X-rays reveal naked truth

U.S. officials still testing new security technology

? Susan Hallowell steps into a metal booth that bounces X-rays off her skin, producing a black-and-white image that reveals enough to produce a world-class blush.

To the eye, she is dressed in a skirt and blazer in dark, businesslike colors.

On the monitor, the director of the Transportation Security Administration’s security laboratory is naked, except for a gun and a bomb that she had hidden under her outfit.

The government is considering using the technology at airport security checkpoints because the magnetometers now in use cannot detect plastic weapons or substances used in explosives.

Hallowell is sacrificing her modesty to make a point: Air travelers are not going to like being technologically undressed by security screeners.

“It does basically make you look fat and naked but you see all this stuff,” Hallowell said Wednesday during a demonstration of the technology.

The technology is called “backscatter” because it scatters X-rays. Doses of rays deflected off dense materials such as metal or plastic produce a darker image than those deflected off skin. The radiation dosage is about the same as sunshine, Hallowell said.

Susan Hallowell, director of the Transportation Security Administration's security laboratory, allows her body to be X-rayed by the backscatter machine at the Transportation Security Administration in Egg Harbor Township, N.J. The X-ray reveals a gun and a bomb that she hid under her outfit.

Backscatter machines have been available on the market for years. They are priced between $100,000 and $200,000 and used in all sorts of security situations, from screening families of convicts visiting prisons to South African diamond miners going home for the day.

The agency is trying to find a way to modify the machines with an electronic fig leaf programming that fuzzes out sensitive body parts or distorts the body so it is unrecognizable.

Another option might mean stationing the screener in a booth so only he sees the image, said Randal Null, the agency’s chief technology officer.

Null hopes to conduct pilot programs with backscatter machines at several airports this year.