Photo by Ike Wilson Suzy Noble, an assistant shopkeeper at Etiquette Table Top Design & Accessories in downtown Frederick, doesn't like the full-body scanning idea.

That's the question a full-body scan at the nation's airports brings up.

Are businesspeople, who always seem short on time, willing to allow the scan, permitting them to zoom through airports?

Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix became the first in the nation Thursday to test new body-scanning technology that could replace the metal detectors that passengers walk through at airports.

The Active Millimeter Wave body scanner has generated strong opinions. The Transportation Security Administration says the technology is safe and doesn't allow subjects to be viewed nude. The ACLU disagrees.

Whitney Weller, a spokesman for L-3 Communications, the defense contractor that developed the machine, said its images are not explicit in any way.

In a media demonstration using a female model, the image showed the outline of clothing including a brassiere and underwear. But there were no visible details beyond the body's contours, according to an Associated Press report.

But the ACLU's privacy expert Barry Steinhardt, disagreed Thursday in a written response to the body scan.

"The technology produces strikingly graphic images of passengers' bodies," Steinhardt said. "Those images reveal not only our private body parts, but also intimate medical details like colostomy bags. That degree of examination amounts to a significant -- and for some people, humiliating -- assault on the essential dignity of passengers that citizens in a free nation should not have to tolerate."

Local business people react

So how do locals feel about it? Would they feel comfortable under a full-body scan?

Suzy Noble is an assistant shopkeeper at Etiquette Table Top Design & Accessories at 107 E. Patrick St., in downtown Frederick .

Noble cringed at the idea of airport workers being able to see her body parts.

"I understand that safety comes first, but there's so much technology out there that there has to be a better way," Noble said. "It's a step in the right direction."

Privacy

Transportation Security Administration officials said the TSA officer doing the screening will never see the computer image and no images are saved.

But Frederick real estate agent Keith Patterson isn't sold, and is concerned about the way women's scans could be abused.

"Suppose you get a pervert who takes a picture and decides to keep it for his future use?" Patterson said.

Businesspeople do want to move quickly through airports, Patterson said. But he said that in addition to long security lines, the airlines should shoulder some of the blame for making travel so stressful today.

"The airlines never take off on time," Patterson said. "I'm dreading going to board an airplane next week for a trip to Michigan."

Local business owner Daryl Boffman, a Board of Education member, said he hadn't read about the scanner, but believes there are too many unanswered questions.

"Will they scan children, too?" he asked.

"Typically, we start with something voluntary but after a period of time, it becomes mandatory," Boffman said. "I think I would rather continue with the traditional screening. If you have someone who doesn't pass the traditional screening, then you direct them to the secondary screening."

Fatime Yoda, co-owner of Tropical Supermarket on North Market Street, believes it should be a secondary step.

"Technology is so advanced these days that they don't have to see body parts," Yoda said. "If something is wrong, then it should beep and the person should be sent for further screening."

Boffman said businesspeople in a hurry can do as they please, "But I don't want mandatory screenings for me, my wife or my children," he added.

Health effects?

Boffman was concerned about the level of radiation Active Millimeter Wave body scanners emit.

"It might be a low level, but what's the implication if you go through the scanner a number of times?" he said.

The TSA said the technology emits less energy than a cell phone and is not harmful.

The machine uses radio waves to detect foreign objects and creates an image based on energy reflected from the body. The image is viewed by an operator in a private screening room, but faces of those being screened are blurred so they can't be recognized.

The ACLU is skeptical of the privacy safeguards the TSA touts.

"They say that they are obscuring faces, but that is just a software fix that can be undone as easily as it is applied," Steinhardt said. "And obscuring faces does not hide the fact that rest of the body will be vividly displayed."

Steinhardt said the ACLU also questions whether the TSA, which has still not addressed some basic problems with transportation security -- such as cargo screening -- should be spending large sums of money on these expensive devices.

"Finally, we wonder how many of the people who submit to this body scan will end up having to do a pat-down search anyway because of limits in the technology's ability to definitively identify suspected threats," Steinhardt said. "Our impression is that a very high percentage of the passengers who opt for a scan will still wind up being physically searched because TSA officials will have trouble distinguishing threatening objects from ordinary ones like a wallet."

The Associated Press contributed to this article.