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Maine Senator Wants Independent Study of TSA's Body Scanners
OverTheGeicoE writes "U.S. Senator Susan Collins, the top Republican on the homeland security committee, plans to introduce a bill that would require a new health study of the X-ray body scanners used to screen airline passengers nationwide. If the bill becomes law, TSA would be required to choose an 'independent laboratory' to measure the radiation emitted by a scanner currently in use at an airport checkpoint and use the data to produce a peer-reviewed study, to be submitted to Congress, based on its findings. The study would also evaluate the safety mechanisms on the machine and determine 'whether there are any biological signs of cellular damage caused by the scans.' Many Slashdotters are or have been involved in science. Is this a credible experimental protocol? Is it reasonable to expect an organization accused of jeopardizing the health and safety of hundreds of millions of air travelers to pick a truly unbiased lab? Would any lab chosen deliver a critical report and risk future funding? Should the public trust a study of radiology and human health designed by a US Senator whose highest degree is a bachelor's degree in government?"
Isn't this something our fabulous leaders should of demanded before spending a crap load of money and deploying them all around the nation?
Better a radiation study by someone with a BA in government than one made by someone with a master's in criminal "justice" intent on covering their ass.
As a public health measure, we specifically designed our scanners to operate 95% on faith beams and only 5% on ionizing radiation(the fact that this also allowed the sleazy contractor not-at-all-definitely-not connected to our former leader, who definitely isn't a lich save on BOM costs was unconnected with this decision...)
If you allow skeptics to get near the machines, they'll jam the faith rays and force us to either face further terrorist attacks or turn up the radiation!
Perhaps other aspects of their service-mindedness need looking into also?
...where whathername insisted on "designing the study".
As opposed, of course, for calling for a study to be done - not the same at all.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
A bachelor's in government, is that like a minor in plant psychology?
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
TSA must have gotten their marching orders recently. They have been pretty strict about pushing as many people through those radiation machines as possible for that last couple of months. Prior, you could pony up to the metal detectors without much hassle. Now, you are told to stand in the long imaging line. And this is the case at several airports I travel through.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
<quote>TSA would be required to choose an 'independent laboratory'</quote>
How independent if the TSA has to choose it?
The real investigation should be who got rich from all this.
our lawmakers and executive branch are in the pockets of large corporations. federal government buying tons of equipment increases shareholder value and provides certain benefits to those who greased the skids.
Can't we judge the experiment on its merits (good or bad)? What does the educational background of the person proposing it have to do with anything? The scientific method doesn't break just because someone without a PHD proposes the experiment.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Each state should be entitled to pick their own lab to conduct the study on the scanners. Yes, that means 50 independent studies by local labs. More if we go counting DC and other territories.
Also, should they find any negative effects; any citizen of the state that has been exposed to the scanners should be entitled to an exponential sum for each exposure (since any additional exposure would not just additively increase cancer risks.)
THAT would be a responsible law to go for. But who am I kidding, the TSA now controls too much money, enough to lobby its way into doing anything they want.
...the TSA just bought and activated their first full body scanners at the Portland, ME airport (PWM).
This nation worked very hard to elect a vice-president whose highest degree was a bachelor's degree in communications, and she had to transfer 4 times to get it. I don't think the people really care.
No to all questions.
It would be much more effective to abolish both the TSA and the Department of Homland Security.
The single most significant missing component in all our security efforts is a cost analysis. Are we spending too much, too little, or about the right amount? Some say that measuring that is hard, and it is. But measurement is inherently approximation (there is no such thing as a ruler that is exactly twelve inches long). Once you accept that, it becomes much easier to measure lots of things (see also: How to Measure Anything).
Can we begin with a very rough boundary estimate? I think we can. Here's one I did in my head while driving through the desert recently:
I am willing to accept having two of my one thousand closest lifetime United States citizen acquaintances die in terrorist attacks. That is an acceptable risk level. If we can get there, I feel we have done all we need to do. By the same token, if we are spending any significant amount of money to go beyond that level, I am less supportive. I don't think it is worthwhile to catch every terrorist any more than it is worthwhile to catch every speeder or jaywalker. Two in one thousand, lifetime, sounds like about the right number.
