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18-Jul-2011 12:15 PM

TSA should have sought public comment on body scanners: US court

US' Transportation Security Administration should have sought public comment before deploying full-body scanners at US airports, according to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which on 15-Jul-2011 upheld the use of the machines (Reuters/news.cnet.com, 15-Jul-2011). Privacy advocates had argued the machines' use constituted an illegal search under the US Constitution's Fourth Amendment. The Court stated the machines were not an unconstitutional search and declined to halt their usage however agreed the deployment of the scanners was a significant enough matter that the TSA should have sought public input. "It is clear that by producing an image of the unclothed passenger, (a full-body) scanner intrudes upon his or her personal privacy in a way a magnetometer does not," wrote Judge Douglas Ginsburg.

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