News

NEW YORK, NY April 17, 2008 —Authorities at JFK Airport will now have the ability to peer beneath a passenger's clothing to detect concealed weapons.

A body scanner was installed today at a single checkpoint at the airport. Los Angeles's airport also got one of the new machines, in a pilot program.

The scanner uses low-energy electromagnetic waves to produce a computerized image of a traveler's entire body.

Federal transportation security officials say passengers' faces will be blurred, the images won't be saved, and officers reviewing the images will be in a separate area, away from passengers.

But a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union says the images are, "quite revealing" and could someday end up on the Internet.