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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."
Spit on the Qur'an or go through the scanner. We'd be just as safe.
The reason why there are scanners: not because there is an actual need, or statistics that say so, or science or anything objective.
It was a result of panic and greed.
Just like the rest of that War on Terror.
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.
The idea is that you create "make-work" for people to do, and then there'll be more jobs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
The problem is the money you're spending is coming out of taxes, which is reducing the amount that would have been invested in other productivity-enhancing or job-producing activities in the economy.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
I guess I just won't ever go on holiday to the US again then. Problem solved!
On a more serious note, as an existing radiation worker in the health industry, I personally object to being exposed to this which I see as completely unnecessary on health grounds
ok. 100 people a year. 10 years. I sincerely doubt the "terrorists" could kill 1000 people in 10 years on US soil.
Perhaps the terrorists are actually hyper intelligent beings who knew all along that if they could only trick us into radiating ourselves out of fear of them and we would do their job for them while they kick back and enjoy some of that great Mideast sun and sand. 1000 dead and all they had to do was say "Boo!"
do not welcome our new x-ray overlords.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
"How X-Ray Scanners Became Mandatory In US Airports" --> Raw, unmitigated fear.
The people that do not seem to care about politics in this country.. or think they actually get news from CNN, FOX, MSNBC, or any of the country's big newspapers.. do not realize how thoroughly corrupt the entire system has become. Michael Chertoff is corrupt.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/23/fear_pays_chertoff_n_787711.html
These unelected public officials go from decision-making positions in government to lucrative private industry that sells more bullshit back to government at the expence of taxpayers. We, as taxpayers, need to start looking at these big-money solutions as spending OUR money.
Airport security is a farce. Tell me this, what sense does it make to limit liquid tubes to 6oz? Why do we simply throw any liquid tubes into the trash can if they really believe the liquid is explosives? Now there is a trash can full of `explosives`. What is to stop someone from having 3 6oz bottles, when mixed together you now have 18oz? These policies make no sense. It's no surprise to me that we use x-ray scanners in airports. They're mostly a deterrent but if someone really wants to take a plane down I'm sure they can figure out a way to get around airport 'security'.
If your're really worried about the x-ray scanners just claim you can't raise your arms over your head.
Then they grope you instead. This is TSA SOP nowadays.
ok. 100 people a year. 10 years. I sincerely doubt the "terrorists" could kill 1000 people in 10 years on US soil.
...Except when they killed almost 3000 in one day...
yeah, a real shame that keeps happening every year...
just claim you can't raise your arms over your head.
Bob Dole isn't sure if he is offended or honored by this comment.
Sincerely
Bob Dole
Or you could just politely say "I opt-out of going through the scanner." with the same results.
Hasn't been a problem.
How would x-ray scanners prevent that from happening again?
I can think of more than one way of killing 1000+ people without an x-ray scanner stopping me.
ok. 100 people a year. 10 years. I sincerely doubt the "terrorists" could kill 1000 people in 10 years on US soil.
...Except when they killed almost 3000 in one day...
Which has happened once in 500 years.
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).
When they passed seat belt laws in Michigan it was a "secondary offense" - you couldn't be pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt. Until they changed the law after about 10 years, once everyone had gotten used to it.
ok. 100 people a year. 10 years. I sincerely doubt the "terrorists" could kill 1000 people in 10 years on US soil.
...Except when they killed almost 3000 in one day...
Yep .. they sure did kill 3000 in one day. However the preventative measures to stop them doing this again seems to be killing more that 300 people a year through increased road traffic (and hence car crashes) and (as reported in this article - although this is not news) another 100 or so a year from cancer.
Terrorism is not something you can eradicate (especially if your foreign policy is to continually piss people off), so combatting it is always going to be a trade off/balance between how much hurt you can accept from the terrorists vs how much hurt you will inflict on your own people in the name of "protecting" them.
In this case I find it strange that the solution to stopping the terrorists from killing off US citizens is to institute policies that effectively cause the US government to kill off even more citizens than the terrorists have.
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I opt out of these things every time I fly. My buddies insist "you get more exposure to radiation flying in the aircraft than you do going through the scanner." They proceed to go right through them.
