DENVER—Radiation alerts, privacy notices and no-pressure requirements for security screeners could be headed to Colorado under a bill that would go further than federal proposals to inform travelers about security measures.
Colorado’s Senate could debate as soon as Friday a measure that may set up the nation’s most exhaustive disclosure requirements for security machines used at airports and public buildings.
The Republican-sponsored bill includes a snippet of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, protecting citizens from unreasonable search and seizure. The measure goes on to require public buildings and airports to report details about the security machines used, from hand-held and walk-through metal detectors to full-body scanners that have raised privacy questions nationwide.
Sen. Kevin Lundberg, the bill’s sponsor, said he got the idea from constituents with health and privacy concerns about security machines. Just like food labels spell out what’s in a product, public buildings should have to disclose what they’re using on travelers and visitors to enhance security, he said.
“I understand why security doesn’t want us to know exactly what they’re doing. They have to catch the bad guys. But in a free society, that has to be balanced,” Lundberg said.
The spread of full-body imaging at airports has raised concerns about what the machines do and how the images are used. Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate approved a measure to prohibit anyone with access to the scanned body images from photographing or disseminating those images.
The Colorado version would go much further, requiring disclosure notices at any public building that requires security screenings, including airports. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration said the agency wouldn’t take a position on the Colorado measure but knew of no other states with similar requirements. Denver International Airport, Colorado’s largest, also hasn’t said whether it opposes the bill.
But some Republicans are expected to oppose Lundberg’s idea when it comes to the Senate floor. One of the skeptics is Sen. Ellen Roberts, a Durango Republican who flies twice a week to commute to the Capitol from her home in far southwest Colorado.
“I realize when I choose to fly in the post-9/11 era that I might be subjected to things I don’t really want, but we do it for safety,” said Roberts, who voted against Lundberg’s idea in committee.
Roberts says she fears the bill’s lengthy disclosure requirements would create a burden on small airports such as her hometown Durango-La Plata County Airport.
“The requirements are phenomenal. And we’re talking, what, like one in 500 people might actually stop and read all that? I can’t imagine how my little regional airport is going to handle all this,” Roberts said.
Others say the state should step up disclosure requirements in the interest of consumers, even if many wouldn’t read the disclosures.
“You always hear concerns about what X-Ray machines do to you and what our privacy rights are,” said Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley. “I like the disclosure aspect. A lot of people just get nervous about security because they don’t know what it is and what their rights are.”
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