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DHS X-ray Car Scanners Now At Border Crossings
OverTheGeicoE writes "CNET has a story on DHS' whole car X-ray scanners and their potential cancer risks. The story focuses on the Z Portal scanner, which appears to be a stationary version of the older Z Backscatter Vans. The story provides interesting pictures of the device and the images it produces, but it also raises important questions about the devices' cancer risks. The average energy of the X-ray beam used is three times that used in a CT scan, which could be big trouble for vehicle passengers and drivers should a vehicle stop in mid-scan. Some studies show the risk for cancer from CT scans can be quite high. Worse still, the DHS estimates of the Z Portal's radiation dosage are likely to be several orders of magnitude too low. 'Society will pay a huge price in cancer because of this,' according to one scientist."
We should have a one-day travel strike, where nobody travels except on essential tasks. Repeat regularly until results are obtained.
When the TSA starts costing businesses money, our bought-and-paid-for Congress will rein them in.
(Heh, you probably thought a B&PFC wasn't good for anything.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This will definitely increase cancer risks. In particular, it allows the Department of Homeland Security to spread and thrive.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
"One of the studies, which examined more than 1,000 adult patients at four hospitals, projected that the dose of radiation received in a single heart scan at age 40 would later result in cancer in 1 in 270 women and 1 in 600 men.
Risks were lower for those who received a head CT scan: 1 in 8,100 women and 1 in 11,080 men would likely develop cancer from the radiation, the study said."
These numbers don't have a direct translation for "Z Portal" cancer risk, but they're surprisingly high. Hopefully we get some very robust studies to examine the effects of the DHS scans in the near future. I guess it's too much to hope that the Department of Homeland Sarcoma would stop using the scanners until public and peer reviewed science exists to prove their safety.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
The article specified X-rays or gamma rays. I hate the DHS more than anybody else here, because I have to drive through their checkpoints on a fairly regular basis, but I would hope that they would at least make everybody get out of the car and at a safe distance away from the machine while the scan is performed. They're looking for large amounts of money, dope, guns, or explosives; things that would not be carried on a person.
Also, as the guy below stated, freedom-loving Americans (and foreigners with business in the 'States) need to be more proactive at expressing their displeasure of the DHS.
1) It uses X-rays
2) The device is controlled by a PC running a Java app
3) It was put together by freelancers
Posting AC because NDA
Everyone knows X-Rays can't penetrate metal.
So that my job in xraying metal is fake?
http://www.vidisco.com/NDTInspection.asp
These xrays are much more powerful (intensity and energy) than medical xrays.
I know someone that walked in front of one of these running machines a few decades ago (by accident, of course). He sufferred accute radiation poisoning that required almost 2 weeks to recover. Day after exposure, he almost could not walk.
Still, there is SOME kind of scanner technology that they DO use to inspect the cargo of 18-wheelers without emptying out the load. But it's NOT X-Rays.
Keep repeating after me. Ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is BLISS!
This assumes professional calibration! This should read "The average energy of the X-ray beam when calibrated by an apathetic TSA employee is a hell of a lot more than three times that used in a CT scan calibrated by a hospital technician"
You do realize that your average trailer, the kind that semis pull around, has barely any metal in it, right? I've seen in the back of hundreds of them over the years and they're actually mostly wood with a thing metal covering to protect against the rain. It's probably not any thinker than the metal in a soda can.
It is far too simplistic to say that "X-Rays can't penetrate metal."
X-rays are absorbed by a material by interacting with the electrons around the nucleus (or with the nucleus itself). This is a statistical question - X-rays will penetrate a short distance into a material. the more dense the material or higher energy (frequency) of the X=rays, the less they will penetrate. See for example
here.
There is a table at the bottom of penetration depths through lead as a function of energy of the X-rays.
Funny, then, that my research focuses on the behavior of X-rays through metals. X-rays can penetrate metals, depending on the energy of the radiation used. high-energy radiation passes through almost everything, and interacts only a little with intermediate objects. Hence, it is very well possible they are using X-rays for this, but they can pretty much only use it to visualize the internal metallic structure of objects as it will pass right through people.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
So, in addition to the pile of civil liberties and massive mounds of cash, we also get to have cancer and miscarriages inflicted on innocents in the name of the failing war on drugs.
