Virtual Strip Search

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Strips off all clothes. Miami passenger Linda Larkins (who signed a photo release) goes through a body scanner inspection which gives passengers the option of avoiding a pat down search by human hands. Most travelers still prefer a pat down search because they are wary of high technology. This machine can see anything carried on the human body. Note the metal belt buckle and panties. It also shows the bones at the front of the legs and the zipper on her dress. Photo by Ron Laytner, edit international

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By Ron Laytner
Copyright 2009
EDIT International

"People shouldn't be humiliated in the name of security," says Chris Calabrese, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU and 42 other privacy groups want travelers to speak up against use of the machines, 40 of which are now being tested in 19 U.S. airports.
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Body-scanning machines that show intimate body parts underneath the clothing of passengers are being used at many of America's busiest airports and they are beginning to draw outrage.

But virtual strip searches have been going on at Miami Airport for several years.

LET'S TAKE A PEEK AT MIAMI'S VIRTUAL STRIP SEARCH IN ACTION

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MIAMI – The pretty European woman tourist caught the US Custom’s officer’s attention.

Miami International Airport was air conditioned and the customs area was very cold, but the German tourist was perspiring heavily. And agents noticed she was trembling.

Her luggage was checked clean but the young woman was still frightened. A woman customs inspector gave her a hand pat down search and again the Hamburg woman passed without a problem.

Why was she so nervous?

To find out agents took her into a room containing the new end of the road for smugglers. Inside was the dread Rapiscan body scanner that can see anything by making anyone it views – naked.

She was asked to place her feet apart over two marked places on the floor, was scanned in a front view and then asked to turn around for a rear view.

A customs officer looking in a computer screen said, ’Bingo’.

The woman, who had just been totally and electronically stripped of her clothing and hair, immediately confessed and was arrested.

On her head, held by tape to the top of her shaved skull were 14 one carat diamonds later found to be coming in from Holland. They were held inside a rubber cap on her skull which was covered by a wig.

She had passed the hand search and never would have been caught if she hadn’t been totally stripped ‘more than naked’ by the new electronic body scanner which allows no secrets.

A Swedish, man coming up from South America, was found carrying a drugged boa constrictor snake wrapped around his waist. A Jamaican was caught with a rare bird asleep in a tiny cigar-type holder. Others from the US, South America and the Orient had had close-ups of body orifices and been discovered carrying drugs.

It’s a whole new ballgame said an airport customs officer. Miami Airport is fast becoming a place smugglers are trying to stay away from. “We now can see everything. There is no way now to get through with contraband.”

Miami was one of the first to test the new ‘naked’ scanners. Now they are spreading throughout the United States and around the world.

The body imaging system uses reflected x-ray energy to produce images of objects concealed under a person’s clothing. The beam does not remain stationary on any part of the body and is called a body scan.

The amount of x-ray dosage, say operators of the machine is equal to the amount a person receives on a 5 minute airplane flight at 35,000 feet coming from the sun and on board electronic equipment.

US customs keeps an image of the body scan whenever it spots something being smuggled and it can be used in a court as evidence.

The new advance in body searching has come about quickly because of charges by some people that they had been unfairly chosen for body searches because of their sex, beauty, color or racial heritage.

The most widely known case involved American super star Diana Ross who was held for five hours at London’s Heathrow airport after she allegedly placed her hand over a British woman customs officer’s breast in retaliation for the way she had been searched.

American Civil Liberties groups are calling for a stop to the new machines' Lawyers for the ACLU call use of the machine a ‘virtual strip search’.

ACLU Florida director Howard Simon of Miami, complained that the scanner has a joy stick driven zoom option that allows the operator to enlarge parts of the image.

“This machine can be used for the vulgar pleasure of customs agents while tracking so-called contraband. Nobody is safe,” he said.

Says Peter Williamson, Vice President at Rapiscan, “Our machine does not do close-ups. The image quality of our machine allows for easy detection of contraband hidden anywhere on a person. You are not looking at a naked person, rather a white statue without a clear face. But people do tend to hide contraband in private places...”

Smugglers are obviously worried and new methods of getting drugs into the Miami gateway to America are already in use by smugglers using ships.

Miami a few years ago was considered one of the most dangerous airports for arrivals in America. So many tourists were murdered coming to and from the airport that an American band called ‘Dead German Tourist’ actually existed for a time until public opinion shut it down.

MIA or Miami International Airport is now one of the safest airports in the world and is being studied by airports of many nations as it strives for perfection.

It pioneered the new passenger gate which allows large numbers of passengers through in record short time. It has ten doors marked with changing lights – red to stop, green to go – and television monitors above showing how baggage is checked for contraband or explosives. There is also a special door on the gate for handicapped wheel-chair travelers.

Another machine electronically looks inside pieces of luggage.

Squads of tough armed Airport police roam the airport on bicycles and can be anywhere within a minute. Bomb sniffing dogs check every package left alone.

But the machine that strips the clothing off people is the most fascinating innovation of all and should be in most major airports throughout the world within the next few years.

Even Diana Ross will be able to go through airports well observed, as befits a super star, but untouched by human hands.

-The End –
Copyright 2009
Ron Laytner
Edit International

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