OK, so, how does that work out as an annualized US death toll? (please note: I did this in my head, and am mostly just regurgitating it here -- please correct me if the math is off)
Desired Death Rate: 0.002 per lifetime
Lifetime Length: 80 years
Annualized Rate: 0.00002 risk per-annum per-person (equals 0.998 chance each person will reach 80 before dying from terrorism)
United States Population: 300,000,000
My Maximum Acceptable Annual U.S. Terrorism Deaths: 6,000
I think we should be trying to stay under 6,000 United States citizens dying from terrorism every year. It is the acceptable rate, to me, in terms of the risk of my acquaintances dying. Any significant spending we do to get under that number is -- to me -- emotionalism, not rationalism. Given we haven't reached 6,000 in the past 20 years, I suspect we are spending too much.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I keep seeing these things that seem to be attempting to show that these naked scanners are unhealthy. But is that really a distraction from what we should be considering?
1. Doesn't human dignity require that we treat travellers as people and not the same way that we treat convicts?
2. Don't these security measures do more harm than good by forcing people to accept a microcosm of "police state" for no discernable benefit?
I thought the TSA already had orders to perform an independent review, and were stonewalling on it.
I have never supported Susan Collins for other issues.
But I have to ask why the OP decided to belittle the Senator's formal educational credentials? This seems like a distraction for the real question here: are these full body scanners actually safe, and, that's the question the Senator has introduced to be studied.
The Senator has asked a good question here. I praise her for asking a question in a time when the knee jerk response has been a resounding YES to police state control. The OP has held up a straw man in questioning her education.
Being the technocracy that we are, I think we should wait for a the public to elect a Senator with a PhD in Physiology and, then, demand that he/she write a sensible proposal to address these health concerns.
Isn't this something our fabulous leaders should of demanded before spending a crap load of money and deploying them all around the nation?
Isn't this something that's better late than never, considering that it's too late to say it should be done beforehand?
This. Politicians are not engineers. And even if they were, when they do something right, it makes more sense to praise them for it than it does to point out how foolish they may have been not to have done it earlier. Attacking them only makes sense if you are trying to defeat them in the next election--which is probably not the right thing to do when they do something right. =)
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
I think it's unfair to dismiss a suggestion by a member of Congress just because their educational and experience background doesn't match up with every possible legislative issue that could possibly cross their desk. This is why Congressmen have staffs with more diverse educational backgrounds, and I'm 99% certain that whatever he proposes is going to have been written by one of his staffers. Of course, if you're a cynic, then it was written by a lobbyist, vetted by a staffer then proposed by the Representative from Maine, but hey, I don't think what he's proposing is all that unreasonable.
Letting the TSA pick an organization to do this is ridiculous, the GAO should be the one in charge of figuring out if this is harmful. You need a completely unbiased third party, not the guys who fouled up the "evaluation" in the first place.
So this study is in relation to public health when the real study should be the scanners violation of personal rights.
It were better to assemble a comity of international experts.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Is this a credible experimental protocol?
Probably not, but I would say it depends on the details of how the study will be performed and interpreted: i.e. there can be a perpetual debate as to whether what we see actually 'is' cellular damage, or 15 more years are needed for verification --see the fudge factors on those never-ending ever-inconclusive cellphone tower 'studies' and the whole 'carbon neutral' and 'global warming' hype. And see how little consequence they have had (excluding "green" marketing) because all humans need to move around and ramble on cellphones.
Is it reasonable to expect an organization accused of jeopardizing the health and safety of hundreds of millions of air travelers to pick a truly unbiased lab?
I have NO IDEA (and probably nobody else does) why on Earth is it the TSA that will pick the lab. On what grounds? By what means? Unless we are looking for a "bureaucratic enough" approach. But seriously, it makes no sense other than someone choosing their own lawyer, and maybe that's the message this senator wants to deliver: "putting TSA on the stand".
