U.S. Supreme Court will eventually rule on the legality of whole-body scanning

of bulky clothing or head wear remain unchanged,” the agency said. “To ensure the highest level of security, passengers wearing loose fitting or bulky clothing — including head wear — may be subject to additional screening. In instances where passengers choose not to remove bulky clothing, including head wear, our officers are trained to offer a private screening area and may conduct a pat down search to clear the individual.”

In the Netherlands, officials say in the wake of the Christmas Day attempted bombing, all passengers headed for the United States will undergo full-body scans, and British officials pledge to use full-body scanners as well.

In the United States, 40 scanners are used at 19 airports, including Reagan National and Baltimore-Washington International, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Only six, though, are used for the primary security search. The TSA has ordered 150 more scanners and has funding for an additional 300.

Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) point out the screened images of passengers are essentially naked, with genitals exposed, to determine whether explosives are being carried under a passenger’s clothes. Faces would be blurred, and U.S. security officials insist the images cannot be transmitted to the Internet.

Isaac Yeffet, former head of El-Al airlines, told Fox News Muslims would not tolerate widespread use of the devices. “Realize that a Muslim will know that his wife was seen naked in this machine,” he said. “You know what would be the reaction? … Terrible.”

The ACLU responded to the new security measures by saying: “The government should adhere to longstanding standards of individualized suspicion and enact security measures that are the least threatening to civil liberties and are proven to be effective. Racial profiling and untargeted body scanning do not meet those criteria.”

Michael German, national security policy counsel at the ACLU Washington Legislative Office and a former FBI agent, said in a statement, “Overbroad policies such as racial profiling and invasive body scanning for all travelers not only violate our rights and values, they also waste valuable resources and divert attention from real threats. … ”

“Singling out travelers from a few specified countries for enhanced screening is essentially a pretext for racial profiling, which is ineffective, unconstitutional and violates American values,” he added. “Empirical studies of terrorists show there is no terrorist profile, and using a profile that doesn’t reflect this reality will only divert resources by having government agents target innocent people. Profiling