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Civil rights groups seek suspension of airport full body scanners

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] A group of more than 30 privacy and civil liberty groups on Wednesday asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to suspend the full body scanner program being implemented by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The petition states that use of the full body scanner program is an invasion of privacy and that: deployment of Full Body Scanners in US airports, as currently proposed, violates the U.S. Constitution, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("RFRA"), the Privacy Act of 1974 ("Privacy Act"), and the Administrative Procedures Act ("APA"). As described below, the FBS program effectively subjects all air travelers to unconstitutionally intrusive searches that are disproportionate and for which the TSA lacks any suspicion of wrongdoing.According to the petitioners, the scanners are a step toward doing away with individualized suspicion and are particularly offensive to devout individuals. As such, the scans are opposed by religious groups. The petition also alleges that the scanners themselves have two major flaws: they cannot detect powdered explosives, and the operating systems are vulnerable to attack.In February, the UK's Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) announced that full body scanners in use at two UK airports may be illegal. The body scanners were introduced in part as a response to the failed US bombing attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day. The attempted attack prompted Obama to announce tighter security measures, which civil rights groups opposed as a pretext to racial profiling.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on April 22, 2010 (boomark / email).