Would any lab chosen deliver a critical report and risk future funding?
Depends what kind of lab it wants to be: the lab that does lab work, or the lab that is someone's bitch. Both kinds get funding at one point or another, albeit for different reasons.
Should the public trust a study of radiology and human health designed by a US Senator whose highest degree is a bachelor's degree in government?
That is a moot point: the public already 'trusts' heads of state that are bankers, department heads that are lawyers .. when was the last time you saw engineers and scientists in governing positions?
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
You can't tell from a press release if what they are planning to do is credible, but the basic outline is, and long overdue. There are certainly enough labs who do, e.g., medical or nuclear power radiology who would not be tied to the TSA's purse strings, so finding an independent lab shouldn't be hard if they want to.
If I was running this study, I would know is going to get attacked every-which-way, so I would do my best to make
sure it was credible. Anything less would be a waste of time. But, maybe that's just me.
As someone who works in radiation safety for the government, I can tell you that studies on these scanners have been done. There is virtually no risk from the scanners. You get far more additional radiation from flying in the airplane than you do from the scanner. The risk from these scanners is not the unknown value.
The unknown value is the benefit from the scanners. As far as I know, no study has ever shown that these scanners provide any benefit. Therefore even though risk is very small, benefit is even smaller, and the risk-benefit tradeoff is lopsided against the scanners.
I travel frequently and opt out of the scanner every time. There are typically two lines, one for the metal detector and one for the Millimeter Wave Scanner. If I am pushed into the Millimeter Wave Scanner, then I opt out. It's no big deal really. Most people don't know you can opt out. Even if these things aren't safe, you think that the Government will come clean and say...oh yeah sorry, these were not good for you...I highly doubt it!
plans to introduce a bill that would require a new health study
How about studying their efficacy while we're in there, since it seems to be dubious?
This sounds like a pissing contest between TSA and Senator Collins. So what's the end game here, if she wins, and an independent study occurs and finds that the X-Ray based scanners are risky (very likely), does the TSA dump those machines in favor the EM backscatter machines or do they fall back to pat-downs and the metal detectors. In either case the TSA will have to handle more work, which will raise our costs, which supposedly the GOP is trying to fix (how I don't know). So the real question comes down to, how does Senator Collins profit from advocating for an independent review, she clearly believes the TSA is lying about the safety of the X-Ray scanners, and wants change, but how does this change help her. That's the real question!
I'm not going to evaluate whether or not you have the math wrong because I think you have the premise wrong. You may accept the death of 2 of your 1000 closest friends, but tell me, how many times will you accept your wife's death in a terrorist attack? Or your children's? Or your own (although technically this would be unacceptable)? Or do you (because of some evolutionary hiccup) place equal value on these lives as you do others?
TSA would be required to choose an 'independent laboratory'
They should not have a choice in the matter. They're just going to pick the cheapest "laboratory" that gives them a green light.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
If people are worried about radiation dosage from backscatter X-ray machines they shouldn't be flying in the first place. An hour of flight will expose a passenger to something like a week's worth of background radiation... vastly more than they are exposed to by these machines.
We already have a government agency tasked with evaluating workplace hazards. It doen't need to be independent of government itself. Just TSA. Inter-agency conflict can be useful here, in that OSHA might be happy to bust TSA for radiating their employees.
Also, the issue we should be worried about is not whether the claimed dose is dangerous. The more urgent issue is whether these things, as deployed, are dosing people at the correct level, which is easy to evaluate, and no one currently is doing so.
Our "Fabulous Leaders" are just re-walking a well-worn path. Studies have been done on this scanning technology. But, some politician sees a chance for election-year populism by demanding *another study*. Which then leads people to say things like, "Isn't this something our fabulous leaders should of demanded before spending a crap load of money and deploying them all around the nation?"
