Full-body scanners producing images of airline passengers naked are to be introduced in America as part of a new scheme intended to promote a “stress-free airport experience”.
Just one week after increasing stress levels by demanding that all tourists be fingerprinted before leaving the country, the US homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, announced the introduction of Checkpoint Evolution, a system designed to reduce the anxiety of innocent airline passengers and therefore to allow the easier identification of nervous terrorists.
Security checkpoints at Baltimore/ Washington International, the first airport to adopt the new system, now resemble the reception area at a new-age spa, with murals, purple mood lighting, soothing music and smiling Transport Security Administration (TSA) staff wearing Pop Idol-type headsets.
“Everyone who’s been through a checkpoint knows it’s not a relaxing experience,” Chertoff explained, adding that the tension-filled atmosphere made it difficult to detect the nervousness of genuine suspects.
As you pass through the new chakra-friendly zone, just try not to think about the new “millimetre wave” body-scanning portals beaming naked images of passengers to camera operators in a remote monitoring room. The TSA says that 30 of the portals will be in use across America by the end of the year, despite protests from civil-liberties campaigners.
If I go to BWI in the first month will I be able to get a commemorative print-out of myself walking naked through the airport?
That would be sufficiently hilarious to make me consider a trip to the US....
Alan, London, UK