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Scientists Question Safety of New Airport Scanners
An anonymous reader sends this quote from a story at NPR about the accelerated deployment of new scanning machines at airports:
"Fifty-two of these state-of-the-art machines are already scanning passengers at 23 US airports. By the end of 2011, there will be 1,000 machines and two out of every three passengers will be asked to step into one of the new machines for a six-second head-to-toe scan before boarding. About half of these machines will be so-called X-ray back-scatter scanners. They use low-energy X-rays to peer beneath passengers' clothing. That has some scientists worried. ... The San Francisco group thinks both the machine's manufacturer, Rapiscan, and government officials have miscalculated the dose that the X-ray scanners deliver to the skin — where nearly all the radiation is concentrated. The stated dose — about .02 microsieverts, a medical unit of radiation — is averaged over the whole body, members of the UCSF group said in interviews. But they maintain that if the dose is calculated as what gets deposited in the skin, the number would be higher, though how much higher is unclear."
The fact that we soon may not be able to board an airplane without a government bureaucrat looking at our cocks is ample proof that the terrorists won. Fucking FUD -- all that we needed after 9/11 was a locked cockpit door.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
To never use commercial airflight again.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Regardless of the health issues, why should I be electronically strip-searched when the next terrorist is going to shove explosives up his ass and remove/detonate them during flight?
What invasion of privacy is going to happen after that event?
And the worms ate into his brain.
There's already been studies looking at changes in gene expression following millimeter-wave irradiation of skin: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18302488
Overall, given the reviews of the literature it's still unclear whether there's a potential for long-term health damage.
However, even if there was, I doubt anyone will care. The security theater must be kept up, even if it means that people would be harmed by repeated exposure.
"Sir, we will protect you from yourself, even if it kills you".
I don't honestly care whether there's a real medical issue here. I don't care if it takes Fox News-style "gotcha" tactics to make the hysterical cries of "THINK OF THE CHILDREN" echo up and down the corridors of the powerful.
Anything that kills this program needs to be seized upon, hyped, spun into something it's probably truthfully not - the lies and paranoia that have been eating away at us like a cancer need to be repurposed toward actually helping us.
--Ryv
You can't build a jobs program around a locked cockpit door.
As someone who has done a fair share of work in airports (digital signage) and has been badged in a couple of term, I can say this from observation and from talking to people in the airports and the TSA, the issue is not the passengers, it's the workers. The passengers are checked to ridiculous measures, but if you work at an airport your protocols are entirely different. All the tarmac entrances and any "employee only" entrance isn't guarded by the TSA, but rather independent security companies hired by the airports themselves, so every airports strictness at these points are anywhere from stricter or far more lax, especially if you're a regular employee that they recognize. I have had to throw gear into the back of an electricians truck many many a time and driven it onto the tarmac without them opening or even swabbing the boxes. At that point I am less then 30ft away from a 767.
All this extra effort at the checkpoints is to keep up what most people here already know what it is. The illusion of absolute safety in a system where it can never be guaranteed 100%.
"Why Does Liberal Academia Hate Security?"
No, that's millimeter wave, which is the other type of full body scanner. Both backscatter X-ray and millimeter wave scanners cause cancer, they just do it in different ways.
Either way, you won't see me setting foot anywhere NEAR one of those scanners. If enough people demand to be hand searched that it brings air travel to a grinding halt, maybe this bullshit will stop.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
You are correct. One of the highest radiation dose jobs in the world is pilot, followed by co-pilot and flight attendant. This is drilled into those taking radiation safety courses. Of course, one must be aware of the different affects the specific energy particles/rays have on DNA to give a complete picture of the long term hazards. Interestingly enough, the NPR piece, which had an expert stating that they were not worried about excessive x-ray dosages from equipment malfunction, was immediately followed by one on the accidental excessive x-ray doses from medical scanners. Whoops!
Completely agreed. I don't know which is worse - the fact that people can't accept that the risk from terrorism is minimal, or the fact that an awful lot of this is simply security theatre which probably won't be exposed as such because the threat is minimal.
