TSA Puts Off Safety Study of X-ray Body Scanners

zokuga writes "ProPublica reports that the TSA is backing off a previous promise to conduct a new independent study of X-ray body scanners used at airport security lanes around the country. Earlier this month, an investigation found that TSA had glossed over research about the risks from the X-rays."

Comments

And we're surprised by this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really?

Where's the accountability?

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[ackthpt]

Really?

Where's the accountability?

There's accountability and accountability.

Perhaps they're backing down because of the cost - someone wants government spending to be less liberal (Ha!)

OR

Perhaps they're backing down because the cost of revealing the dangers, and thus potential lawsuits, scare them.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[Samalie]

Accountability? In Government?

bwahahahahahahahaahaa

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[Anonymous Coward]

What cost? Ionizing radiation is bad for you. There, no charge. When there's a benefit, then the risk may be justified, such as in medical applications, but security theater is not a good enough reason for exposing people to ionizing radiation.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[ackthpt]

What cost? Ionizing radiation is bad for you. There, no charge. When there's a benefit, then the risk may be justified, such as in medical applications, but security theater is not a good enough reason for exposing people to ionizing radiation.

Preaching to the choir, AC.

I underwent Radiation Therapy for 6 weeks after having a malignant tumor removed. My doctors, ever since, have tried to minimize how frequently I have X-Rays taken, opting for MagRes or Ultrasound to check things. I feel I've been baked and now must be wary.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[fsckmnky]

"Perhaps they're backing down because of the cost - someone wants government spending to be less liberal (Ha!)"

This type of expense, could be conducted, at 0 cost to the taxpayers, if the airline customers were made to pay for it, instead of people flying from texas to orlando for $5, courtesy government subsidized transport, so that disney can post record profits.

Sucks that people who never fly, continually pay for those that do, via these subsidies.

That said, as a taxpayer, even tho I dont fly, I'm willing to pay for someone with a fancy college degree, to stick a radiation meter inside a scanner, perform a scan, use a cheap calculator to do some quick math, and type up a report. It's not rocket science and would cost all of $100 in the private sector. But of course, since the government is involved, it'll cost $10 million.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[colinnwn]

The TSA security fees alone flying from Texas to Orlando (given a connecting flight) could be $5 alone, so I don't get the snark. You'd be hard pressed to find a ticket from TX to FL for less than $140 after taxes. The Federal Government (courtesy of the TSA) enormously overspends on aviation security based on the risk of death to any particular individual versus other common risks we experience every day.

Part of this is due to the fact aviation security threats (and operational risks like crashing) can affect people on the ground who never fly. Part is due to the way an aviation problem can make the entire US populace apoplectic for some strange reason. And part is the general authoritarian streak of our government. So I don't think it is unreasonable aviation security is partly subsidized, when most transportation related infrastructure and fuels in the US are massively subsidized as well.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[fsckmnky]

You make a good point about the security of the people and buildings underneath the airplane. But this doesn't explain the millions if not billions spent on rural airports that service 2 flights a week so some senator can get his name on the place and his buddies can go hunting. There must be some rational, economic, middle ground.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[fsckmnky]

Now that a think about it, no. As a homeowner, my activities did not endanger my home from airplanes. It is the activity of the airline industry that endangers people and homes. Unless you want to argue that shelter is not required to support human life, but flying is.

That said, if I order something and the package is flown via airplane, then the shipping cost should reflect it.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[ajlitt]

Incidentally, I flew from Austin to DFW last week, and all the gates I saw were using millimeter wave scanners.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[colinnwn]

There is no excuse for the Essential Air Service Program other than to give lawmakers and rural residents a warm and fuzzy about deregulation. It was even less useful than the poorly allocated farm subsidies to society as a whole.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[fsckmnky]

I don't at all disagree with you, however, I just wanted to point out, that the farm subsidies, originally, were intended to solve a problem of malnutrition, because at the time they were implemented, people in the US were in fact undernourished. Sadly, it has since been co-opted by politicians buying votes from the agricultural industry and is as bloated now as the general population is.

Rational economic actors would reduce the subsidies, as the general population became more and more obese, but, as you and I both are aware, the actors are not at all rational.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[colinnwn]

No, but as a homeowner, or just as a living person, there are many risks you have no option in whether you participate in, or if you try to reduce, you are probably increasing your risk exposure elsewhere. Homeowners insurance protects you for some of those risks. From a realistic perspective, the aviation industry, just like the automobile lifestyle in the USA, isn't optional.

Air carriers carried insurance for damage to people and property on the ground related to accidents at reasonable rate pre 9/11. A large damage event related to terrorism was considered so unlikely, that component was very cheap. Now it is so expensive, based on one large scale event, it is subsidized by the government. Aviation security also is so expensive and overwrought by the government, that it is a similar type of extremely expensive insurance (to the tune of +$6 billion per year). That package flown by airplane for $15, would probably be about $50 if the Fed Gov didn't subsidize any form of aviation expense.

People aren't required to carry insurance to protect others in case their car is carjacked and driven into a restaurant full of people. Gun makers generally don't have to pay claims to victims when a criminal or terrorist uses their product illegally. I don't see any reason aviation should work differently as far as security goes. And I also think the only 2 things that have made us safer since 9-11 are passengers know to fight back, and reinforced cockpit doors. TSA is 90% waste of passengers and taxpayer's money. Though I do greatly miss how pilots would sometimes leave the cockpit door open and you could see up there as they worked.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[colinnwn]

That's why I said it was less useful. The farm subsidies were good for a little while, but poorly implemented to allow the process to be extremely political as our diet preferences and nutrition science advanced. EAS really just transferred wealth from urban to rural residents. It would have been cheaper and more efficient (though I believe equally unnecessary) to allow rural residents to deduct part of their airplane tickets from their taxes, to reimburse them for the longer and more expensive car trip into cities to catch flights.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[fsckmnky]

Business expenses are already deductible, unless of course, that expense is in the form of a tax, levied upon people, to support the business of another, at which point the person incurring the expense is screwed. This is why the "real cost" is important.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[colinnwn]

You have a point that rural commercial aviation business travel is being both subsidized and deducted. That may not be in the national interest. Though I was more thinking about personal travel.

I'm not entirely against all subsidies. There can be externalites that make subsidizing an activity valuable to society as a whole. For example we wouldn't want everyone to move to the cities because life was better and cheaper here, and have no one living in rural communites to help farm and ranch. But we also don't want to subsidize people to live in rural areas just because they want to have a nice big spread of land, but they aren't using it to productive effect, and drive into the cities for a "better" job.

Obvioulsy the situation we have with subsidies now is out of control and terribly inefficient, while in many cases providing little or negative societal value.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[Obfuscant]

But this doesn't explain the millions if not billions spent on rural airports that service 2 flights a week

Billions? Millions maybe, if the entire runway is replaced, but billions?

You forget that those smaller airports also serve the communities in other ways than just flying a senator's buddies in to go hunting. Businesses make use of them for transport, air cargo, training of future pilots, search and rescue operations, etc.

There aren't many small airports that service only two flights a week. Certainly not any that have gotten millions of dollars in federal money.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[fsckmnky]

My point isnt that the airports aren't useful in any way, my point is that if they are useful to the community, then the community should pay for it. If it is too expensive for the community to pay for, then economically speaking, that should be a red flag that it isn't really useful, as it is not producing enough return to support itself.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[fsckmnky]

I feel the need to clarify my use of the word "community" here. I mean, "all who benefit from". A brief example, before I move on.

Suppose there is oil in Alaska, within 50 miles of a small village inhabited by Alaskan natives. Arguably, the existence of the village, is necessary, for the oil industry to gain access to the oil. It's somewhat of a chicken and egg problem. "There's lots of oil in the ground, but we can't get it, because there is no support infrastructure nearby."

Certainly an investment in the infrastructure, would allow for the extraction of the oil. We all benefit from the supply of oil ( although some posters, using a computer, made entirely thanks to oil, would pretend they dont use oil ). This is where the slippery slope starts.

The oil industry says "hey uncle same, give $20,000,000 to the village to build infrastructure so we can get that oil cheap enough to utilize it." Uncle Sam says "yeah, we need more oil, okay, here is your check." The oil company gets the oil at $3.00 a gallon, and sells it for $4.00 making a profit of $1 ( very simplified assumption). Without the $20 million subsidy, the oil would have cost $4.50 a gallon to obtain, at a loss of $0.50 a gallon, making it not possible for the oil company to extract it.

Ding ding ding ding ding. The oil industry should be looking for low hanging fruit. You can't get it at a profit, fine, go look for oil somewhere else that is profitable, and when the price of oil rises eventually due to scarcity, the project will pay for itself.

