No punishment for declining full-body scans, TSA says

Published 7:19 pm Friday, May 7, 2010

Having second thoughts about those new full-body scanners being used at airports by the Transportation Security Administration? The federal agency charged with protecting the nation’s transportation systems may want to take a second look — at you.

It apparently did when Karen Cummings refused to submit to a scan, which uses high-frequency radio waves to see through your clothes. Cummings, who works for a software company in Boston, described what subsequently happened to her at Logan Airport as “unnecessary” and “unpleasant.”

“The pat-down was completely thorough, as though I was a common criminal or a drug pusher,” she said. “The only place I was not touched was in my crotch — and isn’t that the one place they should be checking, after the underwear bomber?”

Cummings is part of a small but growing group of air travelers who say that they’re troubled by the TSA’s use of advanced imaging technology.

Last fall, the agency began installing 150 new scanners (Sea-Tac is expecting to install them sometime this year). TSA plans to deploy an additional 450 this year. Some passengers are worried about the intrusive nature of the electronic searches, while others are concerned about possible harmful radiation. Experts say radiation levels are very low.

Screening by a full-body scanner is optional for all passengers, according to the TSA. “Those who opt out may request alternative screening at the checkpoint, to include a pat-down,” said Greg Soule, an agency spokesman.

He added that checkpoint requirements for passengers departing from the United States haven’t changed since the underwear bomber incident in December. In other words, the TSA claims it isn’t pushing travelers into the scanners and punishing those who decline a scan.

But Cummings and others say they don’t feel as if they have a real choice.

“The additional screening makes you want to go through the scanner, as it is so much more impersonal in the long run,” she told me.

Her experience is hardly an isolated one. Houston-based Web developer Cheryl Wise had a similar confrontation when she refused to be scanned in Denver earlier this year. A TSA screener, who she says was upset by her decision, ordered a “level two” search of her luggage.

“Every compartment of my computer bag was opened and every pocket emptied,” she recalled. “Every compartment or pocket of my computer bag that held an electronic device was wiped separately with an explosives detector, as were my shoes and the inside of my purse that held no electronics at all.”

The TSA’s blog recently praised the full-body scanners, pointing out that since last year, agents had found such items as a pocket knife hidden on someone’s back and a syringe full of liquid concealed in a passenger’s underwear.

My first instinct was to dismiss the traveler complaints as cases of a few TSA officers being overly vigilant, and then I went through one of the machines myself, in Salt Lake City. I was ushered into a large device that looks a little like the teleporter from the Jeff Goldblum version of “The Fly,” asked to empty my pockets and hold my hands above my head.

I admit, the scan felt somewhat invasive, with me holding my hands in the air as if I were an apprehended fugitive. The widely circulated pictures of scanned people — every contour of their bodies visible and their faces electronically airbrushed away — didn’t make me feel any better.

I asked other travelers about their experiences with refusing to use the devices, but I could find no hard evidence that screening dissidents were being penalized in a systematic way.

When Santa Clara, Calif., business owner Phil Kipnis respectfully declined the full-body scanner, he was directed to the secondary screening area.

“A male TSA employee shook his head and ran the wand over my torso and told me to collect my things,” he said.

I believe the TSA when it says that it has no formal policy of punishing passengers who don’t want to go through the full-body scanners. But it doesn’t need one. Just a few stories of overly watchful officers giving people a thorough once-over if they refuse may be enough to persuade reluctant air travelers to submit to a virtual strip search. And all it needs to reinforce those fears is an occasional shake of the head.

Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. You can read more travel tips on his blog, www.elliott.org or e-mail him at celliott@ngs.org.

&Copy; 2010 Christopher Elliott/Tribune Media Services, Inc.