(Thumbnail image: The Boston Globe)

Airports around the country may soon be installing scanners that will take X-ray images of passengers through their clothing.

Security officials have said such full body scanners could have stopped the would-be Christmas Day bomber from getting past security.

The scanners are designed to detect dangerous items strapped to the body that would pass through metal detectors.

We’re looking at perspectives from KTTV, WWMT, ABC 7, True/Slant, and FOX News.

Not surprisingly, some passengers are uncomfortable with the idea of a machine seeing through their clothes.

The FOX affiliate in Los Angeles brings us this.

“TSA promises faces will be blurred out.  Hers is, but you can easily see what type of underwear she’s wearing.  'I think that’s really bad because I mean they can obviously see you naked, and I think that’s a little intrusive, it’s bad enough as it is that they go through every single thing that you have.'”

But a CBS affiliate in Michigan finds passengers who believe it’s a necessary invasion of privacy.

“I don’t particularly like it, but if it’s going to keep us safe in the air, then that’s what we have to do.”

“You’re never going to please everybody, no matter what you do.  Someone has to take control, and this is the way it is.”

An aviation expert tells Denver’s ABC station that spotting potential dangers should happen before high-tech body screening.

“…if you’re reaping the benefits from the revenues from an airline ticket, then you should take greater responsibility for the safety of all of the passengers.”

“And Cowell believes that begins in the pre-screening process.  For example, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab purchased a one-way ticket with cash, and had no luggage, three red flags he says that someone should have caught.”

A blogger on True/Slant wants the airport security process to be as quick and painless as possible.  If full body scanners will make that happen, so be it.    

“...I’d gladly walk a gauntlet of TSA employees completely naked were it offered as a speedy alternative to arriving at the airport two hours early and standing in line for 45 awful minutes.”

But a director of a security company tells FOX News that to achieve speedy and safe security, both techniques need to be implemented.

“Well there’s no question that the Israelis have proven that profiling works and it works very effectively.  They haven’t had a terrorist attack on an airplane, ever.  However, if we’re serious in this country about providing efficient access in gras e gras in and out of airports you have to combine technology with the profiling.  And that’s where you get the imaging.  And if you don’t want to do the imaging then offer the pat down.”

So what is your opinion of the full body scanners?  Invasion of privacy or a necessary security measure?

Writer: Lee Morehouse

Producer: Nathan Giannini