The TSA Wasted $160M on Ineffective Body Scanners
Erica Berardi August 17, 2015
Transportation Security Officer (TSO), Steve Chao, reviews baggage at Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD).
Airports scanners are the subjects of debate once again as new figures show just how much the controversial detection devices cost.
Classified figures recently disclosed to some members of Congress show exactly how much money the TSA spent on body and X-ray scanners. According to the cost breakdown obtained by POLITCO, the TSA spent $120 million on body scanners in place now at airports. An additional $40 million was spent on the agency’s X-ray scanners, or “naked” scanners, that TSA pulled from airports two years ago over concerns about health risks and the scanners’ detailed images.
Since the agency bought the first batch of 45 body scanners in 2008, the cost per unit averages more than $150,000.
In an interview, U.S. Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson expressed his low confidence in the scanners’ ability to detect explosives and weapons. Johnson says the TSA should require travelers to walk through metal detectors after passing through the body imaging machines.
“If you really want to keep using those, and I’m not saying we shouldn’t, at a minimum we should put a metal detector on the other side,” the Wisconsin Republican told POLITICO. “Why not go through two? You’ve just gotta use common sense.”
This is the latest hassle for TSA over the use of scanners. On July 15, three civil liberties organizations filed a petition that claims whole-body-imagining scanners at airports violates federal law. In June, a report from Homeland Security detailed undercover investigators successfully smuggled mock explosives or banned weapons through airport security checkpoints in 95 percent of trials.
[Photo: TSA]
Here's a radical idea: just send folks through the WTMD and get rid of things that don't work. Just because it's fancy doesn't mean it's better.
WTMD after body imaging machine? Why not just make everyone show up four hours early, get strip-searched and be knocked unconscious for the duration of the flight?
Ron Johnson needs to understand that "common sense" would be to get rid of the scanners. The don't work, alarm on non threats and are easy to get things through undetected. They never should have been rolled out in the first place.
Thank former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff who after 9-11 touted body scanners while his consulting firm represented a manufacturer of body scanners.