Our man Brad Lander, City Council Member for the 39th District, is in the news yet again this week. Earlier in the week Lander penned a piece in the Huffington Post against the nomination of Cathie Black for NYC Schools Chancellor and now he’s speaking out against full body scans at airports.

Today on the steps of City Hall, Lander joined Council Members David G. Greenfield, Gale Brewer, Fernando Cabrera, Debi Rose, Robert Jackson and Jumaane Williams in support of legislation that would ban the use of full body scanners in New York City, including New York’s two airports – JFK International Airport and LaGuardia Airport.

The Council Members were also joined by  Marc Rotenberg, a professor of law at Georgetown University and President of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). He is heading up a  lawsuit to suspend the deployment of body scanners at US airports, pending an independent review.

Earlier this week, Councilman Greenfield proposed legislation to ban the use of full body scanners, also known as “naked body scanners,” in New York City.  Passengers who pass through these scanners, which cost nearly $200,000 each, have clear images of their nude bodies displayed to a Transportation Safety Administration employee, which Homeland Security officials insist make travel safer. However, leading international security experts disagree.

“The images produced by these naked body scanners are equivalent to the most intrusive strip search,” said Councilman Greenfield.  “I am deeply troubled that we are subjecting New Yorkers to this humiliating process, which breaches their most basic privacy rights, when we don’t even have sufficient assurances that these scanners are more effective than other less intrusive methods.”