How X-Ray Scanners Became Mandatory In US Airports

OverTheGeicoE writes "ProPublica has a story on how x-ray scanners became the controversial yet mandatory security fixtures we in the US must now endure. The story title, 'U.S. Government Glossed Over Cancer Concerns As It Rolled Out Airport X-Ray Scanners,' summarizes a substantial part of the article, but not all of it. The story also describes how government attitudes about the scanners went from overwhelmingly negative in the early 1990s to the naive optimism we see today. How did this change occur? The government weakened its regulatory structure for radiation safety in electronic devices, and left defining safety standards to an ANSI committee dominated by scanner producers and users (prison and customs officials). Even after 9/11 there was still great mistrust of x-ray scanners, but nine years of lobbying from scanner manufacturers, panic over failed terrorist attacks, and pressure from legislators advancing businesses in their own districts eventually forced the devices into the airports. The article estimates that 6 to 100 cancers per year will be caused by the x-ray scanners."

Comments

That's a good tradeoff

[Anonymous Coward]

So, 100 people a year could get a death sentence from a system that has yet to save a single life? That makes as much sense as anything else this government does.

6 to 100 cancers per year will be caused...

[fredrated]

In other words, more people will die from exposure to the scanners than would have died from the supposed terrorist attacks they 'protect' us from. And why? Money of course, that is what runs this country (into the ground).

Re:6 to 100 cancers per year will be caused...

[kilfarsnar]

Sure, but if we didn't have scanners and it was fairly trivial to get through security, they number would skyrocket.

That's your fear talking. These scanners have only been in place a few years. It's not like there were frequent attacks before that. So what are they preventing? All of this hysteria is caused by our reaction to a singular event over a decade ago; an event these scanners would not have prevented.

Re:The TL;DR version.

[dkleinsc]

No, that's not correct: It was raw, unmitigated corruption.

Or did you think it was an accident that then-DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, in charge of DHS when they made the decision to use the scanners, just happened to have a financial interest in the company that makes the scanners?

Re:I wish they would do the obvious

[SlippyToad]

About four years ago I went on a business trip. My then-wife had given me a small medallion with a chinese symbol on it. I could SEE when the cunt checked me in at the counter she noticed this medallion with a "funny foreign symbol on it" and lo and behold I was selected for a pat-down at security.

And as far as I know the cargo area of my plane was wide open to whoever the fuck wanted to get in there. That's my beef. This security theater shit is old. I did not have to take off my shoes in China or South Korea when boarding a plane (something I did 7 times in 10 days on a trip just a couple years back). It's all a sham.

We've been talked out of our privacy, our rights, and our dignity and now the elite of the world giggle and profit as we are made to parade naked in front of them like fucking zoo animals. Fuck them in the ear.