HR 2200, the Transportation Security Administration Authorization Act, was
referred this past 8 June to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation, on which you sit.  HR 2200 in the form in which it was received
by your committee from the House of Representatives contains H.Amdt. 172 which
would prohibit the TSA from using whole-body imaging for primary screening at
airports, and would require the TSA to give passengers the option of a pat-down
search in lieu of going through a WBI machine.  The amendment also prohibits
the TSA from storing, transferring, or copying any images of passengers that
are produced by a whole-body machine.

The need to preserve this amendment in the Senate mark-up of this bill has been
demonstrated recently with an admission by the US Marshals Service, prompted by
a Freedom of Information Act request by the Electronic Privacy Information
Center, that more than 35,000 whole-body nude images from scanners at the
Orlando Federal Courthouse secretly stored.  This admission prompted a 19
August letter
(http://politechbot.com/docs/lieberman.collins.marshals.body.scanning.081910.txt)
from Senators Lieberman, Collins, Akaka, Carper, Chambliss and Isakson to
Marshals Service director John F Clark, demanding an explanation and further
details.  As their letter points out, automated algorithms rather than humans
can flag apparent anomalies in these scans, obviating the need for human
inspection of these very revealing images.

I urge you, therefore, to support this particular aspect of HR 2200 in its
current form.  With a seat on the Commerce Committee, you have great influence
on the mark-up of HR 2200.  Don't let that influence go to waste.