Amusingly enough I've had an easier time voluntarily subjecting myself to the search than I have ever had when involuntarily being forced into being searched. I travel a lot, single white guy, long hair--most people assume drugs, search accordingly.
At the end of the day though; someone touching my crotch very briefly (trust me, they don't want to be touching me any more than I want to be touched) isn't going to give me cancer.
The Terrorists Win!!! How many Americans have died in vain in wars designed to "stop terrorism"? How effective have those efforts been? How many man years have been lost to security theater? And now, how many will die from security theater?
TFA claims 6 to 100 passenger cancers, but how many TSA agent cancers? A passenger gets a scan a couple times a year, and the machines are claimed to be equivalent to 0.001 medical X-ray images (assuming the calibration is correct -- I've seen reports of 0.1 or 0.001 for misaligned machines). They claim it's equivalent to the ionizing radiation from the cosmic rays at cruising altitude. How many passengers get scanned during a shift, and how much of the X-ray gets reflected or scattered to the agents standing just outside the machines? At 10 seconds per scan, that's 6/min, 360/hour, 2340/day (8 hour shift - 1hr meal and 2 15 min breaks). The agent would be standing a few feet away from a couple medicals a day. X-ray radiation is cumulative. Whenever I get a medical x-ray, the radiologists (who know something about radiation) leave the room and hide in a lead-lined booth. TSA agents don't even get film badges to monitor how much they are getting exposed to.
I try to get in the lines without the scanners and opt out and get groped if I can't.
Every time I see these machines, I'm reminded of the Therac-25, and wonder if the scanning beam in the backscatter devices has ever gotten 'stuck', and what sort of exposure people get from that.
There's a reason we regulate these devices.
There's also a reason we don't expose people to X-rays for non-medical reasons.
My safety is a small price for someone else to pay so that I may live a little longer. I am glad my neighbour is such a self sacrificing person
This corporate greed at the expense of the rest of us is exactly why the Occupy movement was born. There is no longer a sense of the greater good, only a sense of me me me.
The US government is acting in the interest of both the insurance companies and the politicly connected makers of the X-Ray machines. They never cared about the safety of the people. They never do. The insurance industry does not want to pay out for airplane crashes, and will roast every traveller like popcorn bags in order for those greedy bastards to keep their money.
Simple.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
These people should be thanking the TSA for being allowed to die such a noble death -- for their country, safeguarding the lives of others.
These machines were rolled out because of lobbying. People are going to die because of security theater.
By the way, most of those people will be TSA agents. Whatever the general public is getting, they are getting as well.
The summary didn't say 100 DEATHS per year. It said 100 cases of cancer per year. And that was the high side. I'm as anti-scanner as anyone out there, but succumbing to the same style of sensationalist rhetoric as the scanner supporters does our cause no good.
Actually, no. Not one terrorist attack has been stopped by these damn things ever. So they do kill more people than terrorists, period. Sky marshalls, building more secure planes, and having actual trained security staff is what detects and prevents terrorism.
Nor did it say that scanners will prevent all deaths from terrorism.
One linear model purports 6 incidents of cancer, though no standard deviation on the maximum likelihood is given. Another model suggests 100 incidents of cancer, again without a stddev. The wild difference in the maximum likelihoods of the different models, combined with the fact that the 1st model's lower bound is at zero incidents suggests that the two models don't agree.
So, will this cause more cancer, yes. Do they have any idea how much, not really. Does the media do an accurate job of reporting statistics, almost never. Should we draw hard legislative conclusions from the numbers in this study, probably not (unless we want to do so in ignorance of science and statistics).
Don't be so hard on them. Of course they could kill well over 1000 people on US soil in a year. All they need to do is bomb the bloody security checkpoints. There are hundreds of people in close quarters in an unsecured area, just waiting in line to be groped and irradiated. Put a bomber in the middle of that crowd and you've got the biggest vulnerability in the whole damned air travel system.
Yes it does. Sensationalist rhetoric gets votes. It's really the only way to get things done in an American Idol world.