If instead you tax everyone, to get the oil, that is too expensive to get, you make it harder for grandma to buy groceries unnecessarily, because she is paying extra taxes to support an effort that isn't profitable ( efficient ) given the current environment. It is almost the equivalent of passing a law, that requires grandma, to drive at least 100 miles to buy groceries, when there is a store right down the street.

Im sure theres details I got wrong here, but it's meant to be a simple assumption. Reality is far more complex.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[zippthorne]

Plenty of charge, actually. It's ionizing. That means it moves charges around.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[fluffy99]

What cost? Ionizing radiation is bad for you. There, no charge. When there's a benefit, then the risk may be justified, such as in medical applications, but security theater is not a good enough reason for exposing people to ionizing radiation.

That depends on whether they're using the backscatter x-ray machines (old tech) or the newer millimeter wave machines (newer tech). The millimeter wave setup is not ionizing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_X-ray
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millimeter_wave_scanner

If you're really scared of ionizing radiation, wear sunscreen when you walk outside. I object based on the privacy issue, not some unfounded fear of the technology.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[Neil Boekend]

Sometitmes you gotta choose: radiation from a nuclear power plant or more radiation & CO2 & other nasties from a coal plant (you didin't believe fly ash was not radioactive I hope).
And there is no way I am going to give up power (and thus computers) because then I would be unable to read /.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[xenobyte]

... but security theater is not a good enough reason for exposing people to ionizing radiation.

Exactly!

Face it: The scanners don't work and neither does the grope search. By working mean "detecting hidden weapons" of course. Neither does the carry-on rules about liquids by the way. It takes less than 200 ml of liquid explosive to blow a fatal hole in a plane, but you're allowed five times that. Add to that that nothing prevents you from combining your stuff if you're more than a lone terrorist. If you're part of a cell and board with a 'staff' of five (like the 9/11 terrorists did), you have a lot to work with.

The only way to stop terrorists is to prevent them from becoming terrorists in the first place, or at least prevent them from obtaining weapons, or just from buying a ticket or entering the airport. If you count on an ever-increasing pile of technological junk to catch them at the last possible moment, you're doing it wrong... very wrong.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

TSA is 90% waste of passengers and taxpayer's money.

The other 10% is probably the money spent on the federal air marshals which I am fairly ambivalent about but seem like they would be useful especially compared to all the other garbage they piss money away on.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[Coren22]

Privacy issue? The millimeter wave machines I went through at BWI just highlighted areas on a generic outline. No image of me was produced by the machine.

Re:And we're surprised by this?

[fluffy99]

Privacy issue? The millimeter wave machines I went through at BWI just highlighted areas on a generic outline. No image of me was produced by the machine.

The machines only show such cartoonish pictures to the TSA guy next to the machine to tell him what area of your body needs manually checked. The guy in the back room still sees the full detail images that look like this http://nexgadget.com/2010/11/22/exclusive-tsa-says-body-scanners-saving-images-impossible-tsa/. Yes that's his dick and balls that are clearly visible.

You sure you'd be okay with that level of detail of your kids being shown to a perfect stranger in a back room? I suppose it's probably less offensive than having them groped by a TSA frisker.

Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

We wouldn't want them to figure out that the scanners are hazardous until the contract to buy all those scanners has been fulfilled. You just know that some lucky contractor will make boatloads off of this.

Re:Of course

[ackthpt]

We wouldn't want them to figure out that the scanners are hazardous until the contract to buy all those scanners has been fulfilled. You just know that some lucky contractor will make boatloads off of this.

Not to mention all those happy cancer clinics, eh? eh?

We've known for decades that every X-Ray you undergo incrementally increases your odds of a malignancy.

Re:Of course

[residieu]

Once they have paid for all the scanners, just think of how much the NEXT lucky contractor will make when we have to replace all the dangerous ineffective scanners with the new big thing that is just as untested as the last one was.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

They must not risk their ability to fight tourism. Just think if they ran their new independent study and prove these machines are safe then we might have all kinds of dirty tourist passing through the airport without a care what so ever. We must win the war on tourism.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

People call me malignant all the time and I hardly ever get X-rayed.

Re:Of course

[tragedy]

Just like the scanners in the first place, who wants to bet that the lucky contractor also has financial ties to someone currently or formerly in a position of authority at the TSA or Dept. of Homeland Security?

Re:Of course

[Sponge Bath]

This NEW scanner works by vaporizing the air travel candidate with high temperature plasma and shooting the remains through a mass spectrometer. It follows the same basic principle as dunking suspected witches in the river: survivors are obviously witches.

Re:Of course

[brillow]

Oh yeah, and who does consulting for Rapiscan (the people who sell these things)? Michael Chertoff! Former DHS secretary who, while in office, said it would be just great if we bought a bunch of these things!

I think they are a little scared because even if the company sells these things, it might not protect them from some giant class-action suit.

Re:Of course

[kimvette]

survivors are obviously witches

or very small rocks, or a duck.

Safety?

[masternerdguy]

I'm sure the radiation is totally safe. After all Curie died of old age after decades of labwork amirite?

Re:Safety?

[cvtan]

While I'm sure your tongue was firmly in cheek: "Curie died in 1934 of aplastic anemia brought on by her years of exposure to radiation."

However her husband fared better: "Pierre Curie died in a street accident in Paris on 19 April 1906. Crossing the busy Rue Dauphine in the rain at the Quai de Conti, he slipped and fell under a heavy horse drawn cart. He died instantly when one of the wheels ran over his head, fracturing his skull."

Re:Safety?

[frosty_tsm]

While I'm sure your tongue was firmly in cheek: "Curie died in 1934 of aplastic anemia brought on by her years of exposure to radiation."

However her husband fared better: "Pierre Curie died in a street accident in Paris on 19 April 1906. Crossing the busy Rue Dauphine in the rain at the Quai de Conti, he slipped and fell under a heavy horse drawn cart. He died instantly when one of the wheels ran over his head, fracturing his skull."

As morbid as it sounds, his death was probably less painful.

Re:Safety?

[ColdWetDog]

I'm confused by your argument. Are you saying that radiation wasn't a problem back then because of the dangers of horse drawn carriages? But there are no more horse-drawn carriages (and therefore no threat of being killed in an accident with one). It still seems like we should avoid radiation. ?? Can anyone please explain what this man's argument is?

You're gonna die.

Get over it.

Re:Safety?

[Dunbal]

That it's important to be like Pierre Curie and keep an open mind, with transparent ideas.

Re:Safety?

[md65536]

It's when you're secure from terrorists, who for example might use radiation to endanger you while you're waiting around to get on a plane.

Re:Safety?

[Sinn3d]

No you're missing his point silly.

He's trying to point out that radiation increases the chances of people dieing in traffic accidents.

meanwhile, Europe bans the farking things.

[crowlogic]

meanwhile, Europe bans them. A lot smarter than these fools running the US, g*d damn them. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=europe-bans-x-ray-body-scanners

Re:meanwhile, Europe bans the farking things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that was just covered a few days ago here on Slashdot. ( http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/11/15/0345258/eu-approves-unified-full-body-scanner-regulations )

Re:meanwhile, Europe bans the farking things.

[ackthpt]

meanwhile, Europe bans them. A lot smarter than these fools running the US, g*d damn them.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=europe-bans-x-ray-body-scanners

You must bring that up.

Can't you just quietly eat your hamburger made with a GMO wheat bun and hormone & antibiotic loaded meat?

Re:meanwhile, Europe bans the farking things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who bets the TSA's efforts will kill more people from cancer than it saves form terrorism?

Heck, it already kills more people from traffic accidents. (People avoid the TSA by driving instead of flying, driving is less safe than flying, and it adds up.)

Besides, just about every attempted plane hijacking/bombing that's stopped, is stopped by the passengers onboard. The terrorists sneak past security, get ready to set off their bomb on the plane, and then--the passengers maul them.

Re:meanwhile, Europe bans the farking things.

[zippthorne]

Who would take the other side of that bet?

Re:meanwhile, Europe bans the farking things.

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

If the objective were to save lives then the TSA would offer free blood pressure tests at the checkpoint.

Re:meanwhile, Europe bans the farking things.

[fluffy99]

meanwhile, Europe bans them. A lot smarter than these fools running the US, g*d damn them.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=europe-bans-x-ray-body-scanners

Europe banned the backscatter x-ray machines which are low level ionizing radiation. They still haven't decided on the millimeter wave machines which are not ionizing and present a neglible health hazard. The reason for their indecision is that the US has yet to catch anyone intentionally or even unintentionally trying to carry a weapon through, and the privacy concerns.

Re:meanwhile, Europe bans the farking things.

