As the House Committee on oversight scrutinizes TSA’s new body imaging scanners, the organization prepared its request for more than $100 million to buy more of the controversial machines in 2012.
The requested budget for the Department of Homeland Security includes $105.2 million to be spent on Advanced Imaging Technology machines, the full body scanners with a notorious reputation for their revealing scans.
The machines are “critical to address the current threat by safely screening passengers for metallic and non-metallic threats –including weapons, explosives and other objects concealed under layers of clothing,” according to the budget request.
Yet for $105.2 million, only 275 new machines will be up and running at a cost of approximately $382,000 each. A TSA spokesperson said these costs do not including the 535 people required to run the new machines.
Still, many airports will continue to be without critical protection as a TSA spokesperson called the placement of new machines a “complex endeavor.”
At the end of the day, the final number of these devices will depend on how the House and the Senate pass not only the 2012 budget, but the current year’s budget as well.
But even as the Congress decides how much to spend on the machines, the Electronic Privacy Information center’s lawsuit, now in the Washington D. C. District Court, seeks to suspend the use of the machines altogether.
“TSA is not very effective at actual threat detection. They are effective at spending a lot of money,” said Ginger McCall of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “It would be hard to be more expensive and less effective than these machines.”
McCall, whose organization is currently suing the Transportation Safety Administration over privacy concerns associated with the new machines, said that the machines were not designed to detect powdered explosives, and as such relying on them as primary line of defense was dangerous. A TSA spokesperson, however, said that the machine’s track record of finding 170 prohibited or dangerous items in 2010 proves otherwise. The spokesperson did not specify as to the nature of those items.
Although the company that makes the machines had not returned phone calls at the time of publication, Rep. Jason Chaffetez (R-UT), who chaired the TSA Oversight Hearing on March 16 seemed to agree with McCall.
“Good intelligence, not effective screening, saved the day,” Chaffetez said after discussing numerous unsuccessful terrorist acts on airplanes. “In each of these instances brave passengers, affective intelligence and a little bit of luck averted mass tragedies. This is not good enough.”
Both McCall and Chaffetez suggested looking into other forms of screenings such as bomb dogs, which could be useful, and possibly more efficient than the new machines, in United States airports.
A TSA spokesman declined to answer how much extra security, if any, Americans could expect for their dollar.
