TSA Budges on Body Scans for Pilots

Pilots will not be subjected to scans, but TSA has not budged on passengers.

ByABC News
November 20, 2010, 2:07 PM

Nov. 20, 2010— -- Although the Transportation Security Administration does not appear to be budging on the uproar over graphic body scanners and enhanced pat-downs ahead of the busy holiday travel season, the TSA has done an about-face with airline pilots, and is now allowing them to skip the scanners and pat-downs on their way through the airport.

The TSA's reversal on this measure is a major victory for the pilots, who had sued over the new security measures, calling them unnecessary and demeaning.

"To waste the resources, take them away from the true threat and apply them to our pilots is just absurd," Captain Garry Kravit, of the Airline Pilots Association, told ABC News.

Though the scanners and pat-downs have proven controversial -- particularly across the web -- a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of Americans support the extended security measures, no matter how invasive they may be.

According to the study, 78 percent of Americans approve of the new body scanners and 84 percent believe they will help prevent terrorism.

"If it keeps me safer, no problem," Gary Becker, a traveler at Houston Texas airport told ABC News.

Camile Olson, a traveler at Chicago O'Hare airport, said she thought the controversy over the scanners may be a bit overblown.

"I didn't have an issue today in terms of feeling that there was an invasion of privacy," Olson said.

Some travelers, including Catherine Bossi, have had entirely different experiences, and have been left feeling vulnerable and violated.

Bossi, a flight attendant and breast cancer survivor, said she was forced to remove her prosthetic breast while a TSA pat-down was administered.

"I was horribly shocked," she said. "Yes, I was I felt embarrassed and ashamed. I had cancer and this was the way I was being treated."

Erin Chase, a mother from Ohio who was recently traveling with her infant, said the TSA pat-down was a complete violation of her privacy.

"She went down to the bottom of my legs and moved up my inner thighs and touched my genital area," Chase said. "As a law-abiding American citizen, mom traveling with a baby, I should not have been subject to that sort of a search."