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I don't believe they actually have ever been made mandatory. It's just one of those "repeat the lie often enough" scenarios. As to why we put up with them being there, I suppose it's because most Americans simply enjoy being slaves. There's really no other explanation.
X-rays are ionizing radiation.
Yes, but most of the full-body scanners are millimeter-wave scanners. That's non-ionizing. The headline and summary conveniently blurs this distinction-- it says that X-ray scanners are "mandatory" in US Airports, but thats for baggage, not people.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
...Except when they killed almost 3000 in one day...
You've killed hundreds of thousands of them in return. Isn't that enough?
No sig today...
The point is that these numbers are better than the numbers that justify the existence of the scanners. What cost/risk/benefit analysis has been done to demonstrate that these scanners are useful? The answer is none.
So, will this cause more cancer, yes.
So will these scanners save any lives? No.
End of analysis.
To be fair it didn't really say that it would prevent any deaths from terrorism.
I don't think they''l prevent any deaths from terrorism.
a) A terrorist can blow up the airport.
or
b) He can put the C4 up his ass where the scanners can't see it and the gropers can't feel it.
No sig today...
... 10 years ago, and not a single one since. 3000/10 = 300 per year (and falling). In medicine, a drug that saved 300 people per year but killed 100 people per year due to side-effects would never be approved.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
How many terrorist attacks has it stopped .... ?
Probably none : the only failed attacks since have used things the scanners would not pick up .. i.e. various explosives
The attacks prior would have been stopped by scanners, but would also have been stopped by much simpler and safer checks...The single most effective anti-terrorist device since 9/11 is the locked door to the cockpit .,,
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
New body scanners were just installed at my local airport. This year for Thanksgiving we are driving 2 days to the in-laws instead.
Mod parent up, although he did leave out ignorance to complete panic and greed.
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Here's hoping every one of those 6 to 100 people who get cancer are TSA lobbyists and employees.
According to TFA, about half of the ones that scan people are millimeter-wave, and half are x-ray.
This is especially true because the "terrorists" largely do not exist. Oh sure, there may be a pissed off radical or two, but that has always been the case. This newest enemy is useful for profit and power however. Seen from that angle, these machines make pefect sense.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
One of the main proponents of X-Ray scanners, former Bush-Era Homeland Security Secretary Michael "Jackoff" Chertoff, the man who apparently was too deaf or STUPID to hear and see the hundreds of American citizens trapped in a shopping center in New Orleans, is well-connected to the manufacturers of the body scanners.
So when Bush fell asleep on 9/11 he was not only proving for the nth time in his life that he's a useless fuckoff who shouldn't be trusted to watch grass grow, let alone the security of a nation, he was also serving a valuable function to his well-connected toadies in providing a fear-based marketing system to screw the public out of all kinds of money in the guise of making us safe.
Heckuva job, Bush!
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
How about if I just latch on to any argument that furthers my agenda?
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Perhaps the terrorists are actually hyper intelligent beings who knew all along that if they could only trick us into radiating ourselves out of fear of them and we would do their job for them while they kick back and enjoy some of that great Mideast sun and sand. 1000 dead and all they had to do was say "Boo!"
Actually, that's pretty much what they want to do. Terrorists operate by trying to frighten you into doing the hard work. Attack once and let the fear of that one attack cause government clamp-downs, make it impossible to live your life day-to-day as you had before.
The truth hurts.
Seriously though, 6-100 cases per YEAR in a very large population. I mean, I *HATE* those scanners. I would dearly love for some hacker to figure out how to fry those things from the inside out.
Still, I'm in much more danger from my boyfriend's mother's incessant smoking than I am from those scanners. And no, we don't live together. God help me if we did, I'd probably load her packs on the clay-pigeon launcher and use them for target practice...
Yeah, but will they think the fuse is a tail?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256380/
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Panic can only come from ignorance.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Please don't make flying harder than it is by telling the idiots in charge where the vast, gaping security holes are.
Thanks,
The American Public
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Headline should have been 'Terrorists kill 6-100 more US citizens per year'. The net result of the terrorists' actions is that now the US is killing its own citizens out of fear - surely that will be cause for rejoicing in various parts of the world. Bit depressing for the rest of us, though....
