Before takeoff, LAX scanner takes it all off; New imaging machine peers through clothes to search for dangerous items. Critics say it's a virtual strip search.

Dan Weikel Rong-Gong Lin II
18 April 2008
Los Angeles Times

Some travelers at Los Angeles International Airport will be searched for weapons and explosives using a new scanner that peers through their clothes and creates an image of the person's body, federal officials announced Thursday.

The sophisticated technology, called millimeter wave imaging, may prove to be a more effective way to check travelers for guns, knives, bombs and other dangerous materials than pat-down searches. But it has raised questions by privacy and civil rights advocates, who say the screening process is extraordinarily invasive and amounts to a virtual strip search.