Airport scanner reveals all

Miami Herald: Almost nothing could be more intrusive or humiliating than a strip search. Whether it's done by a person wearing plastic gloves or a machine scattering X-rays makes little difference: Either way someone is either ogling or snickering.
The Transportation Security Administration is evaluating several security technologies for expanded use in airports, and one in particular leaves nothing at all to the screener's imagination. As opposed to medical X-ray machines, which send radiation through the body to produce an image of what's inside, "backscatter" machines form an image from X-rays that see through clothes and bounce off the skin, rendering a blue image of each passenger's naked body.
Nothing gets by
Proponents of the technology -- including, of course, its makers -- say that it is the ultimate security system. Not even plastic explosives or carbon-fiber pistols could pass through unnoticed, they claim.
That's true. Unless, of course, the airport screener, who's been watching naked blue people walk through his monitor all day long, happens to turn away for a second.
Security technology isn't impermeable; it's merely a useful tool for well-trained security personnel. Like so many devices that have flooded the market since Sept. 11, backscatter machines are far more likely to invade your privacy and create a false sense of security than actually to stop a terrorist.
In evaluating new technology, the TSA must weigh privacy against security. Systems that detect trace amounts of explosive material, for example, may provide nearly the same level of security without revealing a traveler's body parts.
Furthermore, expensive technology may not be as cost effective as recruiting more better-trained humans.