TSA envisions life with fewer airport screeners.

Often the target of comedians and critics in Congress, airline security screeners may find their jobs taken by machines.

A new screening system at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport that minimizes human interaction will expand this year. It will eventually handle all 55,00 bags

Bags are taken by conveyer belt from the curbside or ticket counters to a large machine inside the terminal, where they will be scanned for suspicious items and flagged for closer inspection if they do not pass muster.

Luggage that triggers an alarm will be sent to a resolution room, where security officers will search them. Officials with the Transportation Security Administration said the machine alarms about 19 percent of bags on domestic flights and about 25 percent on international flights.

Inspectors will use the three-dimensional pictures of the bags' contents to examine suspicious items quickly.

A report issued by the Government Accountability Office estimated the new system at DFW will save the TSA about $250 million over seven years, by screening bags twice as fast with far fewer screeners.

TSA also is currently testing a new concept of screening passengers that is called Secure Flight.

The Department of Homeland Security late last year cancelled the development of its computer assisted commercial pre-screening program and instead started development of Secure Flight. TSA, as opposed to air carriers, will operate the new system and use a larger, more consolidated watch list database that is not currently available to the private sector.

When a passenger makes flight arrangements, the air carrier or travel service company will complete the reservation by entering existing passenger data in its system. Once the reservation is completed, the air carriers will store the data electronically and send it to Secure Flight through a network connection provided by DHS. Reservations made less than 72 hours before flight time will be sent immediately to TSA.

The National Commission on Terrorists Attacks upon the United States reported in 2004 that the passenger watch lists used by the air carriers did not include all terrorism suspects because of concerns about intelligence sharing. The commission recommended that passenger screening be performed by the feds, to make use of a larger, consolidated watch list database maintained by the government.