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The topic for today's Senate Homeland Security hearing was supposed to be air cargo security.

But in the wake of growing public concern about the Transportation Security Administration's new procedures to screen air travelers, that's where the discussion kept returning.

CNET is providing excerpts from the transcript of the hearing, in which committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman calls the scanners "necessary for the security" of the American people and TSA Administrator John Pistole says his agency's screeners are "there to protect you and your loved ones." (See related article.)

As the Thanksgiving travel … Read more

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, today applauded the Obama administration's new airport screening procedures and suggested that critics don't understand what they're talking about.

During a hearing, Lieberman told John Pistole, head of the Transportation Security Administration that "you're doing the right thing" in implementing new security regulations that give air travelers a choice of invasive pat-downs or full-body scans that show what a person looks like naked. (See related CNET story.)

"I think perhaps the reaction to the pat-down procedures got ahead of TSA's or the … Read more

An Internet-fueled backlash against air traveler screening is growing amid signs that the Transportation Security Agency will consider slight changes to its controversial new procedures.

TSA administrator John Pistole said today that the agency will be "announcing some new policies" in the "near future" that will change the screening process for pilots, who have protested being forced to choose between a "virtual strip search" or an invasive pat-down a few minutes before they're handed the controls of a 975,000-pound kerosene-fueled missile in the form of a jumbo jet. (See our previous coverage.) … Read more

Is it ever worth questioning officialdom?

After all, officialdom always seems to have an excess of "dom" and the power of the official to make that "dom" (which might seem really, really dumb) painful for the questioner.

Such might be the plight of software engineer John Tyner, who, the TSA has announced, is to be investigated for his behavior while going through airport security.

Tyner was flying out of San Diego last Friday and took exception to the idea of the new full-body scanners, which are capable of capturing whether you are hiding explosives in your … Read more

A University of California at San Francisco professor of biochemistry told CNET today that the Obama administration's claim that full-body scanners pose no health risks to air travelers is in "error."

The administration's defense of the controversial machines, which use X-rays to perform what critics have dubbed naked strip searches, has "many misconceptions, and we will write a careful answer pointing out their errors," said John Sedat, a UCSF professor of biochemistry and biophysics and member of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Because four people are working on this, it will not be … Read more

Two months ago, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that the federal stimulus legislation would pay for the purchase of hundreds of controversial full-body scanners.

"Through the Recovery Act, we are able to continue our accelerated deployment of enhanced technology as part of our layered approach to security at airports nationwide," Napolitano said at the time.

The number of scanners has roughly doubled since Napolitano's announcement and they are now found in 68 U.S. airports, and the Transportation Security Administration says the controversial devices have proven to be a success.

"We have received minimal complaints,&… Read more

3D is finally getting some love in the health segment--specifically the love handle segment. A 3D body scanner in development for 10 years and out this month from U.K. company Select Research, can not only tell how obese you are in relation to what's recommended, but exactly where those numerous high-tea buffets have distributed themselves. Ouch.

Say hello to BVI, or body volume index, and goodbye to BMI, or body mass index, which uses a standard international formula to calculate body weight.

The more detailed BVI system is a 7-foot-tall booth that scans a patient, stripped down to his or her undergarments, using 16 sensors and 32 cameras. In a whopping six seconds, more than 200 linear data measurements of the patient's body are gathered and sent to a secure server to be accessed and analyzed by authorized doctors. An exact "virtual" image of a person's shape is also created. The BVI scanner uses white light but no radiation. … Read more

When Google Street View launched in Brazil last week, it seemed as if it revealed so much about life in one of the world's most vibrant and fastest-growing countries.

Images of four dead bodies, in Rio and Belo Horizonte, were, for some, stunning and, for others, sadly normal.

A Tumblr feed called Street Viu was set up so Brazilians could offer their most interesting images from the new service. In just a few days this feed has offered quite a fascinating look at what the Google cameras captured.

Tumblr contributors have sent in shots of more bodies, lying in … Read more

Six U.S. senators delivered a sharp rebuke to the U.S. Marshals Service on Thursday, saying that they were "disturbed" to learn that thousands of images produced by full-body scanners at security checkpoints were surreptitiously recorded.

The bipartisan group of senators demanded a detailed explanation from the Marshals Service, which installed the millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of at a Florida courthouse. (See CNET's earlier article about the Marshals Service admitting the recording took place.)

A letter the politicians sent to Marshals Service director John Clark asks him to "identify any other locations … Read more