivalent of a strip search,” Chaffetz said in a statement. “Nobody needs to see my wife and kids naked to secure an airplane.”
Though the system was originally intended for use only as a secondary screening mechanism, TSA is currently considering using the machines as its primary examination tool. If such a change were enacted, passengers would be required to pass through whole-body imaging machines instead of metal detectors at airport security checkpoints.
The issue came to Chaffetz’s attention during his frequent trips between his home in Utah and Washington, D.C.
“I saw these machines being used as primary screening devices at the Salt Lake airport in my weekly trips back and forth between Utah and Washington, D.C.,” he said in an e-mail to The Daily Universe. “After learning more about the machines, I felt legislation was needed to counter this invasion of privacy.”
The congressman’s bill, H.R. 2027, will restrict the use of whole-body imaging machines to secondary scans, allowing for their use only when on-site security officials find probable cause for further examination. The traveler will be given the choice of undergoing a whole-body image scan or submitting to a pat-down examination.
TSA vouches for the technology, saying that the new machines will provide transportation officials with valuable information in a timely manner.
“It’s very, very quick; the scan is about two seconds,” TSA spokeswoman Sterling Payne told The New York Times. “They’ll tell you the position to stand in, there’s the quick scan, and then you step out of the machine and wait for the resolution, which happens in a separate room in another part of the checkpoint.”
Chaffetz contests the value of such methods, but insists that he doesn’t fault TSA employees for their part in implementing the technology.
“The TSA does great work,” he said. “I appreciate what the men and women are doing there trying to secure airplanes.”
Though the bill is just his first sponsored legislation since taking office in January, Chaffetz seems to be finding some unlikely allies in his opposition to the procedure. The American Civil Liberties Union, a group that has been critical of Chaffetz’s policy stances in the past, also stringently opposes the use of whole-body imaging as a primary passenger examination technique.
“Passengers expect privacy underneath their clothing and should not be required to display highly personal details of their bodies as a pre-requisite to boarding a plane,” the organization stated in a press release. “That degree of examination amounts to a significant — and for some people humiliating — assault on the essential dignity of passengers that citizens in a free nation should not have to tolerate.”
Chaffetz appears ready to at least temporarily bury the hatchet with the ACLU in hopes of successfully passing the legislation.
“I am happy to work with groups or individuals on issues where there is common ground,” he said. “Although I do not agree with the ACLU’s position on all issues, we agree that WBI machines are an invasion of privacy and I am thankful for their support.”
The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Homeland Security for a period of time to be subsequently determined by the speaker of the House.
Copyright Brigham Young University 29 Apr 2009
