By PHIL DRAKE and MICHAEL NOYES
HELENA – Airport officials hope stick figures can douse the controversy over the new full-body scans and pat downs being implemented for fliers across the nation.
     Ron Mercer, director of Helena Regional Airport, said much of the controversy regarding the new scanners may ebb by the time they are installed at his airport in spring 2011. He said the scanners will have new software that just puts a stick image on the screen, alerting to hot spots, rather than a full body disclosure.
     Mercer said an engineering firm that would install the scanner was at the Helena airport last week to look at the facility.
People have expressed outrage over the installation of  body scanners by the Transportation Security Administration at about 60 of the nation’s airports. These machines, known as ”full-body scanners” use low-dose radiation to produce graphic images of passengers’ bodies, essentially taking a naked picture as passengers pass through security checkpoints. People can opt out of the scan, but are then subjected to manual searches.
One airport traveler who resisted a full-body scan and groin check told officials in an exchange now posted on the internet: “If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested.”
Federal officials have said the scanners were introduced after continued security threats at airports. There are now about 300 scanners at 60 airports and hope to have 500 units installed by the end of the year, CBS News reports.
The TSA has posted a Nov. 15 CBS News poll on its site that shows that 81 percent of people polled support the new system.
Tom Binford, airport director at Billings Logan International Airport, and Gallatin Field airport Director Brian Sprenger said their airports were expected to use the scanners that showed stick figures as well.
     “I think they’re under testing now,” but haven’t yet been approved for use in America, Binford said.
     The Billings airport is scheduled to get the new scanners sometime next year, but a specific date has not been announced, according to Binford.
     Mercer said he thinks the current scans could negatively impact the number of fliers.
     “…I would guess that there’s a larger number who don’t care for that than we anticipate and will not be flying,” Mercer said. “I think it would make a difference to some people. Some say they would do it to feel more secure, but at the same time there are those silent folks out there who will find another way and say ‘I’m not going to do it.’”
     He said those who opt out, would be patted down by security personnel “and you don’t want that either.”
     Contacted Friday morning, Binford said he has heard from customers who are concerned about the new security procedures. He tells them they need to contact the TSA.
     “I cannot control the TSA,” Binford said.
     Mercer said Helena airport, which will likely have 95,000 passengers this year, had no plans to protest the TSA’s mandate for the new scanners, which will be paid for by the federal government.
     “You hate not to cooperate with the TSA because they are trying to make the system safe,” he said, adding that the software that makes people look like stick figures “will take away 90 percent of problem.”
Sprenger told The Belgrade News that no matter what is done to calm the protests, people will be upset.
“We have a number of people who are waiting on that technology because it’s less intrusive than the pat-downs. But there are some people as well who don’t like that technology,” he said.
“You kind of have to sympathize with the TSA that they’re kind of behind a rock and a hard place, trying to find a way to do it with technology and without technology,” Sprenger told the Belgrade News. “It’s a difficult situation.”