We are constantly being told the images the TSA is producing at airports don't provide as much detail of the naked body as some of the leaked naked full body scans suggest. As someone who has worked in the digital imaging industry, I am quite aware of the capabilities of today's modern digital imaging products, specifically those that revolve around digital x-rays. I understand the great detail that wasn't seen in traditional x-rays thanks to modern CCD, CMOS, and Super CMOS imaging chips and the software that is used to blow these images up providing great details.
When a New York Times reporter Joe Sharkey went to work to find out how much detail the scanners can produce, I am not surprised with what he found out. He went armed with questions from women. Here's what he found out in an article that seems to have gone unnoticed by most.
I’m getting a lot of questions about the new security regime, including some pointed ones from women. Do the imagers, for example, detect sanitary napkins? Yes. Does that then necessitate a pat-down? The T.S.A. couldn’t say. Screeners, the T.S.A. has said, are expected to exercise some discretion.OK, so here we have a New York Times Reporter who has asked TSA officials about just how much detail these scanners report to the screener. While the Department of Homeland Security are telling us the images are cloudy at best and don't provide much detail to be worried about personal features being exposed, we have this New York Times reporter claiming that they can clearly make out a maxi pad. Then of course if they can pick up a maxi pad, then surely the can pick up a tampon, which is a tube of cotton with a string. What else is tube shaped with a string? Explosives perhaps?
Does this open up a can of worms for the TSA and push them to more intrusive measures? Not trying to be gross here or anything, but how do they tell a tampon from an explosive device, especially if the resolution is turned down like the Department of Homeland Security suggests?
As of now, according to Sharkey, that's up to the TSA screener how far to take it. Gee, that should make every woman in American on her way to the airport feel secure about going through security.