While we're at it, shouldn't we test whether these devices actually work to find illicit items. And if there are other options that are effective enough for our needs?
The answer is simply no. Since the implement of the new scanners and security measures, the skies aren't any safer. They are about the same except that you have potentially more humiliated and angry flying citizens. For international flights and for foreign nationals, I can totally see higher level security measures. For American citizens flying within our borders, I view it as an invasion of privacy, infringement of my rights as a citizen and totally unnecessary.
How about Congress hires some experts to advise them in scientific matters?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Technology_Assessment
Thanks, Newt. You want to go to the frigging moon but won't spend 21 million to make sure Congress isn't farting into the scientific wind.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Research is expensive and the kind the learned senator proposes is very expensive because it will involve genetic testing which requires powerful computing resources and top medical doctors and geneticists essentially to prove what is already known: radiation is harmful. Instead of spending more money on the program at this point, disband it. This is money that has the possibility to be spent on bringing math, science, and engineering back to America where all Americans have the possibility of benefitting. The travelling public has no tangible benefit from these scanners, only a defined cost.
Oh dear flying spaghetti monster, quit trying to be sensational. It takes away from the genuine problem.
(1) Experiment design. The senator won't "design" the study. I don't know how you got such a stupid idea. The senator is requesting (demanding, commissioning) the study. The bill is her effort to pin down what questions the study should answer. It's a darn sight better than just handing the scanner over to some folks and saying, "Take a look at this here doohickey and tell me what you think." She isn't going to come up with any actual science processes.
Think of it in programming terms - the senator is the boss, and she tells the programmer (scientist) what the program (science study) is supposed to output (what question the study is supposed to answer). She doesn't tell the programmer how to write the program, step-by-step. If, against all odds, she does stand there and try to tell you how to code each detail, you politely get her requirements again and shoo her off to do her actual job instead of yours (or you turn down the project). Nothing fancy to get so upset about, and a darn sight better than doing nothing and hoping for the best.
(2) Picking an unbiased lab. Of course the TSA will try to pick someone who will give them the results they want. The question is, how many labs (or scientists) do you think the TSA can influence? The TSA is not in the science business or the nuclear business or the detector business. They are in the business of training people with the IQs of dogs to bark when they see something gun-shaped and to sniff your crotch for dangerous materials.
In this I can at least claim some level of insider knowledge. I am a grad student at a nuclear physics lab. Nobody here has any special regard for the TSA - not the director, not the scientists, not the grad students. Now, we certainly aren't immune from political pressures, but in the end, no one is. However, most of the scientists here would rather be at odds with the TSA than have their professional reputation ruined by certifying a device as safe that can be demonstrated to be dangerous. Professional reputation is everything in science. If the TSA gets pissy at a scientist, then that scientist can go work in Germany, or France, or Great Britain, or India, or the various Arab countries with an interest in nuclear physics. If the scientific community gets angry at a scientist for endorsing something that kills folks, then there is nowhere in the world that the scientist can hide his damaged reputation.
(3) Lab funding. Labs are funded on fairly long cycles. Ours is funded on a five year cycle. So, any lab like ours would be fairly immune to a temporary temper tantrum by some government official. We're not completely immune, but our funding is mostly determined by the President's office, the DOE, and the NSF. Note how there is no mention of the TSA in there. The TSA doesn't fund a darned thing in science, and so we couldn't care less about offending the TSA. As I said, we aren't completely immune from political pressures - if a senator got really angry at us over such a thing, the study might be squelched and our funding might get reduced or cut. That's very uncommon, though. Usually, senators don't want their name next to a study that erroneously says something is safe if it actually kills people. It's bad for the senator's re-election efforts. It's especially bad if the word "nuclear" is involved anywhere - nothing scares the public (and thus, the politicians) like the word "nuclear."
(4) My professional opinion: You've completely got the wrong take on this. You probably didn't read the article at all. If anything, Collins is trying to use politics to squelch the scanners, not to cover up defects in the scanner's design. If there is any political pressure on the scientists involved in this study, it will be pressure to declare the devices unsafe and unsuitable for use. And, while I don't agree with playing politics with science, I do agree with squelching these scanners.