The DHS looked at surveillance from vans with long-distance X-ray capability
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/03/02/docs-reveal-tsa-plan-to-body-scan-pedestrians-train-passengers/
e.g. "drive-by" mode and covert screening from vans http://www.as-e.com/zbv/
http://epic.org/privacy/body_scanners/Body_Scan_FOIA_Docs_Feb_2011.pdf
They build up a 3d like view of metal vehicles. You would think every person in the area would get into shielded rooms (control and guarded waiting room) as the vehicle in question was scanned.
I guess radiation is now 100% safe in the USA.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Same AC. Just wanted to clarify due to the present "Score:4, Funny", that I'm completely serious. They contacted me in 2006 for this project, since I have both a programming and physics background. Once I learned more, I told them to stuff it.
No need for other terrorist attacks: the US govt (TSA) terrorizes and, possible, kills their own citizens. What's more surreal: the citizens pay for it!!
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
The average energy of the X-ray beam used is three times that used in a CT scan
This may or may not be a misleading statement. There's inadequate context and specificity in the article. "Energy" here could refer to the total amount of ionizing radiation energy delivered to a person in the scanner, in which case these portal scanners could be considered extremely dangerous, since a typical CT is already a substantial and potentially dangerous radiation dose. Alternatively, the word "energy" may refer to the energy of the individual x-ray photons. In other words, if a typical CT uses 100keV x-rays and these scanners use 300keV. That is probably what was meant. It's clinically meaningless. Within reasonable ranges of several tens of keV to several MeV, only the total absorbed dose really matters health-wise, not the energies of the individual particles.
With that said, I still don't condone this type of intrusive inspection - even at the border.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
I'm wondering what if you don't consent to the x-ray. Will they throw your ass in jail for not willing to cooperate? If you are a tourist from Canada, are you allowed to turn-around and not go to the states? (this will obviously complicate any future returns)
It seems people have already had problems when they turn around at the airport or refuse the other xray equipment.
I'd like to see a waiver form. Do you consent to an xray? Are you aware that these pose a cancer risk? Are you aware that these machines may not be sufficiently or professionally calibrated which may increase your risk of cancer?
I'm a Canadian. So long as these scanners are in place, I'm going to reconsider any traveling to the US.
This policy is in place to catch money/drug/weapon smugglers and presumably terrorists. None of this will halt.
The problem here is that these machines (and the ones like them at the airports) were never about public nor personal safety. They were always about creating the appearance that we are safer and making a few people with ties to the TSA quite wealthy. Until we actually fix the military-industrial-complex-like problems that plague our government at almost every level, we will increasingly have to deal with these stupid issues.
giggity
Prob is, he has a point.
The US has the best healthcare in the world, as long as your insurance is good and properly paid. Get your health insurance cancelled, you'll go bankrupt just trying to stay alive.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac
It is likely Gamma, and it is actually an older technology. The DDR (Stasi-run former easter Germany) used Cobalt-60 sources to screen trucks for people hiding in them. Anybody in there would have gotten a serious dosage. Sometimes the drivers got this dosage as well, as the shielding on the Cobalt was retracted to early (this was done for moving trucks). All this was done in secret.
I think, once again, it is quite clear where the DHS got its inspiration.
And yes, even X-Rays penetrate metal just fine, just crank up the intensity. Typically Gamma is used though, because it penetrates a lot better at lower intensities. On the minus-side, for Gamma you need radioactive sources, while X-Rays can just be generated with electricity.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Then you're probably better off emigrating ASAP.
I don't understand why the government officials that are funding/sponsoring this crap aren't forced to go through all the scanners and such.
Why do they get to fly on private jets and such without having to go through the same invasive searches as the rest of us.
Someone should make all of congress and the executive branch go through this crap before they board their own "all first class", caviar and champagne filled jets.
How much fuel and money could we save if instead of putting congress/executive branch in first class chairs, we stuffed them into cattle car like the rest of us that fly?
To quote Animal Farm, "All animals are created equal, yet some animals are more equal than others."
Freedom loving Americans, that takes me back to my childhood to just before the fall of the U.S.S.R. Freedom loving Americans vs the Freedom Hating Commies.
