Travelers seeking cheap fares and discount hotel rooms can breathe a little easier if they are flying out of Boston Logan International airport which will receive a full body scanner next week. Ultimately three machines will be installed at Logan, with another scanner being installed at Chicagos OHare International within the next two weeks.
The installation of these machines marks the beginning of a roll out of 150 full body scanners planned for American airports and are expected to be installed by the end of June.
The current administrations plan to improve airport security relies heavily on the installation of scanners at U.S. airports which are able to detect objects hidden on the body.
Full body scanners outline persons shapes on a computer located in a private room away from security checkpoints. Individual faces are never shown and their identity is not supposed to be known to the screener reviewing computer images.
Boston and Chicago were first in line to receive the scanners based on risk and the airports ability to physically install the machines and staff them with screeners.
At present there are only 40 full body scanners being used in19 airports in the U.S.
Purchases and installation of full body scanners took off shortly after a Nigerian tried to ignite explosives concealed in his underwear on a Detroit bound flight on Christmas day. Ironically, experts have admitted that full body screeners would not have detected those explosives.