[Bob the Super Hamste]

The reason for their indecision is that the US has yet to catch anyone intentionally or even unintentionally trying to carry a weapon through

I wouldn't hold my breath for that. I have brought through a number of banned things that I had forgotten in my pants pockets, or left in my coat pocket all of which are easily detected with metal detectors or the x-ray baggage scanner but were missed. In my pants pockets I have brought through my large pocket knife on a few occasions (it is a 4 inch lock blade) as well as my small pocket knife (3 blades the largest is 2.5 inches). In my coat pockets I have brought through a large handful of shotgun shells (about a dozen 3 inch 12 gauge magnum goose loads) and almost 20 rifle bullets (203 grain 7.62x54r with steel cases). It is not like I intentionally brought these through as I always have one of my pocket knives with me and have to actually think about removing it. The shotgun shells and rifle bullets were ones that I put in there while hunting either as extras or when unloading and had been forgotten about.

Re:meanwhile, Europe bans the farking things.

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Nah a better option would be to give every passenger a colonoscopy. This way they can claim to be checking for internal explosives and also doing cancer screenings. This at least would have a hope of discovering the hidden internal explosives/weapons that we are now suppose to fear that the current crop of magic machines won't find.

Re:meanwhile, Europe bans the farking things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that's almost certainly true. The number they are actually likely to catch is reduced by the prior's rarity. That's one of the bases of Bruce Schneier's claim of TSA security theater: mathematically the true positive are overwhelmed by the false positives. And using these scanners is central to endangering citizen positives with the real risk: cancer.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/beyond_security.html

Well, morality has never been part of TSA's charter. When the revolution comes, every TSA employee will go to the wall - for murder by cancer and murder by diversion to car traffic.

Small risk

[DeadDecoy]

Here's my favorite bit:

Earlier this month, a ProPublica/PBS NewsHour investigation found that the TSA had glossed over research that the X-ray scanners could lead to a small number of cancer cases.

Because cancer is clearly not a big deal. From another perspective, I wonder what dosage TSA agents get when they stand around those devices all day. I'm not particularly fond of them, but I wouldn't wish cancer on anyone. And these scanners are probably increasing their chances significantly. I wonder if anyone is up for conducting a large-scale clinical trial to show the low-level employees that these devices are hazardous and that they too should be against them.

Re:Small risk

[MadCow42]

>> I wonder if anyone is up for conducting a large-scale clinical trial to show the low-level employees that these devices are hazardous and that they too should be against them.

You mean based on reports like this?

http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/06/27/2012226/Cancer-Cluster-Possibly-Found-Among-TSA-Workers

Re:Small risk

[MrDoh!]

Yeah, I find it very odd the staff aren't making much more of this. Anywhere else, there's strict regulations about being near radiation emitters. Does the TSA have a union? And if so, why aren't they bashing the door down on this issue?

Next, actual testing? Not a chance, they took the manufacturers own testing as proof it was all ok. Even CATSA does more testing in this regard than the US. They WANT to know the risks, and does it actually do what they're told it'll do instead of lining the guy's pocket who was in charge of purchasing them.

Truly amazing that the profiteering going on here to the detriment of citizens.

Re:Small risk

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the TSA is currently conducting a large-scale study of the cancer risk involved in standing next to x-ray scanners all day. We expect results in a few decades, maybe sooner.

Re:Small risk

[ZeroSumHappiness]

Truly American that the profiteering going on here to the detriment of citizens.

FTFY.

Re:Small risk

[slew]

Truly American that the profiteering going on here to the detriment of citizens.

FTFY.

Cute, but didn't the UK use the totally untested Pandemrix H1N1 w/ special adjuvant vaccinne made by GSK (a UK) company? Of course germany was even more wacked by buying standard vaccinee for the govt officials and Pandemrix for everyone else. Apparently America doesn't have a monopoly on private profiteering to the detriment of citizens... Goverenments of the world unite ;^)

Re:Small risk

[jasno]

Ain't it great?

  - you get to pay for the useless clusterfuck that is the TSA.
  - in 20 years you get to pay for the cancer settlement arranged with the TSA union.
  - By then, I'm sure we'll have socialized medicine... so you get to pay for their care.

I'm a contractor, so I understand fully how the government gets paid to fuck-up, and then gets paid again to fix the fuck-up.

Re:Small risk

[ColdWetDog]

Yes, the TSA is currently conducting a large-scale study of the cancer risk involved in standing next to x-ray scanners all day. We expect results in a few decades, maybe sooner.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what it would take. The machines likely do spill some radiation, but it's going to rather low. Not Madame-Curie-glows-in-the-Dark levels. This takes years of following people and is very, very difficult to do well. From what I've seen of TSA front line troops, it's not exactly a career move so people will be moving in and out of exposures and therefore risks, people move between airports and therefore scanners making it even harder. People move and don't follow up on emails and letters and get lost to follow up. People get run over by horses.

This would be a difficult study for even the best of intentioned researchers. Count on government inefficiency and general bungling to really make it useless.

Then they'll have to try it again.

Re:Small risk

[bill_mcgonigle]

Because cancer is clearly not a big deal.

And yet, it's a larger threat than airliner terrorism.

Re:Small risk

[stephanruby]

For what it's worth, someone is still studying the truck drivers that go through ports at least, and those seem to be the hardest hit by back-scatter X-ray scanners. Some truckers can get their entire cargo and truck scanned (themselves included) up to ten times a day.

And those scanners seem to be lot more powerful than the ones at the airport because they don't just see through clothes, they see through steel and cargo containers. Also many truckers are independent, this means many have to pay for their own health insurance (or go without).

Re:Small risk

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Does the TSA have a union?

No they don't. There has been some recent discussions of them unionizing but the Rs make a big deal out of it and piss and moan. This is one case where it might do some good as a union would probably force them to get rid of the scanners for health concerns. I doubt it would raise the quality of the screeners though.

Re:Small risk

[swjslj]

Anyone who takes a job violating the 4th Amendment rights of American citizens while sexually assaulting them deserves to die.

Re:Small risk

[WiiVault]

I'm sure you do a good job as a contractor, and I'm sure on an individual basis many people fully invest themselves into the jobs, but at the same time studies have been conducted that show contractors cost even more for the same or lesser output. If government fails anywhere it is in the honest unbiased selection of which contractors to hire. But hey as a politico its a lot easier to claim you support small government by decreasing official headcount and shouting about it in ads, all while paying back your friendly corporate sponsors by giving them contracts which cost taxpayer more than ever for even less. If people think government agencies don't know how to talk, they should consider how much harder it will be with dozens of contractors who have different goals and often competition for each others contracts. No better way to make government look ineffective than by knowingly driving inefficiencies up and then turning around and claiming to fight against a broken-system that was carefully constructed to fail. Looks good as bulletpoint on a corporate (I mean people) funded campaign mailer or TV ad, and sounds like patriotic support of the freemarket-as if that concept is anything but a fantasy which makes Communism sound practical and efficient. Funny enough despite the deliberate manipulation by politicians who's reputations on shifting more power to undemocratic corporate behemoths, I still find myself impressed with how well the system has managed to still be debatably competitive with the private sector. I can assure you if CEOs and top management spent as much time undermining their companies success as half our elected representatives do it wouldn't even be a contest.

This is what happens...

[atari2600a]

When we let fear control us into letting an "elected" official create a cabinet department called the Commission for State Securit--err I mean Department of Homeland Security, even though WE ALREADY HAVE A NATIONAL GUARD AND A CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY. Seriously, did someone miss the possibility of alterior motives when it was announced we were reinventing the wheel?

Re:This is what happens...

[CrimsonAvenger]

even though WE ALREADY HAVE A NATIONAL GUARD AND A CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.

Note that the CIA is not allowed to operate in the USA. Yes, I know that it does anyway. It is, nonetheless illegal.

Note also that the National Guard is neither trained nor equipped (nor sufficiently manned) to handle internal security.

That said, we have plenty of normal police plus the FBI to handle that sort of thing.

And THAT said, the Department of Homeland Security is nothing more than a coordination office between the diverse rival agencies that normally handle this sort of thing, but hate each other's guts enough that they wouldn't piss on an agent from another bureau if he were on fire....

Re:This is what happens...

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Note also that the National Guard is neither trained nor equipped (nor sufficiently manned) to handle internal security.

Right. That is what atari2600a said; we already have a department that is neither trained nor equipped to handle international security, so the DHS is redundant ;-)

Re:This is what happens...

