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TSA To Retest Full Body Scanners For Radiation
cultiv8 writes with this excerpt from USA Today:
"The Transportation Security Administration announced Friday that it would retest every full-body X-ray scanner that emits ionizing radiation — 247 machines at 38 airports — after maintenance records on some of the devices showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected. The TSA says that the records reflect math mistakes and that all the machines are safe. Indeed, even the highest readings listed on some of the records — the numbers that the TSA says were mistakes — appear to be many times less than what the agency says a person absorbs through one day of natural background radiation.
Even so, the TSA has ordered the new tests out of 'an abundance of caution to reassure the public,' spokesman Nicholas Kimball says. The tests will be finished by the end of the month, and the results will be released 'as they are completed,' the agency said on its website."
A medical facility that allowed an x-ray machine to expose patients to an order of magnitude more radiation than it was supposed to for any length of time would have hell to pay.
TFA does not say that TSA detected problems and so is re-testing everything. It says that AFTER they were forced by lawmakers and the press to release records AND it was determined that at least 33% of those inspections were rendered worthless by seriously sloppy procedure AND lawmakers rumbled about taking action, THEN and only THEN the TSA reluctantly offered to retest everything.
That's far from your characterization.
While "groped" would certainly be an exaggeration, I have absolutely had my balls touched by a TSA officer after refusing the scanner here in San Francisco. This has happened more than once.