Airports irked by removal of scanners

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - Managers at dozens of small airports have expressed outrage at federal officials for hauling new full-body scanners away from their facilities and sending them to large hubs that haven't yet upgraded older machines criticized for showing too much anatomy.

U.S. Transportation Security Administration contractors were threatened with arrest after officials at a Montana airport said they received no notice before the workers arrived. In North Dakota, the scanners are set to be yanked from a terminal remodeled last year with $40,000 in local funds just to fit the new machines.

"We think it's silly to have installed the thing and then come back nine months later and take it out," Bismarck airport manager Greg Haug said.

The L3 Millimeter Wave body scanners, which are about the size of a minivan on end and produce cartoonlike outlines of travelers, are being removed from 49 smaller airports across the country to help replace 174 full-body scanners used at larger airports. After controversy erupted over the bare images of a person's body the full-body scanners produce, Congress set a June deadline for them to be removed or updated.

But officials at smaller airports said removing their machines will produce longer lines, increased pat-downs, decreased security and a waste of taxpayer money.

North Dakota officials are especially critical of the swap because the state's airline boardings are skyrocketing with booming oil development. TSA is slated to remove the newly installed scanners this week at airports in Bismarck, Grand Forks and Minot.

"It does seem like a waste of time and energy, but the biggest issue is security concerns," state Aeronautics Commissioner Larry Taborsky said of removing the machines. "We are feeding a lot of traffic into the national system."

"Smaller airports are being treated as less important as bigger airports in the system," said Dave Ruppel, manager of the Yampa Valley Regional Airport in Steamboat Springs, Colo. "Any airport you go through is an entrance into the whole system."