Strange, some of the stuff we are doing now to preserve our freedom would sound like B-rate uber-U.S.S.R. activities back then.
Harassing TSA agents, DHS inspectors, or even the police is counter-productive. While there are "bad apples" who abuse their authority, most are just regular people trying to do a job which means constantly dealing with pissed off people. After a stint in a support and warranty call center, I can really sympathize with them -- there's nothing THEY can do about it, same as I couldn't wave a magic wand and make a warranty valid a few weeks after it expired, no matter HOW much a customer yelled at me.
Stick to hounding the government and the three letter agencies that make the DECISIONS to deploy these people, but let them do their job until their jobs are eliminated.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Harassing TSA agents, DHS inspectors, or even the police is counter-productive. While there are "bad apples" who abuse their authority, most are just regular people trying to do a job which means constantly dealing with pissed off people. After a stint in a support and warranty call center, I can really sympathize with them -- there's nothing THEY can do about it, same as I couldn't wave a magic wand and make a warranty valid a few weeks after it expired, no matter HOW much a customer yelled at me.
Stick to hounding the government and the three letter agencies that make the DECISIONS to deploy these people, but let them do their job until their jobs are eliminated.
Since they're only following orders.
Gamma radiation I could see, but X-Rays have a GREAT deal of difficulty penetrating metal.
There is no real distinction between X-rays and Gamma rays in terms of their properties. They are named based on how they were produced and their application. Create them by accelerating electrons into a metal target in a hospital and you call them X-rays. Create them in nuclear or particle decays and they are called gamma rays. In fact if you create them by smashing high energy electrons into a metal target in a particle physics lab we'll call them gamma rays as well.
As for penetrating metal we make calorimeters designed to measure photon energies which consist of plates of dense metal - like lead, depleted uranium etc. As the photon penetrates these metal sheets it makes a shower of particles and we count the particles in the gaps between the metal plates. Such detectors are usually metres thick for GeV photon energies (probably at least 1,000 times higher than what these machines use - I hope!). But the point should be clear - give a photon enough energy and it penetrates lead and depleted uranium - so the thin sheet metal in a car is not an issue. However I'd not want to be driving a car which is being subjected to that.
I haven't touched it in nearly 15 years and was an engineer and not a real radiographer. While I could interpret the images I didn't ever do any unsupervised exposure calculations, so I mostly just helped out moving the gear so more could be shot in the same time window. Typically everybody on a very large area of a site (or an entire site) goes to lunch offsite while the radiography is done - or the same sort of thing for a period late at night. The idea is that everyone that isn't under direct visual supervision of someone with a clue about radiation safety is hundreds of meters away so isn't going to wander within twenty meters of the source when the door is open.
Others will have more current information and more experience.
Anyway, the thing that scares the hell out of me about the TSA stuff is that no trustworthy third party has to look at it so you just have to take their word that radiation safety is even being considered at all. Their operators don't need to be trained to any sort of standard recognised by any authority anywhere so can not be trusted to safely operate the equipment. I'm not going to the USA any time soon but if I do I'm going to make sure I don't get exposed to any sort of amataur x-ray even if that means I have to get deported for refusing it.
When I was in the 4th grade, our social studies teacher explained that America was better than "Russia" because of a number of things they did that we didn't do. Every day, we are doing more and more of those things right here in America.
You weren't actively harming people. You were not acting against their Constitutional rights. You weren't acting against their human rights. The TSA agents may very well be actively harming people. Just following orders has been determined NOT to be a valid defense even for a draftee in the military. It certainly isn't for a civilian job with the TSA.
Why use horribly expensive technology when cheap alternatives are available
Because horribly expensive technology funds companies who fund lobbyists who fund congressmen.
Since they're only following orders.
The worst crimes in the history of humanity were carried out by people who were just following orders.
People following orders are still morally culpable for their acts.
Since they're only following orders.
The worst crimes in the history of humanity were carried out by people who were just following orders.
People following orders are still morally culpable for their acts.
Actually, I think most of us picked up that is what the GP was already implying by his humorous 5 word interjection, but please, don't let me interrupt your needless exposition. ;-)