Why not? (as long as the patient is aware of the risks)
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
i would argue that 100 cancer victims/year is worst than 100 cancer deaths/year. when i was in the army i was taught that injuring a an enemy soldier was better than killing an enemy soldier. The injury takes out the 1, but it also takes out the support personnel and an abundance of resources. So i could almost argue the terrorists are using that playbook, and they are doing a better job. they have the US government doing the injury. That injury then causes a downward spiral of emotions for the immediate family which impacts their life/job. It also consumes medical resources that now can't go towards other needy individuals. in many cases it will bankrupt individuals and the debt may be passed onto their children, again demoralizing. If you think about it, its a pretty good plan. Not that i actually think it was a plan, but if it was thats someone playing the real slow game. Does that make our government the Terrorists?
Always amazes me that the aupposedly smart /. reader will turn anything like this into an arguement over what produces or prevents the production of a body count. I mean comparing that 1000 people will die with scanners versus few people if there was no scanners. Please look up the definition of terrorism and the desired effect of that type of warfare. Heck, it's even in the name. It is to foment terror. Yes a measly 3000 people died in the towers but that body count was not the true success of that attack. It was the TERROR! People who were no were near new York were affected: fear to fly; fear of losing their job (yes my company's reason for going bankrupt was 911); fear of making ends meet; fear of another attack; fear of travelling abroad. Compare those numbers now and you can see that 911 is easily a success at making 300 million people have terror. So 100 people a year could get cancer in a year of going through a scanner. To get the risk, i suppose you have to know the number of people that would go through the scanners and most would go through it more than once. Are people less afraid to fly than before? If yes, then it is a success.
The article is filled with speculation and disinformation. Here are the research links on both backscatter and millimeter wave technologies, provided by TSA:
http://www.tsa.gov/research/reading/index.shtm
You can see in the John's Hopkins August 2010 assessment that passengers get less than 2 microrem from a scan. You get about 238 microrem per hour of flight, two orders of magnitude larger (per hour!):
http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/commercialflights.html
Stick to the science. 6 to 100 cancers per year is pure speculation, and impossible to verify. I don't believe it at all.
i would argue that 100 cancer victims/year is worst than 100 cancer deaths/year.
I don't think I'd agree with that, particularly since my mom just made it through her uterine cancer. I'm pretty certain I'd have rather seen her go through the relatively simple surgery and a few weeks of recovery than go to her funeral.
Yes, in war is one thing. But if you're trying to make an economic argument, I think it falls pretty flat. For example, you didn't consider the economic contributions of a relatively young person dying vs. the cost of cancer treatment. I'm pretty certain that killing me right now vs. 100 grand or so in cancer treatment would be a net loss for society.
When I left X airport on Thanksgiving Day last year, I was wondering why the lines were moving so fast. There were at least 500 people in front of me waiting to be scanned. They just unplugged the metal detectors to get everybody through more quickly. I didn't realize it until after I was looking for my belt, and I forgot to take it off.
If you fly private, you will have 0 scanning at all. I walked right on a private jet last summer. Great time. I could never have even afforded the shrimp.
i wasn't talking about cancer in general, i was talking about cancer caused by the machines. Two completely different emotional factors. A familial response will almost always be warm, responsive and positive (uplifting). A response to the government giving me cancer will almost always be negative. the negativity can cause protests against the source of negativity, just look at occupy wall street. Thats the impact i was talking about. When analyzing the situation the same initial stimulus (cancer) can illicit very different responses depending on the catalyst. Cancer that can be determined to be natural we think of as just bad luck or some other benign reasoning. But, cancer that we determine to be caused by an external force we fight against. Look at tobacco. People went after the companies like they were Satan and his/her hordes (i've always pictured satan as a woman, normally my ex-wife). Any external catalyst we will, and have, fought against. And thats the impact i was talking about. and it would be worst with a lingering death. Humans tend to build their anger slowly over time until it reaches a boiling point. And with some cancers you have quite a lot of time to get your mad on. So, are you telling me the Occupy Wall Street, and various other protests haven't had an impact? Emotional and Financial? How about the riots in LA after the Rodney King beating? Or the Million Man March in DC? All it takes is an external catalyst. Had Rodney King gotten his ass beat by a transvestite prostitute instead of a cop there wouldn't have been a march (unless the transvestite prostitute was also a cop).
