There's news on the airport security front. The good news is full-body pat-downs and metal detectors may soon become a thing of the past. The bad news is a far more intrusive technology may take their place.

The Transportation Security Administration has announced that it will begin testing the next generation of whole-body imaging technology at 10 American airports (not Pittsburgh). Millimeter Wave scanners see through clothing as efficiently as Superman's X-ray vision to reveal contraband material, weapons and explosives.

The scanners also reveal personal details that fliers would prefer to keep private -- like colostomy bags, penile implants, mastectomies and images of breasts and genitals, which passengers might be inclined to be selective about sharing with federal airport inspectors.

The American Civil Liberties Union has called the technology an "assault" on the flying public's "essential dignity" and a violation of its reasonable expectations to privacy.

For its part, the TSA said that one of the technology's virtues is that it blurs the identity of the passengers during the scanning process. Those monitoring the incoming data in a remote section of the airport can radio security when they see something suspicious. The TSA also insists that, to ensure privacy, passenger images won't be transmitted or archived.

The majority of those who have passed through the machines at the airports where it is in use have not complained, but they didn't see the images the machines created either.

Most fliers haven't made an issue of the technology, but what happens when the new-wave scanners begin showing up at security gates other than airports? Will the public be ready to handle all that naked truth at the entrance to city halls, sports stadiums and concert arenas?