[WiiVault]

We opposition have always been here, just like the anti-Iraq war people, and I'm talking the non-hippie "war is evil types"- the pragmatists who think war is the last option but aren't silly enough to believe it shouldn't be on the table. We were there, most people disagreed based on arguably flimsy evidence or rational . What irks me though is when people revise history to suggest that we simply couldn't have made any other choice at the time. I'm not saying you are like this, I really have no clue. But for many of us Iraq in particular was obvious bullshit from the first rumblings, through the laughably unconvincing Colon Powell speech.Human memory isn't perfect and perception shapes interpretation, but its been only about 10 years, and pretending that there was never any doubt or debate is part of the reason we seem to make the same mistakes again and again. Learning, examining, and refining our opinions based on reality, not our ego is a the only long term means of success when we examine any of or individual or societal mistakes.Constructing an entire fantasy world just to make ourselves look good might feel warm and fuzzy in the short term, but future problems don't care why you were right or wrong last time. Instead they demonstrate you learned and improved on the thought processes that failed you. If people want to feel infallible get a dog, don't treat the rest of us like we are dumber than one. Admitting a mistake, especially one made based on flawed data and overly trusting and uncritical thought on a topic isn't a sin or a sign of weakness. It is quite the opposite in fact. Pretending we can do no wrong is best way one can almost guarantee another failure in the future. It used to be we waited until people died until we revised history to sanitize our errors, now it seems many of us throw reason out the window for hollow victory of never being wrong with increasing rapidness.

Shocking

[itchythebear]

I'll have to find some sources, but didn't they refuse to allow the TSA employees to wear radiation exposure badges or something like that? (To determine if they were being over exposed)

They probably don't need to do any studies on if the scanners are safe or not, seems like they already know the answer.

Re:Shocking

[tftp]

I'll have to find some sources, but didn't they refuse to allow the TSA employees to wear radiation exposure badges or something like that?

If airport personnel starts wearing radiation exposure badges the number of travelers will drop down to 1% (if not 0.1%) of what it was before.

TSA wants to banish the thought that anything dangerous might be occurring in those booths. Because of that no outward signs of such danger will be ever allowed. TSA drones will be gladly sacrificed.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

see page 40:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-111hhrg64924/pdf/CHRG-111hhrg64924.pdf

Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[Anonymous Coward]

Weren't these scanners put in place for safety reasons? I.E. protecting people from harmful terrorists? Why do they want to protect us from harmful terrorists and not harmful cancers?

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[WorBlux]

Because terrorists are more shocking than cancers. Just like gun control propaganda focuses on danger to children, when in reality swimming pools are responsible for more deaths.

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[ncohafmuta]

Because it's easier to kill terrorists than to kill cancer

Personally, i'd be ok with everybody bringing an uzi on flights if i never had to walk through another security checkpoint for the rest of my life.
They should hand out guns at security checkpoints, like bags of peanuts. 1 terrorist with a gun onboard versus 200 of us passengers with a gun. i'll take those odds.
I'm joking of course. mostly.

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[kwoff]

No, no, TSA = Transportation Security Administration, but security != safety. Consider: "the prisoners are secure" vs. "the prisoners are safe".

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[BasilBrush]

That's a very disingenuous claim by the gun lobby. WHO is focussing on Children? YOU are.

In fact accidental drowning is responsible for about 1 death per 100,000 people in the US. Not just swimming pools, but all forms of drowning.

Whereas firearms are responsible for about 15 per 100,000.

The only way you can make the stat work to make swimming pools look more dangerous than guns is by ignoring all deaths but children's deaths. And then blaming the other side for the fact that you did it.

Here's a couple of suggestions: Don't have a swimming pool if you have young children. Don't have a gun if you're a human being.

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[scot4875]

Just like gun control propaganda focuses on danger to children, when in reality swimming pools are responsible for more deaths.

And more people get struck by lightning per year than successfully ward off an attack using their guns.

What's your point?

--Jeremy

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[WorBlux]

The only way you can make the stat work to make swimming pools look more dangerous than guns is by ignoring all deaths but children's deaths. And then blaming the other side for the fact that you did it

I've heard people say, it's worth if if it saves one child. It is an argument that is used and focused on. Even outside of political arguments, most parents are more afraid of their kids being shot than drowning because the former is more shocking. Children are both much more likely to drown and much less likely to be fatally shot that the general population. Comparisons however are not disingenuous because if the arguments are made about children, so the relevant statistics are those specifically about children. Sure I didn't explicitly qualify the last, but I don't think the context was unclear.

Don't have a gun if you're a human being.

I would have fewer objections if you were willing to start with the police and army. If you object that sometimes firearms are sometimes appropriate tools after all, consider the following. The vast majority of gun violence is committed by a small minority that has a history of violence, and they aren't likely to become decent folk if deprived of a firearm. About half the victims are themselves engaged in some sort of criminal activity. Why should the majority give up their most effective defense against that minority?

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[WorBlux]

That's a highly disputed number. 254 justified homicides not by police in 2008 and I would guess mainly with firearms. [FBI] 266 injuries or deaths from lightning strikes in 2010 [struckbylightning.org]. The assumption with that is you actually need to kill someone to deter them from committing an attack is suspect. Often merely brandishing a firearm is enough to convice a criminal to leave you alone.

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[WorBlux]

254 is for 2007, not 2008

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[BasilBrush]

I would have fewer objections if you were willing to start with the police and army.

I come from England. Our police are mostly unarmed and I hope it stays that way. And I don't think war is a good thing so I'm quite happy to see the military shrunk and/or disarmed.

Why should the majority give up their most effective defense against that minority?

Again from the perspective of England, it doesn't look like your ownership of firearms has helped you one bit. Quite the contrary in fact. It looks rather like a mental patient who thinks repeatedly banging his head against a wall is going to make him feel better.

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[WorBlux]

so I'm quite happy to see the military shrunk and/or disarmed.

Which is ideal, but in the meantime the world is as it is.

it doesn't look like your ownership of firearms has helped you one bit.

Oh dear, firearm ownership is not the only thing that affects crime. It is only a single factor which deters it and obviously not a panacea. Look up Homicide statistics per state. It carries from over 20 per capita in D.C, to less than one in New Hampshire. Demographics and social attitudes towards violence have a larger effect.

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[Neil Boekend]

Yes, let's outlaw thunderstorms. Fine the bastards.
disclaimer: I am against easy acces to guns. I believe anyone who wants to carry a gun in public must undergo psychic analyses and have a damn good reason.

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[geminidomino]

anyone who wants to carry a gun in public must undergo psychic analyses

Damn right. Let us know if he'll kill anyone with it before we give it to him. Just keep an eye out for those damn minority reports...

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[Neil Boekend]

That would be usefull, true, but not what I meant.
I was so bothered with spelling the damn word correctly I didn't think to check whether it's the right word.
English is not my native language and this is an indication I should stop claiming to have mastered it properly.

s/psychic/psychological

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[BasilBrush]

Of course there are many factors that vary the rate. You should take a good, long, hard look at yourselves. The richest country in the world, yet other than a few banana republics, the one with the highest per cap gun deaths.

From inside the US, it's probably difficult to see why your country is different in that way. From the outside, where we haven't had your culture trained into us from birth, it's very easy to see. The two, huge, glaring reasons are:
1) You have huge social inequality.
2) You have a unique gun culture. There are other civilised countries where gun ownership is wide, but the guns are considered tools for hunting, sport or as national defense as part of an official militia. Only in America are they held for the notion of household and personal defense, with people shouting about their pride to do that.

Well I say only in America. There are other countries where it's done. e.g. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia. I was talking about civilised countries.

Interesting isn't it that I should mention an official militia. That is the reason the founding fathers put gun ownership as a right. Now in places like Switzerland they do that properly - young men serve in the army for a few months, and get their basic training. And then they keep their assigned weapon. Locked away in case of war. A duty rather than a right.

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Don't have a gun if you're a human being.

You really believe this. I grew up around firearms, learned how to handle them safely (started shooting when I was 8 using my grandfathers 12 gauge) and own a few myself. I don't believe in accidental shootings in >99.9% of cases it really is negligence. There are some that are truly accidental but those are exceedingly rare, as in you are hunting pheasants going through a field with grass up to your waist with the safety on and step into a gopher hole fall on your gun and set it off. My 3 firearms (2 rifles and a shotgun) are safely stored in one of those nice fireproof gun safes that you blot into floor. Do I ever worry about my firearms shooting another person. Hell no. I practice safe storage, handling, and transporting. They are only loaded when I plan on using them (hunting, or target shooting) and are only pointed at things I intend to shoot (targets or tasty animals) I am also aware of what is around me and what I am shooting at since most rifle bullets will go through the target and continue on their path so you need to know what is behind what you are shooting. I don't shoot at noise, I identify my target before pointing my firearm at it. My chain saw, ax, crosscut saw, or splitting maul are more likely to cause harm to someone than my firearms. Too many people view firearms as an extension of their cock instead of a tool. Personally I think that people who commit crimes with guns should have the book thrown at them as responsible owners get a bad rap.