We DO NOT have to endure them. I regularly opt-out as my own little act of civil protest. I take the patdown. The TSA is not real happy about it, but it's my right. If everybody did this we wouldn't have the scanners in the first place.
I don't fly a whole lot, but when I do, I've never come across an X-Ray scanner. I've been in a few millimeter back-scatter style scanners, but never an X-ray. I was disappointed that the article only states:
"About 250 X-ray scanners are currently in U.S. airports, along with 264 body scanners that use a different technology, a form of low-energy radio waves known as millimeter waves."
so far down the article. Further the submission headline would have you believe that they are ALL X-ray, which doesn't seem to be the case just shy of half are. I mean X-Rays are bad and all, but the scanners are not ubiquitous at all airports. And as far as I know, usage is not a requirement to fly.
Just my $0.02 (not adjusted for inflation or current USD exchange rates....)
X-rays are ionizing radiation.
Yes, but most of the full-body scanners are millimeter-wave scanners. That's non-ionizing. The headline and summary conveniently blurs this distinction-- it says that X-ray scanners are "mandatory" in US Airports, but thats for baggage, not people.
Do you get a choice of technology in your full body scanner? Do you know which is which?
I am not a crackpot.
The summary didn't say 100 DEATHS per year. It said 100 cases of cancer per year. And that was the high side.
Right, what it said was ten to a hundred cases of cancer per year. The actual article gave an estimate of six, and continues, "even without the machines, Smith-Bindman said, the same 100 million people would develop 40 million cancers over the course of their lifetimes."
I'm as anti-scanner as anyone out there, but succumbing to the same style of sensationalist rhetoric as the scanner supporters does our cause no good.
Agree.
What I find most frightening is the possibility that the machines malfunction and produce higher does. The only guard against this, as far as I can see, is the company's statement that "nothing can possibly go wrong."
--wait, isn't that a /. meme?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
ok. 100 people a year. 10 years. I sincerely doubt the "terrorists" could kill 1000 people in 10 years on US soil.
...Except when they killed almost 3000 in one day...
So what?
And before you say I'm being flip or callous, remember this: more than that die every month from lack of medical care. Or this: more than 3000 died on 9/11 from cancer and heart/lung disease. There's no national day of mourning for the 9/11 victims of disease. Or the 9/10 victims. Or the 9/12 victims. And so on.
The only thing that makes the 3000 terror victims special was that they were concentrated in just a few places where large scale acts of vandalism took place. The others had the common decency not to bother the general population by passing away in houses, hospitals, nursing homes and on the street.
Go ahead, take a look at the National Vital Health Statistics and see what kills Americans. Pick any number you can imagine dying every year from terrorism and see what trivial thing beats it. 3000 a year? Peptic ulcers. 5000? Anemia. 20,000? Parkinson's. 45,000? Motor vehicle accidents. 75,000? Alzheimer's.
So in the 11 years since 9/11, including 2001, what's the average deaths by terrorism? Under 300, right? (And that's low because of my terror-repellent rock). That's about the same number as deaths among Eskimo and Native American women in "transport accidents."
My point? We're spending way too much time, causing way to much inconvenience, sacrificing too many liberties, and frankly being way to scared of one thing, when there are far better ways to spend our time, money, national soul, and global reputation on. We've ruined the country all in the cause of innumeracy.
I am not a crackpot.
Chemotherapy drugs.... Desperate people are often willing to take desperate risks.
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What are the Airlines themselves being charged to do as far as shoring up their hiring practices? What are the regulations that apply to securely checking backgrounds of the very people responsible for loading and maintaining and even flying their aircraft? This would seem obvious that eventually terrorists, possibly lying in wait, working year in and year out for these, our 'American' airline corporations, could be called to perform some dastardly deed at some point and once again we will be blaming the airlines for their lack of security and coordination with the authorities
"we in the US must now endure"
No we don't. I stopped flying and you can too. If everybody just stops, the TSA *will* get straightened out and this problem will get cleared up.
