Mar 17 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Just a few weeks ago, at the beginning of this month, Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security released a statement that the federal government was beginning to send out full body imagining machines to eleven other airports in the United States. The plan of the Transportation Security Administration was to send out 450 other machines by the end of this year. It was also supposed to be an optional choice. Passengers were to have a choice between the full body scan or a pat down, which could even include swabbing to check for minute traces of explosives. I brought this story in an article on March 6.

Now, in a new attempt to thwart terrorism on airplanes and airports, the Transportation Security Administration has made a new announcement this week that they plan to make the full body scanner mandatory. The devices began to be tested after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, but the pressure has been even greater since the attempt by a man to blow up a U.S. passenger plane on Christmas Day.

There are many complaints being launched by citizens who are concerned that the scanners invade their privacy. Although the images are taken with clothes on, the pictures show everything under the clothes. Operators of the scanners do work in a separate room and blur the images that they view with privacy filters.