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Here in the US there are different attitudes towards firearms. There are those that view it as an extension of their cock which they can wave around and show just how tough they are. There are those who fear them and seem to believe that they will magically grow legs and walk up and shoot you (some of my wife's relatives think like this). There are those who show the proper respect and use them as tools. Finally there are those who view firearms as basically a toy and are reckless with them. The problem groups are the ones who think it is an extension of their cock or that it is a toy. I would say a majority of gun owners fall in to the category of showing proper respect and that it is tool but you never hear about those people as they never make the news unless one of them bags a massive buck and makes the back page of the sports section in the new paper. So the people in the category who fear guns only hear about the idiots that cause problems and thus are terrified of firearms.

Currently there has been a lot of glamorization of guns within the hip hop culture thus only encouraging those who view a firearm as something to show how tough they are. Contrast that with some rural areas where hunting is a way of life almost everyone owns a rifle and or a shotgun. They don't have the gun crime that you seen in the inner cities as people there view them as a tool.

Re:Give me the security I traded my privacy for

[WorBlux]

Unfortunately Militia's don't work well for empires. "That is the reason" No, that is a reason, though the most important one in the context of that era. Rights and duties are inverse. I have a duty to defend myself, my family, and my neighbors, and thus have a right to acquire and carry arms to this effect.

1. That's part of it. Look also at the overbearing drug ware which further disenfranchises the poor, and victimless crime laws that create a divide between the police and citizens, and create new markets that support criminal operations. In addition these markets are more likely to be violent as there is no recourse to the courts. It also diverts resources away from dealing with violent defenders. This is in addition to regulation which make self-improvement and mutual aid difficult to practice.

2. No, guns are defense are are larger part of a culture of self-reliance. The facts just don't stack up with your assertion, as those who display thier interest in defense by applying for conceal carry permits are almost never responsible for incidents of gun violence. You know who are? People with a long history of violence or mental illness. Yes I admit the U.S could do a better job are keeping arms away from such people, but unfortanatly simple sensibility has little place in our political system.

3. Suicide by firearms makes up large portion of gun deaths in the U.S. It is tragically more effective for this than any other popular means, so fewer people survive though their attempts at such. However this again speaks of a social problem that is deeper than merely owning firearms. Even so the total rate of suicide is less that most European nations.

allergies

[Anonymous Coward]

That's rude of the TSA. I have x-ray allergies you insensitive clods!

Re:allergies

[Bucky24]

Isn't that called cancer?

Re:allergies

[Lokitoth]

That's just the symptom.

Purchasing requirements should have had limits.

[RichMan]

Why were the radiation levels not a purchasing requirement? I would expect any radiation unit to have the exposure level very clearly identified.

Either specify that all units supplied must be under a maximum exposure (at all points in their operating life) set by the TSA or the supplier is liable.
Or the supplier can specify an exposure level when delivering the unit and the TSA can decide to accept or decline the purpose.

In either case the design limit should be easily available. And publishable as a start.
If the design limit is not available, then on what criteria where the purchases authorized and who authorized the purchases without strict exposure limits. Because it would just be sheer stupidity to operate like that. (Of couse I expect a governemnt agencey to be operating within the stupidity realm).

Re:Purchasing requirements should have had limits.

[Microlith]

Because this was not a program put in place to increase traveler safety.

This was a program put in place to shove money into the pockets of Michael Chertoff, the former head of the DHS. It is doing remarkably well at that, and the TSA is appropriately doing its damnedest to cover for the fact that they owe their existence to a scumbag with a horrible conflict of interest who is continues to take this country for a ride.

I'd spit in this man's face if I met him in person.

Re:Purchasing requirements should have had limits.

[DM9290]

Why were the radiation levels not a purchasing requirement?

The point is that ANY ionizing radiation increases the risk of cancer, and therefore, statistically speaking, over a large population these scanners WILL kill people, its just a matter of how many lives are we willing to sacrifice for the facade of security.

Re:Purchasing requirements should have had limits.

[ZeroSumHappiness]

It's not the agents' faults. The ones locked in should be the congresscritters that voted for this crap.

Re:Purchasing requirements should have had limits.

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow I read that as "...if I met him in prison".

Re:Purchasing requirements should have had limits.

[WorBlux]

They aren't after the facade of security, they are after control. Considering history there is no limit upon the number of people sociopaths are willing to kill in order to gain and maintain power.

Re:Purchasing requirements should have had limits.

[WorBlux]

That's a bad idea. Most of the agents aren't bad people, they are just taking the best job available to them. Congress would be a more deserving test population.

Re:Purchasing requirements should have had limits.

[sexconker]

When considering "how many lives are we willing to sacrifice for the facade of security", I hope everyone will keep in mind that the radiation exposure from one of these scanners is considerably less than the elevated cosmic-ray dose you get from putting yourself above 30,000 feet of atmospheric shielding for a few hours as you fly to your destination.

And instead of passing through you it is absorbed by a mere fraction of your total mass, making it orders of magnitude worse.

Re:Purchasing requirements should have had limits.

[malilo]

[citation needed]

Re:Purchasing requirements should have had limits.

[tgibbs]

I imagine the incremental risk is negligible next to the radiation I've voluntarily exposed myself to over the years. But the benefit is pretty negligible too, because I don't mind a pat-down. So when I see the square x-ray boxes, I opt out--but I'll take a microwave scan (curved box)

Re:Purchasing requirements should have had limits.

[calidoscope]

The point is that ANY ionizing radiation increases the risk of cancer, and therefore, statistically speaking, over a large population these scanners WILL kill people, its just a matter of how many lives are we willing to sacrifice for the facade of security.

Considering that the dose from a scan is equivalent to a few minutes of flying on a geomagnetically quiet day, more people are getting killed from cancer induced by flying than by getting scanned. If you're that concerned about additional radiation, you should be checking for any unusual geomagnetic activity before flying, especially at high geomagnetic latitudes or maybe just give up flying altogether.

Infrequent flyers will often have more to worry about the radiation dose from their own homes from radon and normally occurring radioactive materials in many building materials.

Re:Purchasing requirements should have had limits.

[Agent0013]

And the people who were building the Death Star were good innocent people also. The didn't deserve to die when the Rebels blew it up. Just think of their families back home. This also applies to the people working in death camps.

I disagree! I say roast them all until they simmer in their own juices!

Choose yer poison

[evil_aaronm]

Cancer risk, or terrorism... I mean, what's the harm in increasing - hypothetically, of course; they haven't proven it yet - a person's cancer risk when compared with the risk that, by not scanning everything and everyone, a terrorist will get on the plane and, absolutely, positively, undeniably cause that plane to crash into the building that causes the most deaths and financial damage?

Let's be reasonable, people... /snark

Re:Choose yer poison

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is not that we are reducing the risk of terrorism at the cost of increasing the risk of cancer. The problem is that the backscatter X-ray scanners do not reduce the risk of terrorism. If we got something in exchange for the cancer risk, then we could have a discussion about whether it's a fair trade.

Re:Choose yer poison

[Xphile101361]

a terrorist will get on the plane and, absolutely, positively, undeniably cause that plane to crash into the building that causes the most deaths and financial damage?

Or light their underpants on fire.......

Re:Choose yer poison

[DarkOx]

Absolutely certain to crash the plane eh? Maybe you missed it when the last two people to get a bomb on a plane epic failed. Just getting a device past security is not enough you also need to have a device that works, which is harder that we thought

Re:Choose yer poison

[hey!]

Well, the formula is different when you choose for a population than when you choose as a member of the population.

As a member of the flying public, your considerations are dominated by two very immediate things: the indignity of being scanned or the indignity of being patted down. And because you *must* submit to one or the other, these certainties are likely to be more meaningful to you than any remote improbability, like being on a plane that is hijacked or receiving a cancer-causing mutation from the scanning machine.

If you're somebody who sets policy for the flying public, what is a remote improbability for any individual becomes a near certainty you have to deal with. That is to say, it is *certain* that somebody is plotting to hijack a plane somewhere and you've got to do something about it, even though it won't affect the vast majority of people who are flying. Suppose it is ALSO nearly certain that the gazillion radiation exposures you're mandating cause a certain number of cases of cancer, including deaths. You ALSO have to deal with that, even though it's no big deal to the vast majority of fliers.

The law of large numbers doesn't let you off the hook here; in fact it puts you *on* the hook. A tiny marginal difference in cancer probabilities summed over all the radiation exposures amounts to a number of people who get sick or die *as a result of actions you have taken*.

This doesn't mean you don't take action. It means you act *responsibly*.

Suppose the expected number of people to die from terrorism is 10, but the expected number of people to die from cancer is 3; you take the cancer and 7 more people (net) get to live. It's a no-brainer. But suppose because of your sloppy work the number of people who get cancer is actually *6*. That's still better than 10, but you don't get to pat yourself on the back for saving 4 people. On the contrary, you're responsible for 3 deaths that wouldn't have happened if you'd done your job properly.