The amount of ionizing radiation you receive at high-altitude in an airplane from cosmic radiation FAR exceeds the minuscule dosage you get at the airport security. These kinds of articles are unnecessarily whipping uninformed people into panics. Shame on the author.
grope you anyway. I always go for the groping . I prepare first by wearing a panty liner but they haven't ever groped that much.
It's very simple. Just calmly tell them you want to opt out. By now they are used to the idea that a small percentage of us will refuse, and they'll just go through with their manual search without much of a fuss. While you are being searched, it's usually pretty easy to mention in passing to that TSA agent that beyond the unknown potential cumulative damage to frequent flyers like myself who would be made to pass through this devices fifty to sixty times a year, they themselves are all possibly working in an unsafe environment, around devices which have been rushed to market without proper long-term testing and whose effects are in truth at best poorly understood; therefore those who remain close to them for long periods of time may be candidates to develop some future problems from this, themselves being - of course - very much included. Let that sink in...
I would expect these units to be removed from all but the most sensitive locations in the not-too-distant future, and become reserved for people who already are a likely security risk, rather than for them to remain in use with the general public. All it'll take is one workplace hazard lawsuit by a TSA screening staff's lawyer looking for the glory of a precedent-setting decision with their names attached to it.
No, and yes.
In about 20 trips these past year I have yet to see a mm wave machine. All I've seen are x-ray. I feel very sorry for the pregnant women and infants that go through them. Personally I managed to avoid the machines so far, and only had to go through one pat down ("opted out"), which was fast and professionally done. If everyone refused then the machines would be rapidly dismantled. Anyone who goes through the x-ray deserves to get the chance cancer for acting as sheep and not standing up to the abuse.
They should have been stopped by metal detectors. They would have been stopped by the locked hardened cockpit doors we currently have. In one case they were stopped by the passengers.
Time to offend someone
It is exactly that plan, the plan is a long term war of attrition - if anyone in the West would have actually bothered to listen to what {O | U} sama Bean Laiden said was his plan, but then you'd actually have had to get out of your comfort zone and go to AlJazeera's translation for that. His plan was that for every "dollar" the terrorist spends the US (and the West) would spend one million. It is working, at this rate they will drain us before we drain them. I'm not a sympathizer, repeat I realize that he was an enemy, but that is the clear strategy and they even said so. In our zeal to demonize and depersonalize the enemy we lose the ability to *respect* the enemy which is a terrible mistake to make in war. Isn't that from some old book somewhere? Nah, who reads books anymore, it doesn't apply to the old USA we transcend all that and make our own rules. Pride before the fall.
you are in a twisty maze of different passages.
How about I raise a couple of fingers to them instead. I would get the same treatment either way.
Time to offend someone
The 9/11 hijackers wouldn't have been stopped by all the screening in the world, simply because box cutter knives weren't illegal at the time (any knife under 4 inches was allowed).
With a national motto "In God We Trust", why fear terrorists and why the need for scanners and how can a little radiation hurt you? Surely a few simple prayers should do the trick.
In about 20 trips these past year I have yet to see a mm wave machine. All I've seen are x-ray.
Depends which airports you go through, I guess. I've never seen a backscatter x-ray detector in the airports I've been to, only millimeter-wave machines
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
How can you tell the difference?
In BWI they have a scanner of some sort, and I looked at the output as I walked out of the machine. It showed a generic outline and highlighted areas for further inspection. For me, it highlighted my forehead as I forgot to remove my sunglasses, as they are plastic with very little metal, I am guessing it was a mm-wave machine.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
It's Alan "Skipper" Hale. I guess Gilligan was busy frisking some toddler.
Lucky you! I have 0 problem with mm wave. Does what it needs to do (if anything) without any harm.
All that I've seen have prominently written "backscatter x-ray" and/or "rapiscan" (rapiscan = the brand of the backscatter x-ray machines).