By the way, as a nuclear physi
.... as long as that definition is not stable either, then all of your calculations are not going to work.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
the only way to get rid of these things is to make it unprofitable for the companies that sell them. If rapiscan machines are giving people cancer they should also have to pay the victims.
I'm a Maine resident and I know Ms. Collins. If she is proposing a study, she will have taken the time to get good advice from people that have the background to design one that will result in some meaningful data. She does not have a record of spending frivolously, and she is particularly responsive to her constituents, so I would say that if this is being proposed by a member of congress, she is at least among the most likely to propose something meaningful, and have good guidance involved in the design. How far that gets in the current congress, who can say, but I would personally back her proposing this over many of the other "fine upstanding representatives" in the current house and senate.
Should the public trust a study of radiology and human health designed by a US Senator whose highest degree is a bachelor's degree in government?
No, but it doesn't seem like she's designing the study. I suppose the text of the proposed bill would be relevant here. (Perhaps the poster was simply avoiding hypocracy here -- just as it's reasonable for someone with no real scientific background to commission a study, it's reasonable for someone with little understanding of the Internet to draft regulations for it. The latter doesn't seem to be a popular opinion, though. What matters, of course, is the extent to which they use information from experts to guide their decisions.)
Is it reasonable to expect an organization accused of jeopardizing the health and safety of hundreds of millions of air travelers to pick a truly unbiased lab?
Yes. As people like to point out, accusation is not conviction and people (and agencies) can be accused of just about anything. Provided that it's publicly-known what independent lab they pick -- which has been the case for previous studies -- it's easy enough for others to evaluate whether they're unbiased. That's not to say it will necessarily satisfy all critics -- there are many people who will claim that the chosen lab is biased, regardless of what lab is chosen.
Is this a credible experimental protocol?
I don't see an experimental protocol described. I do see an intent to commission a third-party study, which is common and quite credible. The only part that's questionable is determining "whether there are any biological signs of cellular damage caused by the scans." For one, "any" isn't necessarily a good safety cutoff, particularly if you're not being specific about what kind of cellular damage. For another, with the power that's used, you're well into the very-rare-event range for carcinogenic effects. You shouldn't anticipate scanning a test piece of flesh and looking for signs of cellular damage -- it would be easy to get a false negative. This is a part (admittedly, probably a small part) of why the health effects are disputed. At these power levels, you have to measure the dosing and then use a mathematical model to estimate the probability of causing cancer. It's easy to dispute the details of such models. (Is cancer incidence from ionizing radiation really linear and independent of other sources all the way to zero? Does weighting toward skin deposition matter?)
Would any lab chosen deliver a critical report and risk future funding?
Funding from whom? The TSA? Apparently they're not getting business from them now, so that seems like a pretty reasonable risk to take. Plenty of labs aren't government-funded. Even for those that are, releasing a report that's negative about one government organization only risks funding from a completely different organization if you assume some Massive Government Conspiracy. The NIH won't deny your grant because you discovered that backscatter machines really aren't safe.
I don't remember when I first encountered this--probably sometime during the Clinton years--but track four of The J. Geils Band's 1976 album Blow Your Face Out is titled, "Must Of Got Lost." Ugh.
The obvious answer to the question is, as usual; "Follow the money!"
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-11-22-scanner-lobby_N.htm
http://www.infowars.com/chertoff-linked-to-body-scanner-manufacturer/
IMO, the *real* question we should be asking is why we believed this costly new technology, coupled with a whole new govt. agency to operate it, was going to accomplish anything substantial in the first place? The argument over the cost is tough to make without somebody insisting that either A) it created so many new jobs for American citizens that it added a lot of value, and/or B) if it saves even ONE human life, how can you put a price on that? So IMO, we can probably just ignore the "cost" angle, and simply ask if the TSA screening procedure we've implemented is a net positive, or a net negative for everyone?