Re:Choose yer poison

[evil_aaronm]

That's kind of my point: they're using extremes to justify the additional radiation and groping - if we don't do this, people will die!!! - while ignoring our concerns about increased risk of cancer and the trampling of our poor rights. In other words, double-standards.

Really: what's the probability that, if I got my pocket knife past security, I could take the plane down? For this thought experiment, assume that I am -not- Chuck Norris.

Re:Choose yer poison

[scot4875]

Suppose the expected number of people to die from terrorism is 10, but the expected number of people to die from cancer is 3; you take the cancer and 7 more people (net) get to live. It's a no-brainer. But suppose because of your sloppy work the number of people who get cancer is actually *6*. That's still better than 10, but you don't get to pat yourself on the back for saving 4 people. On the contrary, you're responsible for 3 deaths that wouldn't have happened if you'd done your job properly.

See, this is actually a perfectly reasonable way to assess risk mitigation options.

Unfortunately, we don't know what the expected numbers of people to die from terrorism is, and we also don't know what the expected number of people to die from cancer is -- partially because the people in charge don't want to let anyone figure out how much radiation these things leak. And on top of that, the expected number of people to die from terrorism is likely a rounding error above 0 past 5 or 6 digits after the decimal point. You don't devise policy around one-in-a-million scenarios.

--Jeremy

Re:Choose yer poison

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

The other ingredient in a risk assessment is comparing the expectation value of deaths from terrorism with and without the scanners.

Is there any reason to believe that scanners reduce the risk of terrorism? Israeli aviation security expert Rafi Sela called them "useless".

Re:Choose yer poison

[zippthorne]

And if you sum up the number of hours wasted in the lines (or with the recommended 3 hours ahead of time, instead of a more reasonable 5 minutes + however long it would take to walk from your car to the gate), in aggregate you're killing the time equivalent of many lifetimes. People don't have to die for your actions to add up to to tremendous losses....

Re:Choose yer poison

[zippthorne]

Plus, if you were chuck norris, you wouldn't need the pocketknife. You'd just stare down the plane.

Re:Choose yer poison

[sjames]

On the other hand, what if the cancer deaths is 15? Then you just killed 5 extra people.

Of course, given the TSAs intense resistance to even look into it means they don't actually care if you live or die at all, so long as they get more power. If they were actually on the side of good, they would be extremely interested in how many cancer deaths they might cause in the name of preventing terrorism deaths.

Of course, as a member of the population, my choice would be no scanner and no pat down.

Re:Choose yer poison

[hey!]

The main point I was making was that the (debatable) idea that the scanners serve some important public purpose does not excuse the government from any harm they do.

A secondary point is that you *do* have to take one in a million events into account when you are managing millions of trials that might produce that event; you just have to weigh it accordingly.

This might shock you, but...

[JustAnotherIdiot]

...There is such a thing as a middle ground.
These body scanners are on one end, having nothing is the other. I'd prefer something in the middle.

Re:This might shock you, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

So you feel safer? Or do you want to be safer?

I'm resisting noting how apropos your username is.

Re:This might shock you, but...

[w_dragon]

We had something in the middle - xray the carry-on luggage and do a metal check on the passengers. As a bonus we don't even need any expensive new equipment or training, which is why it's so hard to convince the right people to go back.

Re:This might shock you, but...

[Nefarious Wheel]

...There is such a thing as a middle ground. These body scanners are on one end, having nothing is the other. I'd prefer something in the middle.

Hire Israeli airport guards instead.

Re:This might shock you, but...

[JustAnotherIdiot]

Right now it's neither.
And I sure as hell don't feel safe going through a cancer machine, especially when my family has such a bad history of it.

Re:This might shock you, but...

[Bob the Super Hamste]

I think we would still need expensive training as the current agents doing the screening seem to miss simple things with those technologies like shotgun shells, rifle bullets, and pocket knives, all of which are easily detectable by a metal detector, or carry-on x-ray scanner.

I fly for business about every other week

[Gordo_1]

And yet in all the months I've been running into these damn X-ray machines, I think I've only seen one other person opt out in favor of a pat down/groping session.

The rest of this country seems to be full of sheep.

Re:I fly for business about every other week

[PracticalM]

I opt out all the time, but at the airports I go to they are not always running. But I also rarely see people opt out.

Re:I fly for business about every other week

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak for yourself. I've opted for the pat down twice and have seen others do so. It will delay for about 3-5 extra minutes total, maybe less if they have the extra officer nearby. Despite all the hype about rubber gloves and cavity searches it's quite tame and reasonable. Unless you are in severe danger of missing your plane try it, you'll feel better about the small moral victory and the hassle is minimal.

Re:I fly for business about every other week

[Patent Lover]

I opt out every time I fly. I've resorted to flying in shorts and a t-shirt (changing clothes later) in order to demonstrate the idiocy that is the TSA rub-down.

Re:I fly for business about every other week

[Anonymous Coward]

This would actually be a good poll question for /.

I opt out of the X-Ray machines at the airport:

1) Always
2) Never
3) When I am not in a hurry
4) When I am not wearing underwear
5) I live in a country where we don't use these useless, cancer causing, pseudo strip searching machines.

Re:I fly for business about every other week

[sir_eccles]

I opted out at PHX recently, they made a big deal out of making us stand to one side and calling out on their radios for agents to come and do a pat down. While we waited he insisted they were safe blah blah blah. My objection is more political/war profiteering than health risk so I just ignored him and didn't bother trying to engage in conversation.

Anyway after the pat down was done I realized that not only had we bypassed the silly x-ray machine but we had also bypassed the standard metal detector.

Yay security!

Re:I fly for business about every other week

[smart_ass]

I travel a good deal for work also.
I miss the physical contact of being with friends and family.
I can go weeks with no more than a couple hand-shakes.
That sucks.

While twisted ... at least getting patted down is some level of physical interaction that is otherwise missing.

Because Michael Chertoff said so

[EMG at MU]

If they actually did the study then Chertoff and Rapiscan would have to mount another FUD campaign to create a need for some other product that Rapiscan would make and Chertoff would convince all his friends in the government to buy.

The science experiment is on the passengers

[Anonymous Coward]

And the theoretical safe levels would only apply if these machines are set up properly. There have been cases where xray machines have been mis-calibrated and put out much higher levels than were safe. And that was in a medical facility dedicated to safety.

Of course I am sure that the TSA calibration records and maintenance records are a matter of public record on these powerful sources of radiation, and that scientists have been allowed access to these machines to confirm the governments assurances... They aren't? And they haven't?

Science is not about taking someone in powers word for the truth, it is about confirming the truth independently. It is inconceivable to me that these machines were deployed without any independent testing and with complete secrecy about dosage, calibration and maintenance records. It stinks and it stinks bad.

Only time will tell how deadly these machines are. I will bet anyone a crisp clean hundred dollar bill that these machines are at a minimum 3 orders of magnitude more harmful than the government is admitting (6,000 deaths from cancer). I am hoping they are no more harmful than 4 orders of magnitude more harmful (60,000 deaths from cancer) but fear 6+ orders of magnitude more harm (600,000 additional deaths from cancer).

But is anyone else worried that even at the levels the government admitted to that they are willing to kill 6 Americans with cancer for security theater?

Re:The science experiment is on the passengers

[ColdWetDog]

Of course I am sure that the TSA calibration records and maintenance records are a matter of public record on these powerful sources of radiation, and that scientists have been allowed access to these machines to confirm the governments assurances... They aren't? And they haven't?

They don't need to be public record. They just have to be followed like every other x ray emitting device which are regulated by the states. You want to put an x ray machine in your office? Fine, put it in then call the state radiation physicist before you light it up. They come out and check it to make sure the public is safe (you're on your own).

Guess what doesn't happen since the airports are considered federal enclaves?

Re:The science experiment is on the passengers

[TheCarp]

However... the x-ray machine in a private office is only ever aimed at customers of that office. As a customer, I could demand the calibration records, or refuse my business. Maybe they show them, maybe they don't (they probably do...and tell the story of the oddball for years)... but the point is.... these are aimed at the public. They stand in the way of using a publicly available transportation resource.

As such, I think that is a strong case for making the records public.

Re:The science experiment is on the passengers

[RoccamOccam]

And the theoretical safe levels would only apply if these machines are set up properly. There have been cases where xray machines have been mis-calibrated and put out much higher levels than were safe. And that was in a medical facility dedicated to safety.

I seem to recall that also happened with a gamma-ray machine!