I've mentioned it a few times before, but one of the major reasons I refuse to believe the sincerity of measures like this scanning technology is that one can purchase large glass bottles in any airport departure lounge. A glass bottle is a far more effective weapon than many of the other items that they'll confiscate from hand luggage, yet I've never even seen the issue mentioned.
Every time your 5-year-old child steps through, it's just like you made them smoke a cigarette. Would you make your 5-year-old child smoke a cigarette?
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
Looks like it's mandatory.
Fail.
The thing that makes an aircraft so interesting as a target is because it can fly anywhere. If you can't reach the cockpit the aircraft is no more intresting as a target than for example a train or a bus.
For some reason we don't need to strip-search bus or train passengers so to me it sure seems like this would solve the problem.
You see, one of the best ways to be protected is to not be a target.
There has not been a midair bombing of a plane since December 1988 with Pan AM Flight 103, and that was a non US flight.
If you are afraid of bombs on a airplane, you really need to go get therapy for your paranoia. It's not healthy and is probably a danger to those around you.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Technically you have a choice, but given the monkeys that work for security today, they probably don't know that. They will insist vehemently that you HAVE to be scanned, just as they held-up this guy for carrying a lot of cash (not an illegal act): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0SXuclz47Y
People in authority often make-up laws ("You must comply") right on the spot even when the actual law says otherwise.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
When was the last bomb that set off on an airplane? 85?
They started searching luggage - and that has worked. The whole body scanner is a solution to a problem solved years ago. It does nothing to assist the need to search people and luggage prior to boarding a plane. People got used to the idea of being patted down at an airport.
In recent news, all of the failed bomb attempts have been mostly due to shoddy materials or poor bomb makers. The Government is using that as an example of how their efforts are working over in the Middle East. They claim that they are being successful in taking out bomb makers and that the third or fourth string recruits are the only ones left, and they are failing.
I'd be fine and dandy with that if it meant they could take out the body scanners and Lax airport security a bit. Have they found any bombs since introducing the body scanners? If so, why aren't they reporting them? If not, then they aren't necessary.
Any arguement you make about Scanners making things safer, I can also say that routine police raids into your home to ransack and a search for weapons couldn't equally achieve. Would you consent to your neighbours taking nude photos of you anytime you wanted to leave your house? At what point does invasion of privacy become acceptable? Because body scanners have definately crossed some lines.
On top of all of that, are you also willing to risk your health?
In the U.K.
Everywhere else but the U.K., you have a fundamental right to be hand searched. That's why I've decided that instead of going through Heathrow like I usually do, for future trips to Europe, I'll be flying through Charles de Gaulle instead.
For everyone who thinks U.S. air travel policies are absurd, the U.S. allows you to request a manual search. Only the U.K. is so fascist that they will not allow hand searches.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
While a locked cockpit door is a big plus, people could still threaten the entire plane with a bomb. Frankly, other than possible health dangers, I find the millimeter-wave scanners to be a very promising thing - if I could go through airport security just by walking through a scanner instead of all the rigmarole of three different detectors and randomized pat-downs, I'd be a much happier traveler. I really don't care if some homeland security person is looking at my penis. I'm not that insecure, and I'm not that wrapped up with stupid modesty taboos. Looking doesn't hurt me. Long lines do, and to my mind pat-downs are a heck of a lot more invasive than a greyscale picture on a screen.
Bobb9000 - raised by the wolves,
Oxford education as phrased by the wolves.
The terrorists haven't won. "The terrorists" have nebulous and ill-defined victory conditions which vary greatly from terrorist to terrorist - if they even have a clear idea of what they want. But you can be sure that "Waste Americans' time at the airport" wasn't the objective.
You have lost, but it's not a zero-sum game.
qntm.org
Umm. Because the people screening the passengers as they got on were in England maybe?
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
The long lines and endless searching of passengers is to break down your will so that when the plane is turned into a weapon you will simply welcome death because you realize you don't have to worry about flying ever again.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
And perfectly safe airplanes with naked passengers securely chained to their seats would not prevent a terrorist from detonating a bomb in a densely populated area. He and his bomb just wouldn't be on this plane.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."