Personally, I think you've got to be drinking some serious govt. kool-aid if you REALLY believe this nonsense of putting anyone on a secret "watch list" (based on the discretion of agents hired from the general public at hourly pay starting at around $11/hr.), and making everyone walk through body scanners before boarding commercial planes is going to save you from terrorist acts. As one of my friends pointed out, you can go to most airports in the U.S. and find that the only thing keeping you from wandering out to the hangars and runways is a chain-link fence around their perimeter. If someone REALLY wanted to sabotage a plane, they could throw on a mechanics' outfit or something, run out onto the tarmac, and do whatever they wanted to do with a parked jet, or even quickly insert something into some luggage on one of the transports, waiting to be loaded onto a flight. Trying to secure the plane from the terminal's boarding gate so heavily ignores all the other possibilities. Meanwhile, we've created a situation where EVERYONE is inconvenienced and put at risk of being falsely labeled a "potential terrorist" for transgressions as simple as wearing a t-shirt with a counter-culture political message printed on it, or making the wrong comment while standing in line.
Freedom = 0, Terrorists = 1 by my score-card
Since Europe has banned them, it's definitely worthy of study, at least. Whether that can ever be done honestly in the US is another question. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=europe-bans-x-ray-body-scanners
We can have it do it while the congressman sleeps and position them where a congressman often walks, such as outside their bedroom door, so it will not present any inconvenience to our representatives. We can also increase the radiation by a multiple to decrease the number of times they need to be radiated, further decreasing the time they need to sleep or walk through one of these machines.
Of course, we can make sure that only people within that congressman's district can view the images, because we want to respect his/her privacy.
What do you think?
Open Standards Portal
TSA would be required to choose an 'independent laboratory'
If the TSA is choosing the lab then this isn't going to accomplish anything
their wasn't just a Maine-based scanner company that came second on all those lucrative TSA contracts.
Looking at the demographics (PDF), it looks like 222 have law degrees and 24 have medical degrees.
http://boingboing.net/2010/12/11/pornoscanners-trivia.html
http://drpauldorio.com/pages/airport-scanner-safety
http://www.diagnosticimaging.com/safety/content/article/113619/1521147
People with serious creds in the theory and application of measurement?
Carry an infant .. you get waved past the nude-o-scope and you can cart a cooler full of liquids/gels as well.
This is completely logical, considering terrorists never use children.
From a scientific perspective, it is perfectly acceptable for the TSA to select an independent lab, provided that lab is truly independent; that is, a lab subjects itself to strict auditing for compliance to relevant scientific methods, etc., by outside, independent certification bodies. Being such a lab is neither trivial nor inexpensive, so as you might imagine, there aren't many who fit this description.
In reality, unless the TSA selects one of these labs to do the testing and analysis, there is a reasonable likelihood any lab selected for this effort could be either biased up front, or could be influenced at some point, to present results favorable (but believable) to the TSA's position that these scanners are safe.
So, the general question is this: can a biased agency, which is trying to defend a position that is possibly incorrect, and whose refutation could have wide-ranging adverse consequences to the agency, be trusted to select a truly independent lab to assess the risks of these scanners? You tell me.
When dealing with radiological devices it is unconscionable to measure only a subset of the devices much less measure those devices only once in their entire use lifetime. The same approach was taken with the Therac-25 devices http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 which worked fine right up until some started malfunctioning and killed more people than they would have if each device had been regularly tested.
That and other prior, well documented, incidents with malfunctioning radiological devices is why the the TSA heightened suspicion when they prohibited TSOs from wearing dosimeter badges near the scanners.
uncomfortable does absolutely nothing to discourage the executives who decided to install the damn scanners. Sadly, it seems to be the best we can do.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Disclosure, I work in the aviation industry (not for TSA, and not for an airline).
