The Transportation Security Administration is removing scanner machines from airports around the country, but not Atlanta. TSA officials are leaving the machines at the what’s called the world’s busiest airport where they are because they use different technology.
Body scanners are being taken from six airports in five cities: Boston’s Logan International, Chicago’s O’Hare International, Orlando International, Los Angeles International, New York’s John F. Kennedy International and New York’s LaGuardia. Those machines use backscatter X-ray imaging machines that are being replaced by millimeter wave imaging machines, which are already in place in Atlanta.
Millimeter wave imaging machines utilize a different technology to process passengers more quickly and protect people’s privacy by using a generic body outline rather than an actual image of each passenger’s body.
The controversy over body imaging machines came from a report on TSA’s airport screening machines that called them inefficient and a waste of money.
The report, titled “Airport Insecurity: TSA’s Failure to Cost Effectively Procure, Deploy and Warehouse its Screening Technologies,” spelled out the failure of the X-ray devices at airports, saying TSA “is wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars by inefficiently deploying screening equipment and technology to commercial airports.”
Pro Publica reported that the scanners were being removed from the six airports and being replaced with machines that radiation experts believe are safer.
TSA insisted the decision was made to speed up checkpoints at busier airports.
About Post Author
