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SALT LAKE CITY -- Documents uncovered from the Department of Homeland Security show the government wanted to develop body scanning technology for use outside of airports. The newly released documents show plans for a covert system to search people as they moved through crowds, in an effort to find suicide bombers.
Watchdogs call it unbelievable and say it's an invasion of privacy.
According to a report in USA Today, the Department of Homeland Security signed two separate contracts to develop the technology.
In 2005, the department paid $1.9 million to Rapiscan Systems -- the company that makes airport body scanners -- to come up with similar machines to be placed in public areas. The machines would have to be able to see through the clothing, backpacks, and packages of people as they moved through crowds.
In 2006 Homeland Security signed another contract, this one for $1.3 million, with Northeastern University in Boston. Again, it was to test technology that tracks people through crowds.
Researchers looked at cameras, scanners and radar, but tests started turning up flaws. Ultimately Homeland Security gave up on the projects.
This news obviously isn't sitting well with privacy advocates. The Electronic Privacy Information Center already is suing Homeland Security over body scanners in airports.
A lawyer for EPIC, Ginger McCall, calls the revelation "disturbing." She told USA Today it shows Homeland Security "obviously believed that this level of surveillance is acceptable when in fact it is not at all acceptable."
Bobby Whithorne, spokesman for Homeland Security, says the department studies the privacy implications of technologies. These projects were killed in the very early stages, ever before those implications were studied.
E-mail: aadams@ksl.com
