Full Body Scanners

A privacy advocacy group is suing the Department of Homeland Security to suspend the use of the controversial full-body scanners employed at airports across the country, including at every major checkpoint at Logan International Airport. The machines, which use X-rays or radio frequency energy to detect weapons and explosives beneath passengers’ clothing, have been much criticized because of privacy concerns. In the lawsuit, filed last month, the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., said the slightly blurred but accurate pictures of passengers’ naked bodies...

Third in an eight-part series. "Flight attendant Cameron?" the voice from Dallas barks. "Are you going to sign in for your trip? Are you stuck in traffic?" Halle Cameron squints at the clock on her nightstand: 7 a.m., Sept. 11, 2001. American Airlines Flight 11 departs in 45 minutes from Logan International Airport, nonstop to Los Angeles. She had finally earned the seniority to pull cross-country flights like this, after 10 years of short-hop connections and layovers in Des Moines.

WASHINGTON - The first of 150 full-body scanners planned for US airports will be installed in Boston next week, officials said yesterday. The plan is to install three machines at Logan International Airport, according to a Homeland Security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been made. In the next two weeks, officials plan to install another machine at O’Hare International in Chicago. The rest of the 150 machines that were purchased with $25 million from the 2009 stimulus plan are expected to be installed by the end of June, a Homeland Security...

All deaths are tragic. Expected deaths, unexpected deaths, every death stunning, a person alive and full of life, totally vibrant, or down for the count, but breathing still, and here. Body and soul bound together. And then that person is not here. And we reel from this, every single time. Horrifying. Shocking. Brutal. Painful. Peaceful. Inevitable. She went too soon. He stayed too long. It shouldn't have happened. How did it happen? The ways and the hows of death vary.

Third in an eight-part series. "Flight attendant Cameron?" the voice from Dallas barks. "Are you going to sign in for your trip? Are you stuck in traffic?" Halle Cameron squints at the clock on her nightstand: 7 a.m., Sept. 11, 2001. American Airlines Flight 11 departs in 45 minutes from Logan International Airport, nonstop to Los Angeles. She had finally earned the seniority to pull cross-country flights like this, after 10 years of short-hop connections and layovers in Des Moines.

If you’re traveling this holiday season, here are a few things from the Transportation Security Administration you should know about airport security measures: Q. Who gets chosen to go through a full-body scanner? A. If you’re in a security line with a scanner, you may be directed to go through it. If there’s a backup, you may be sent through a metal detector instead. Logan Airport has 17 full-body scanners, at least one at every major checkpoint. Scanners are now at 69 airports nationwide.

The first of 450 controversial full-body scanners to be deployed at airports around the country this year will be put into use at Logan International Airport on Monday. About 120 passengers went through one of the machines at Logan’s Terminal A as part of a test yesterday. Logan has received three machines, which scan passengers’ bodies for weapons and explosives beneath their clothing using low-level X-ray beams, and the airport is expected to have more than a dozen in place at three terminals by the end of the summer.

WASHINGTON - The public should have had the chance to raise concerns about full body scanners before the government put them in airports around the country, a federal Appeals Court said yesterday. But now that the machines are there, the government doesn't have to stop using them. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordered the Transportation Security Administration to start soliciting comments about the machines. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a civil liberties group, tried to force the TSA to stop using the...

The busy holiday travel season begins this week at Logan International Airport amid heightened attention to complaints over new airport security measures, which include full-body scans that some consider too revealing and more aggressive pat-downs. “It seems to me the TSA has turned into the threat,’’ said Emery Woodall, 51, from Atlanta, who opted to get the pat-down — what he calls the “lesser of two evils’’ — instead of going through the body scanner at Logan yesterday afternoon.

BRUSSELS - European nations were sharply divided yesterday over the need to install full-body scanners at European airports, with some EU members playing down the need for beefed-up security measures. But the EU indicated it may force nations to comply. After meeting in Brussels yesterday, EU aviation security specialists released a statement saying the EU Commission may issue a binding regulation on imaging technology to reinforce passenger security, while at the same time addressing the conditions for using such technology, such as privacy,...

The Transportation Security Administration plans to start testing an expanded behavior-detection security program today at Logan International Airport, the first airport in the nation to roll out the enhanced screening method. Under the program, TSA officers will speak with every passenger passing through the Terminal A security checkpoint, asking each two or three questions, such as "Where are you traveling today?" or "How long have you been in town?" Officials said the intent is to detect suspicious behavior - such as someone sweating profusely or avoiding eye contact - a process the TSA estimates...

WASHINGTON - The public should have had the chance to raise concerns about full body scanners before the government put them in airports around the country, a federal Appeals Court said yesterday. But now that the machines are there, the government doesn't have to stop using them. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordered the Transportation Security Administration to start soliciting comments about the machines. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a civil liberties group, tried to force the TSA to stop using the machines,...

The busy holiday travel season begins this week at Logan International Airport amid heightened attention to complaints over new airport security measures, which include full-body scans that some consider too revealing and more aggressive pat-downs. “It seems to me the TSA has turned into the threat,’’ said Emery Woodall, 51, from Atlanta, who opted to get the pat-down — what he calls the “lesser of two evils’’ — instead of going through the body scanner at Logan yesterday afternoon.

If you’re traveling this holiday season, here are a few things from the Transportation Security Administration you should know about airport security measures: Q. Who gets chosen to go through a full-body scanner? A. If you’re in a security line with a scanner, you may be directed to go through it. If there’s a backup, you may be sent through a metal detector instead. Logan Airport has 17 full-body scanners, at least one at every major checkpoint. Scanners are now at 69 airports nationwide.

A privacy advocacy group is suing the Department of Homeland Security to suspend the use of the controversial full-body scanners employed at airports across the country, including at every major checkpoint at Logan International Airport. The machines, which use X-rays or radio frequency energy to detect weapons and explosives beneath passengers’ clothing, have been much criticized because of privacy concerns. In the lawsuit, filed last month, the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., said the slightly blurred but accurate...

The first of 450 controversial full-body scanners to be deployed at airports around the country this year will be put into use at Logan International Airport on Monday. About 120 passengers went through one of the machines at Logan’s Terminal A as part of a test yesterday. Logan has received three machines, which scan passengers’ bodies for weapons and explosives beneath their clothing using low-level X-ray beams, and the airport is expected to have more than a dozen in place at three terminals by the end of the summer.

LONDON - Airline passengers bound for the United States faced a hodgepodge of security measures across the world yesterday, but most European airports did not appear to be following a new US demand for increased screening of passengers from 14 countries. US officials in Washington said the new security measures would be implemented yesterday but there were few visible changes on the ground in Europe, which sends thousands of passengers on hundreds of daily flights to the United States.

The Transportation Security Administration plans to start testing an expanded behavior-detection security program today at Logan International Airport, the first airport in the nation to roll out the enhanced screening method. Under the program, TSA officers will speak with every passenger passing through the Terminal A security checkpoint, asking each two or three questions, such as "Where are you traveling today?" or "How long have you been in town?" Officials said the intent is to detect suspicious behavior - such as someone sweating profusely or avoiding eye contact -...

WASHINGTON - The first of 150 full-body scanners planned for US airports will be installed in Boston next week, officials said yesterday. The plan is to install three machines at Logan International Airport, according to a Homeland Security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been made. In the next two weeks, officials plan to install another machine at O’Hare International in Chicago. The rest of the 150 machines that were purchased with $25 million from the 2009 stimulus plan are expected to be installed by the end of June, a Homeland Security...