To clear up a few points, those "$11/hr" employees have nothing to do with creating or maintaining the "secret" watchlists. I'd bet most of the guys on those lists know they're on the lists, due to the fact that, you know, they get checked for hernias every time they fly. It's the world's worst-kept secret. It's still stupid that they have them, but let's not make up boogeymen when there are plenty of real ones to go after.
Also, remember that the TSA's primary selling point towards obtaining these body scanners was preventing another Christmas Day/Underwear bomber attempt. You know, the one that the jihadists didn't want to launch from within the US, so they started in Ghana, where the attacker talked his way onto a flight without a passport? Then transferred through Amsterdam to that Detroit flight? All with explosives (PETN and TATP) that he had acquired in Yemen? The predictably reactive government took a lot of shit for not "foiling" this attack even though it didn't originate here, TSA was implicated as being "not prepared"-- guess what happened after? NUT SCANNERS. Shit keeps happening, and a section of the populace yells LOOK, WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT THAT? Again, not a defense of them wasting all of that money that could have been spent better (like on roads, just kidding, paying for tax incentives for rich people), but let's deal with reality here, shall we?
Spot on with the fence issue, though. There are measures in place that would surprise you, but other places? You hear about it on the news from time to time, about how someone wandered in and was found sleeping on an airplane. That's a good ol' multi-jurisdictional failure right there.
To offer up my own counterpoint, ALL TSA EMPLOYEES ARE FAT AND DUMB AND GOT FIRED FROM MCDONALD'S.
The model numbers of the machines in the reports seem to be for baggage scanners, not body scanners. I haven't read all of them, but I'd appreciate a direct link to a specific example of a body scanner test.
Call me crazy, but I bet the Senator will not be performing the experiments.
...before there was a cancer cluster amongst TSA workers in Boston, and before the frequently flying public was exposed to that much danger. Yes, it's good that it's being looked at now, but it was absolutely irresponsible to deploy these in the first place.
I encourage everybody who thinks that there aren't very serious questions about the safety of the scanner to read this letter, which was drafted by leading radiologists from UCSF:
http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2010/05/17/concern.pdf
These are leaders in this field. It is very clear that the safety of the X-ray scanners is in serious doubt and that, at the very least, many of the issues raised in that letter haven't been addressed.
The FDA may be approving dangerous radiological devices that could harm their users.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fda-staffers-sue-agency-over-surveillance-of-personal-e-mail/2012/01/23/gIQAj34DbQ_story.html
It's funny but more than one year since the UCSF letter of concern was issued many of the points have been largely ignored by our government. The TSA continues to roll them out and gets more funding for junk that doesn't work and creates more risks in terms of possibly damaging health issues than it protects. There has been no independent study, there has not been any proof that these make our skies safer and people still get additional screening in most cases after going through these contraptions. I'm sorry, but if there has ever been a white elephant in our government, it's these devices and a full, unbiased, study of the health effects and security benefits must be undertaken. Until that time, turn them off and give everybody a pat-down. That's the only way somebody can be assured that the traveling public at least from the traveling public's perspective is safe.
Even after using one of these scanners, the TSA agents failed to stop somebody who had a fire arm. While the dipshits were looking at the screens and confirming what they saw, the person left the screening area. If that one incident doesn't show how screwed up the DHS is and the TSA, then I don't know what does.
It's time to de-fund the TSA and start putting some reasonable "sanity checks" back into place where air travel safety is concerned.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The author of "Common Errors in English Usage" happens to agree.
http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/intensive.html
I know someone who has the opposite problem. Large vocabulary and excellent grammar, but because she reads a lot and doesn't get the chance to talk to people who use those words, she mispronounces a relatively large number of otherwise impressive words. you might call her uneducated if you didn't think about it - how else can someone know large words but be unable to pronounce them?
It's fairly easy to tell when people learned things aurally, and when they never saw it in writing enough to correct their mistake. For all intensive purposes, escape goat, "The thing is, is ..." If you read enough, you will recognize where the things in your head don't match what is on the paper. Or if you read a lot and are not well educated, you may not make the connection that what you say is wrong.
