On the recordFebruary 15, 2011
Thank you, Mr. President. First I wish to congratulate my good friend and hunting buddy, the Senator from Nebraska, for the great work he has done. It has been a pleasure to work with him. We have had parallel interests and his amendment hopefully will solve a problem that has arisen lately because of the full-body scanners that are being installed at airports. As everyone knows, late last year the TSA began installing full-body advanced imaging scanners at airports across the country. These new scanners are better able to quickly and accurately detect explosives than the older scanners and would likely have thwarted the Christmas Day bomber before he had even gotten on the plane. But from the get-go, legitimate questions popped up about the potential for privacy violations from the use of these scanners. What happens if a rogue TSA employee disseminates your full-body image? What happens if a fellow passenger or reporter takes pictures of body scan images with his phone and e-mails it to his friends or places the pictures on a Web site or in a newspaper? Are there safeguards to prevent such abuses? If it happens, what are the consequences? Obviously, airline safety is our paramount concern. We can oftentimes, by carefully legislating, have our cake and eat it too--to make sure safety stays No. 1, but to also make sure, as the Senator from Nebraska and I are trying to do, that privacy is protected whenever possible.
