TSA modifies screening machines (won't show intimate body parts)

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2006-12-26-tsa-machines_x.htm

TSA modifies screening machines

A new airport screening machine that peers through travelers' clothing has been modified so it won't show intimate body parts when it's tested at a U.S. airport for the first time starting next month.

The modification to the controversial "backscatter" X-ray machine seeks to quiet critics such as the American Civil Liberties Union who have helped block its use in airports by saying the vivid images seen by screeners invade passenger privacy. The altered images will show only cartoon-like black-and-white outlines of each passenger.

But the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is facing questions from experts who say the agency has weakened the effectiveness of the low-intensity X-rays.

"You don't see fine detail," said Robert Gould, a radiology professor at the University of California, San Francisco. "It's conceivable to me that (the modified machines) would miss plastic explosives."