Language evolves, and idioms like "begging the question" are commonly misused even by people who do read a lot. Both because they learn by context and don't understand it in the context presented, and because it is so common. But it does not have a discoverable meaning, if you take the words one at a time. "Should of" on the other hand does not make any grammatical sense, and an otherwise educated person would have to question whether that is the correct usage.
I am all for allowing language to evolve, otherwise we would be speaking Old English, or some sort of German maybe, or even no language at all. But that does not preclude gaining insight into a personality through such misuses. Dating and hiring are good places to do this, and you can ask the person how much they read, and what they read last. On the internet, this conversation is less interactive.
That's while the machine is functioning properly. How do we know it's functioning properly if dosimeters aren't allowed?
>>...Should the public trust a study of radiology and human health designed by a US Senator whose highest degree is a bachelor's degree in government?"
Asks the poster who gleefully supported myriad sweeping government entry into one of the largest healthcare systems in the world by way of a junior senator from Illinois who prior to becoming President of the United States never held a position in the private sector, let alone holds a medical degree.
We can carry (wear) radiation measuring badges thru scanners & report the results. A crowd sourced test of radiation doses is more trustworthy that a study done by a lab hired by TSA or by industry. Dosimeters are cheap enough.
I would do it myself had I not quit flying when the US chose to respond to terrorists by persecuting citizens.
On the internet, this conversation is less interactive.
But the errors are still easily identifiable.
That said, I don't believe that someone having poor English indicates that they don't read or that they're not good in other areas.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
The fact that Collins is insisting that the safety of these federally mandated machines on millions of people each year be thoroughly examined after the fact is an irony that isn't lost on me.
If you're so pro business and "small government", why do you keep growing big government ?
Anybody that's ever worked for a private security firm knows that the whole concept of "security" is bullshit and that hiring flunkies to grope you, figuratively and literally, is a scam and a rip-off.
Remember The Three Stooges movie where Mo, Larry and Curly try to go through a door at the same time and get stuck?
This is an excellent metaphor for Congress, DHS and TSA.
In just a few more years the screeners of the TSA, that is those who have not been arrested for various criminal acts, will be off the hospital due to being on the wrong side of the radiometer shelding and being exposed to much higher ionizing radiation levels over a prolonged period. Nice that all these A-holes at TSA will die sooner than latter. So much for "Homeland Security".
Here's how you test them.
You tell the heads of the TSA, all of them, they have to be scanned everyday.
Then lets see what sort of problems arise.
My guess is, the tops of TSA will leave and get new jobs.
Be seeing you...
Before demanding tests, the good senator should consider the following argument: To determine the amount of damage already done by body scan machines, the precise dosage of radiation used in each scan ever done by each machine ever used will have taken into account--as well as who each person the machine scanned was. If the dosage used in the scan was high enough to cause cellular damage, that person's medical history will have to be tracked, and studied, starting from the date of the incident of initial exposure to radiation from the body scan machine in question to when "biological signs of cellular damage" appear. Multiply that by the number of people scanned by that machine alone, and I foresee mass numbers of "invasion of privacy" suits occurring... But wait! There's more! If said damage appears, it will need to be conclusively differentiated from damage caused by repeated *medical* X-Rays. Further delving into the affected individual(s) medical history will be needed. *More* lawsuits will ensue I ensure you, Madam Senator. All the same, once the mountain(s) of data has been analyzed--properly, one hopes--who will determine the "acceptable" level of passenger radiation exposure from body scan machines? If the dosage is less than the threshold of cellular damage, will the TSA keep using body scan machines.? If it is higher, then who will do the "cost- benefit" analysis in terms of national security? In summary, though Senator Collins' intentions are good, is she ready for the above described "Pandora's Box" her inquiry will open?
The comment about possible a cancer cluster amongst TSA workers in the future has relevance. As a frequent traveler I have raised this question with TSA workers, and they have expressed personal concern about this risk. If this was a private workplace, OSHA would be all over these procedures.