Re:The science experiment is on the passengers

[Bob the Super Hamste]

This happens with a lot of medical equipment. A large hospital with have one machine mis-calibrated every year (my dad works as a bio medical technician repairing devices, not calibrating them) and sometimes it gets caught before it is used sometimes not. I remember one story where there was some machine for doing some heart surgery where the device was incorrectly calibrated and instead of cutting and cauterizing it vaporized a large chunk of the patient's heart.

Re:The science experiment is on the passengers

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a medical physicist. The TSA does a nifty accounting trick in the amount of approximate dose they report. They publish that one scan is approximately 0.005 mrem of dose. However, the unit for dose is [energy deposited / mass of tissue ] and they use the mass of an average person's entire body. They report "whole body dose" when the backscattered x-rays are truly only depositing dose at the skin. The skin is approximately 16% of a person's body mass. Therefore, the skin dose of 1 scan is 0.005/0.16 = 0.03125 mrem. That is 6.25 times larger than the dose they report. Will the scans caused increased brain cancer or bodily cancers? Doubt it. Will they heighten risk for skin cancers? I certainly believe so. Fair-skinned frequent fliers ought to prepare for the pat down.

Re:The science experiment is on the passengers

[ColdWetDog]

That's fine, but the public isn't in much of position to determine if the records are good, bad or indifferent and doesn't have the power to shut down an unsafe situation. The state radiation physicist, OTOH, is empowered to keep the public safe and, presumably, knows enough of radiation physics to do so.

But enough dreaming....

well...

[rish87]

I'm not pro TSA by any means but if you look at the amount of ionizing radiation they are talking about being covered up " is extremely low, equivalent to the radiation a person would receive in a few minutes of flying" (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=europe-bans-x-ray-body-scanners) I don't think quibbling over an amount of radiation literally 100's of times less than what each and every person is about to be exposed to anyway is the correct way to fight the TSA on this matter. When attacking this detail it is too easy for the government to say "so what?".

Re:well...

[Anonymous Coward]

I often see airport workers walk through the x-ray rather than going through the scanner. When I asked why they did not have to go through the scanner, I was told by a TSA employee that they go through security so many times each day that it would not be safe. But if it really is the same radiation as 2 minutes of flying, then the equivalent of a 4 hours flight would cover 100 trips through security....so, is it really that safe? Of course, my feeling is just that they know its theater and don't want to deal themself.

Re:well...

[tftp]

the amount of ionizing radiation they are talking about being covered up " is extremely low, equivalent to the radiation a person would receive in a few minutes of flying"

You gladly put yourself into a hot tub that is heated by a 2 kW electric heater. However you will not be happy if someone takes a hot soldering iron that has only 40W of power and sticks it up your body where it doesn't belong.

Or, you are happy to go to a beach and spend a few hours there. But you won't like it if someone takes a large magnifying glass and focuses the Sun's image onto your skin.

This demonstrates that talks about "total power" or "total radiation" are misleading. It is essential to understand how this power is used.

Re:well...

[calidoscope]

This demonstrates that talks about "total power" or "total radiation" are misleading.

Really poor analogies. What you are referring to is energy concentrated in a small part of the body as opposed to the whole body. The scanners distribute the energy over the whole body and any breakdown with the scanning mechanism will be immediately evident in the image. Also remember when dealing with total doses on the milli-rem level, it doesn't make much of difference whether the dose occurred during a microsecond or over a day. Starting around 25 rem or so, there is a substantial difference in getting the dose in much less than a day as opposed to a couple of years.

Re:well...

[tftp]

What you are referring to is energy concentrated in a small part of the body as opposed to the whole body. The scanners distribute the energy over the whole body

That's not what I read. Most of the energy of the scanner is absorbed by the skin, and the analogy is very much correct. I'm not copying the entire content of that URL here, please go there and have a look - the letter with concerns is written not by a couple of nerds in a basement but by scientists (unless membership in the National Academy of Sciences means nothing.) Let me just cite one small paragraph:

"Unlike other scanners, these new devices operate at relatively low beam energies (28keV). The majority of their energy is delivered to the skin and the underlying tissue. Thus, while the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high."

any breakdown with the scanning mechanism will be immediately evident in the image.

That would be of little consolation to you. Let's imagine a real world scenario: the scanning stops - because, for example, someone shoved a blob of chewing gum into the gears. The machine starts working slower, slower and finally stops, with the X-ray beam focused on something totally unimportant, like your eyes or your brain (upper or lower :-) Let's say the interlocks failed and the beam is not shut off.

What would you expect from a team of inept users of this technology? Do you believe they have a clue how the machine works? Do you think they care to know? Maybe there is one geek in the whole TSA, and he is not operating the machines anyway.

The operator sees that the image is bad or incomplete. What do you think will happen? The operator WILL REPEAT THE SCAN - again and again and again, potentially burning raster tattoos into your skin with the X-ray beam. Only after several attempts he will give up. You will not be told what happened. You will be told to go to another machine or you will be molested by hand. You will not know what just occurred, and the TSA will get rid of you as fast as they can (or not, even if they themselves have no idea what they just did to you.) In any case, you will be getting radiation burns on your body within days, and good luck matching this to any specific machine in any specific airport. TSA will tell you that "safety of passengers is #1 concern of TSA and nothing like what happened to you could possibly happen to anyone, you included."

Re:well...

[blueg3]

Both flying and Compton backscatter scanners are well, well below acute exposure rates. The only concern is ionization causing DNA damage (which could lead to cancer). That effect is linear in total exposure. So, just looking at total exposure is, in this case, correct.

news flash

[wierd_w]

Questionable agency with questionable methods disapproves of mandate to test the questionable efficacy and questionable safety of their questionable equipment.

Seriously, is this a surprise? The public support for the intrusiveness of the tsa is dwindling rapidly, and a bombshell like "airport and transit station scanners linked with cancer" would set fire to that particularly nasty powderkeg.

Of course they want to ostritch headplant and hum to themselves rather than operate reputably! Their entire operation is a farce all the way down!

Re:Dear USA

[jbell730]

I don't blame you.

Signed, an American.

We're all black conscripts now

[Quila]

Back in the days of Tuskeege, the government thought it only get away with conducting deadly experiments on blacks. Later it figured it could get away with doing it to conscripted troops.

Now it has no problem doing it to us all.

Re:We're all black conscripts now

[ZeroSumHappiness]

Well, duh. It's only discrimination if you do it to a protected class. It's fine if you do it to everyone.

Stop Flying

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop flying until the TSA is gone. Seriously.

Having to show your papers, take off your shoes, and choosing between having nudie pictures taken or having your genitals groped is what the U.S. has fallen to. It's no longer airlines. The TSA is beginning to make appearances at train and bus stations. If you don't take a stand now, when will you take a stand? When there's a uniformed officer standing in your bedroom feeling between your legs to make sure you're not a terrorist?

Hiding from Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Given these machines have been BANNED in Europe for health concerns, let's put off doing the right thing....
Any one remeber Lead Based Paint? Banned in Europe in the 40's becuase of brain dammage... took till 1976 for the US to ban the crap...
I guess our Government has been eating some of those paint chips.

Where can I buy a Dosimeter?

[Symbha]

Repost cuz I can't stand being a coward:

Why is it that I can't just put one in my pocket and go through the machine to find out?
You know, For Science!

Re:Where can I buy a dosimeter?

[ZeroSumHappiness]

Does it include any metal? Sorry, bud, contraband. Off to the strip-search before Gitmo.

Friendly er, service...

[spopepro]

It's odd... I opt out and when I do the TSA employees are very, very helpful and friendly. I know that they have a strict script to stick to, but I also get the impression that they are not all that happy about the exposure risk, and are happy when others recognize the risks as well.

Re:Friendly er, service...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

It's odd... I opt out and when I do the TSA employees are very, very helpful and friendly. I know that they have a strict script to stick to, but I also get the impression that they are not all that happy about the exposure risk, and are happy when others recognize the risks as well.

My niece flies a lot for work - like 2-4x a month. She always opts out, especially once she got pregnant. She said that many times the agents gave her shit for opting out, even when she told them she was pregnant. Funny thing about that, she's a model, I'd expect many agents would enjoy giving her a grope-job.

Re:Where can I buy a Dosimeter?

[rish87]

make your ownhttp://www.adafruit.com/products/483

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Results are in, it's a pleasant surprise!

[roman_mir]

It appears that the more of the X-ray body scans you go through, the bigger your penis becomes and also the boobs become bigger.

Strangely enough both effects are detected in both genders.

Re:Where can I buy a Dosimeter?

[TheCarp]

Honestly... I think someone needs to talk to some hospital workers. Any hospital could easily help with this, and could probably be convinced to do it for cost just for the fact that this really is a public service to test. Even if not, there are a lot of people in healthcare who need to wear them, so theres many options there.

