(Newser)
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The Transportation Security Administration was ordered a full year ago to "promptly" hold public hearings about its controversial use of full-body scanners, but there has been zilch from the agency so far. A federal appeals court has now ordered the agency to explain its lack of action, and to hold the hearings by the end of this month, reports Wired. The agency has also been ordered to disclose its rules and regulations concerning the scanners to the public.
The court order came in response to a lawsuit from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which sought to block the use of the intrusive scanners in airports. Critics fear that the scanners are a threat to health as well as privacy, and may not even be that effective. The TSA—which argued that holding public hearings about the scanners would harm its ability to respond to "ever-evolving threats"—switched to software that displays less revealing images of passengers within days of last year's court order.
