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THE FEDS are losing control of the debate over the Transportation Security Administration&rsquo;s new full-body scanners and enhanced pat-down techniques. A combination of well-intentioned privacy concerns and Internet lore could spell doom for the public acceptance of the new measures.
 It&rsquo;s not so complicated. Upon reaching an airport&rsquo;s security area, travelers are asked to undergo a full-body scan by an Advanced Imaging Technology scanner. If they don&rsquo;t want the scan, they can opt for a pat-down by a TSA official. Simple, and yet there are so many rumors about this procedure that there&rsquo;s a need to separate fact from fiction.
 Last week, multiple callers to my radio program expressed the concern that Muslims dressed in hijabs or other traditional clothing can opt out of both the scan and the pat-down. While it&rsquo;s true that some Muslim-American groups in February said the scanners violate Islam&rsquo;s sense of modesty and should be avoided, those groups advised their supporters to undergo the pat-downs.
 The Council on American-Islamic Relations recently issued a travel advisory informing Muslims that if they object to the scanners, they can request a private pat-down administered by a security official of the same sex &ndash; the exact same right every American has regardless of ethnicity or creed.
 Here&rsquo;s another story making the rounds: The full-body scanners will give you cancer. I find it ironic that we hold cell phones to our ears for hours a day, vegetate in front of computer screens and cook our food in microwaves, and yet some worry about a body scan that takes seconds on the rare occasions when most of us fly.
 Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wrote last week that the machines had been deemed safe by the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and by researchers at Johns Hopkins University.
 It&rsquo;s not that the machines don&rsquo;t emit radiation. By all accounts, they do. But as TSA chief John Pistole reiterated in my conversation with him, those organizations had indeed assessed the devices and &ldquo;all found that the radiation from these machines are well within the acceptable safety limits.&rdquo;
 Here&rsquo;s another concern: The scanners and pat-downs are a blatant invasion of privacy. A thirtysomething Internet sensation from California has been whining about his &ldquo;junk,&rdquo; creating the impression that he&rsquo;d been asked to turn his head and cough. This is pure kvetching.
 Here&rsquo;s the reality: The TSA official viewing the scanned body images does so in a walled-off location in which cameras of any kind are prohibited. That official does not interact with fliers. The official who does deal with the fliers does not see the images. Sensitive areas of the images are blurred.
 That hasn&rsquo;t stopped the rumor that outlines of one&rsquo;s genitals could end up on somebody&rsquo;s Facebook page. In other words, that scanner images could be saved and distributed. To this Pistole said: &ldquo;The machines that we have deployed at airports are deployed in a way that has all those capabilities rendered inoperable. So we don&rsquo;t have the opportunity to either store, transmit, do anything with those images. They are deleted as soon as the person is cleared.&rdquo;
 And remember, travelers who don&rsquo;t want to be scanned can opt for the pat-down. They can request that the procedure take place in a private area &ndash; in front of a chosen travel companion.
 Indeed, absent from the security whining is any credible alternative. So, too, is acknowledgement of the real reason the TSA must scan and pat each person boarding a plane: There are terrorists out there who want to strike America via its air-travel system.
 The fact is, these enhanced security measures are a small price to pay for securing that system.

Scanner-whiners Need To Get A Grip On Transit Security Commentary Michael Smerconish