My mother wore a dosimeter for years. She was an x-ray tech and was told on her first day of training "By choosing this job, you are taking 10 years off your life". Thats probably less true now. Hers was just a piece of film in a plastic case. Every once in a while they get collected and developed. Cumulative dose over time is measured and sometimes resulted in some extra mandatory vacation. um... w00t? :/

Sure its simple, you can make one, or buy them, but, having them processed by someone who is competent to do it, and can stand by their results is key for something like this. If someone at the local Hospital radiology department wanted to help, they could put this issue to rest... without much problem. Anybody can claim numbers on a device, anybody can say they developed their own film and calculated the dose.... but people who do it every day can give you results that are harder to ignore.

Re:Where can I buy a Dosimeter?

[TheCarp]

Also, you probably need to get both inside and outside measurements... if you could get a TSA worker by the machine to wear one in their pocket for a few weeks, that would be a very useful measurement.

Install one ...

[PPH]

... in the TSA headquarters employee entrance.

Turns Out

[Greyfox]

They're perfectly safe, but ball fondling causes cancer.

Re:Where can I buy a Dosimeter?

[mspohr]

There's an app for that!

Check out the Google app market for the Hotray Radiation counter or the web site:

www.hotray-info.de

Mei Lei

[Nefarious Wheel]

In order to protect our citizens from terrorism, we had to sterilize them.

Re:What I heard recently

[JayBat]

Yes, I get the feeling that TSA and/or the airports and/or ??? are realizing that using backscatter x-ray scanners is a bad idea.

My home airport, PDX, just announced they'll be fully deploying new scanners just in time for the holiday travel season (joy), and they are mm-wave RF. The waste of time and money still pisses me off, but at least I don't have to go through the PITA of opting out for safety reasons now.

Why not test one?

[Dripdry]

Why not test the radiation levels yourself? Badge? Gizmo? Just walk through to get a reading, can we?

We're all about science here. Who's willing to risk it... For Science!

Re:Where can I buy a dosimeter?

[zippthorne]

Well, for one thing, you'd have to go through the machine....

Re:4 words

[Neil Boekend]

The TSA is an ecoterrorist ploy to sterilise the full popluation of polluting air travelers. This way they will not pass their polluting ways and genes on to the next generation. Combine that with the decrease in overpopulation and the poor, sick mother earth can recover! Kumbaya!

Re:Where can I buy a Dosimeter?

[cbope]

Problem is, that's a very unscientific way to measure the radiation dose and very inaccurate.

The main problem with determining dose to the body from ionizing radiation is that different tissues and organs of the body absorb radiation in different ways. Additionally, some tissues and organs are more sensitive to cellular damage that could potentially lead to cancer more than others. And finally, the absorption is also heavily dependent on the energy levels and spectra of the radiation itself. Some types of radiation are basically harmless and pass through the body without being absorbed. Other types are heavily absorbed and can lead to health impacts.

Accurate does measurement is challenging and even among experts in the field there are differing opinions how to weight the different measurements and come up with an accurate dose representation that translates into meaningful risk assessment.

As an engineer working in the medical imaging field over 20 years, I'm well versed in radiation safety and the effects of radiation on biological processes. These backscatter machines should have NEVER been put into public use. There is literally zero scientific evidence on their efficacy for intended use and safety for both the operator and subject being scanned. In medical imaging, the doctor makes an assessment of risk vs. benefit when deciding to take an X-ray on the patient. If the benefits outweigh the risks, then the X-ray is justified. The major problem with these scanners is that the risk is unknown due to lack of studies validating the safety of the scanners and the population is being unnecessarily exposed to ionizing radiation without a medical reason to do so. This is purely security theater at its finest. I would never voluntarily submit to being scanned by one of these machines, especially with my background knowledge in radiation. If the US government were to decide that use of these scanners is mandatory, then I would cease all travel to/from/within the US by air. As an American living abroad, the end result is alienation by my own government. I for one am glad that the EU will not allow their use, so I may safely travel by air throughout Europe and the rest of the world.

How much longer are you going to tolerate this in the US? You are marching swiftly towards a completely corporate.fascist.militarist state and nobody seems to notice.

Re:Where can I buy a Dosimeter?

[TheCarp]

wow never mind... apparently you can get dosimeters on ebay. They even have some pen sized ones....

Apparently film is rare in the states these days. Though, it does provide a record, which is nice for this application.

MOD PARENT UP

[BenEnglishAtHome]

Obvious statistical screwup is obvious - and constantly repeated by people with an irrational fear of weaponry.

Indemnity first

[flibbidyfloo]

Maybe they are putting it off until Congress can pass a law indemnifying the TSA against the lawsuits that will crop up as soon as they reveal that they knew cancer was a risk but deployed them anyway.

Re:Where can I buy a Dosimeter?

[Jon Abbott]

You can find GammaMaster radiation dosimeter wristwatches on eBay. They're expensive but they come calibrated and they look decent as well.

Re:Where can I buy a Dosimeter?

[blueg3]

You can buy the hexagonal medical ones quite cheaply, but you'd need to get someone to read it for you. However, they're probably not sensitive enough. You'd also need to control for factors like going outside, which can cause a detectable amount of exposure on a good dosimeter.

Afraid the truth will out of dangers.

[lsatenstein]

The reason for not doing the study is the fear that the xray machines are probably emitting dangerous levels of radiation.

They must know this from the film badges that some operators wear to show the amount of exposure to potentially death causing radiation.

Potential, yes, because the radiation can cause cancer. and cancer can cause death.

This is what happens in general

[Anonymous Coward]

If you give the government power, it will be abused against you.

Let the government set up any social or political institution, it will be constructed to enslave you. Education, social safety net, protection from criminals, protection from outside forces, protection from terrorists, protection from banks, protection from bad drugs, ...

All ruling classes are authoritarian. The more opposition they receive, the harder they tighten the screws.

The trajectory of freedom in the US is steeply downward. In the last 2 administrations we have embraced torture and extra-judicial imprisonment and killing of US citizens. We are now beginning to treat protesters as terrorists.

At the same time, most cities have installed a lot of video devices and automatic surveillance systems are watching citizens everywhere, the NSA reads all of our emails and listens to all of our phone calls. We have both a police state and a national surveillance state.

There is very likely a gulag in our future, but nobody seems at all concerned.

No One -- No. One. -- Says these things are safe

[jeko]

There is not one -- NOT ONE -- professional who has been willing to certify these devices as safe. Not one.

Rapiscan categorically denies the machines are safe. What they do say is that "These machines have been built to TSA/DHS specifications. We are not responsible for those specifications, nor are we responsible for their use."

The FDA has been denied a chance to test them as they are not "medical equipment."

TSA Head John Pistole, when directly asked by Congress about safety, covers his butt and weasel words the question with "They are as safe as we can make them... I have been told they would be safe... I believe they should be made to be safe as possible, but I am not a doctor... Technical details should be referred to technical staff, except that the details are classified because 'Terrorists/9/11.'"

He categorically refuses to say, "These machines are safe and will not cause cancer." He suggests it, he implies it, he lets reporters say it, but he never actually says it himself. His testimony bears the hallmarks of someone who has rehearsed long and hard with their lawyer.

No one -- nobody -- with an M.D. or PhD. after their name has been willing to sign off on these machines.

On the other hand, the list of serious "heavy-hitter" experts on radiation willing to shout that these machines are dangerous would fill the rest of this page.

On paper, per the published specs, the American Radiological Association has gone on record that the machines are a public health hazard. The head of Radiology at Johns Hopkins has written an open letter to the president calling the machines a danger to public health. You could fill a undergraduate auditorium with the number of professors who know what they're talking about who refuse to walk through these scanners.

Next time you hear someone from the TSA talk about how safe the scanners are, ask yourself, "If we replaced the word 'scanner' with the words 'arsenic,' 'asbestos,' or 'uranium,' would this statement still be true in the narrowest legal sense? Would the statement they just made let you hold them responsible in a court of law later? Ask yourself, "How many qualifiers did they put in this statement to sound like they just said 'The machines are safe,' without actually saying 'The machines are safe?'"

Then ask yourself how long it took the lawyers to come up with the phrasing that would let them do that.

We've seen this movie before.

[jeko]

Asbestos. Thalidomide. Agent Orange. Every EPA Superfund site ever.

The government initially comes out and says it's totally safe and effective. It takes years, but eventually the bodies stack up until it's undeniable.

They deny it anyway. The case drags on until the principals die in choking agony. Their heirs continue with the case.

Eventually, the grandkids get a tepid non-apology while the government declares "It time to move on, to look forward and not back. We all need to work together on this..."

What makes you think we'll treat the fry-machine-refugees at the TSA any better? Indeed, if you needed to find a group of hopeless chumps to irradiate for minimum wage, what better population would you find?