Debate over high-tech scanners heats up

Silla Brush and I have written a story on the new fight emerging in Washington over the use of high-tech X-ray devices in airports.

The push to use the devices is expected to gain momentum from the failed bombing attempt last week it Detroit. The use of whole body imaging scanners might have detected the explosives used last week, though the scanners would have had to have been put in place in the Amsterdam airport.

When Congress returns to Washington, lawmakers are likely to re-think a vote last summer that banned the use of the scanners as a sole method of checking airline passengers.

A number of interest groups ranging from the National Rifle Association to the America Civil Liberties Union supported the ban, and Republicans and Democrats in the House joined together in the 310-118 vote. The ACLU in October described the machines as a “virtual strip search.”

But some are casting the vote in a negative light in the wake of last week’s bombing attempt in Detroit.

Stuart Baker, a former Homeland Security officials in the Bush administration, called the failure to use whole body imaging a “classic” example of why it’s almost impossible to implement new security measures until after a disaster in a post on his blog Tuesday.

Expect some lobbying by interest groups on both sides of the issue in January.