US OKs Dutch Use of Full Body Scanners

The Netherlands will immediately begin using full body scanners for flights heading to the US, according to an announcement that comes with a report today on the failed Christmas airline bombing. The US opposed their use previously because of privacy concerns, but the Dutch interior minister says that the Obama administration now agrees that "all possible measures will be used." "It is not exaggerating to say the world has escaped a disaster."

"Our view now is that the use of millimeter wave scanners would certainly have helped detect that he had something on his body," the minister said. Amsterdam's Schiphol airport has 15 body scanners, but their use has been limited because of privacy objections that they display the contours of the passenger's body. New software, however, eliminates that problem by projecting a stylized image, and all scanners will be upgraded within three weeks. (More Northwest Flight 253 stories.)