Grey box and L-3 written on the side: Millimeter wave
Blue box and Rapiscan written on the side: X-ray
Do you get a choice of technology in your full body scanner? Do you know which is which?
Yes - you accept whichever they machine they have or chose the manual grope method. The terahertz scanners have a cubicle and a vertical sensor bar which moves across in front of you. The back-scatter X-ray are static and consist of two rectangular blocks which you stand between to get irradiated.
What surprised me, on the one occasion I saw the X-ray device, is that there was no protection for the security workers operating it. While the dosage has a low (but non-zero) risk for one passenger the cumulative dosage for someone nearby and operating the machine could be a lot larger. There is a reason the operators of X-ray machines for medical/dental use always go behind a shield before operating the machine.
Depends which airports you go through, I guess.
I think it also depends on the country. As far as I know Canada only has the safe, terahertz scanners.
Yes, full body scans of a person are voluntary. Like a stupid test, those who are stupid choose not to opt out of the voluntary full body scan.
Came back from Iraq a couple weeks ago. Retiring in a couple months. So, that was my last flight, since I'll have the time to drive where I want to go, I don't want to go overseas any more, and I'm not OK with getting X-rayed or felt-up. Also not wild about having my luggage lost, sitting in a cramped seat for hours (my knee hurt for a week after the return flight from the middle east), arriving 2 hours before the flight, sitting for hours in an airport where a connection is to be made since non-stops are getting like hens teeth and expensive, paying for parking that is a 10 minute bus ride away, paying $25 for each of 2 bags both ways, being starved for lack of in-flight meals, having to pay for blankets or pillows, or possibly getting trapped on the tarmac for 7 hours. They can stick it all.
Driving from Virginia to Tucson next March. Yeah, it'll take 3 or 4 days each way, but I enjoy that. And, I'm sure I'll find some interesting stuff to visit on the way out and back.
How would you like to ignore the situation, then, and have them show up tomorrow with 2 tons of anthrax spores that the spread upon the wind of the east coast population density, and kill 500,000? It could happen. We have to neutralize this threat.
WHY X-Ray Scanners Became Mandatory In US Airports
Slashdot = Sarcasm
These x-ray scanners often give a dose under .1uSv, which would theoretically result in one cancer death per 200 million scans.
The dose on the actual flight itself from cosmic radiation is .005mSv/hr, or about two orders of magnitude more radiation on an average-length flight of 2-6 hours.
More info can be found here
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
Yes - you accept whichever they machine they have or chose the manual grope method. The terahertz scanners have a cubicle and a vertical sensor bar which moves across in front of you. The back-scatter X-ray are static and consist of two rectangular blocks which you stand between to get irradiated. What surprised me, on the one occasion I saw the X-ray device, is that there was no protection for the security workers operating it. While the dosage has a low (but non-zero) risk for one passenger the cumulative dosage for someone nearby and operating the machine could be a lot larger. There is a reason the operators of X-ray machines for medical/dental use always go behind a shield before operating the machine.
So the X-ray machine with you describe is the Rapiscan that GizmoToy refers to? I.e., there's just the one using X-rays? I hope . . .
Another thing that the X-ray techs all get, at the doctor, hospital, dentist and even vet clinic is a dose badge. Do they routinely issue these to the TSA guys? I guess I also wonder if you can buy your own. They'd probably make you take it off as a passenger to keep people from publicizing exposure, but if I was the TSA goon operating the thing, I like one for myself.
Hm. To answer my own question, it looks like you can buy dosimeter badges from medical equipment suppliers. I think you'd want to get your whole team to chip in to keep the annual cost down.
I am not a crackpot.
How would you like to ignore the situation, then, and have them show up tomorrow with 2 tons of anthrax spores that the spread upon the wind of the east coast population density, and kill 500,000? It could happen. We have to neutralize this threat.
This kind of appeal to fear is exactly the problem we're faced with. It gets people to think irrationally and put disproportionate effort into thwarting unlikely events, when actual, real problems -- much more serious, certain to occur, real problems -- are out there. You've only got so much time and treasure, squandering them on fantasy is no way to deal with life's dangers.
I am not a crackpot.