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TSA's mm-Wave Body Scanner Breaks Diabetic Teen's $10K Insulin Pump
OverTheGeicoE writes "Savannah Barry, a Colorado teenager, was returning home from a conference in Salt Lake City. She is a diabetic and wears an insulin pump to control her insulin levels 24/7. She carries documentation of her condition to assist screeners, who usually give her a pat-down search. This time the screeners listened to her story, read her doctor's letter, and forced her to go through a millimeter-wave body scanner anyway. The insulin pump stopped working correctly, and of course, she was subjected to an invasive manual search. 'My life is pretty much in their hands when I go through a body scan with my insulin pump on,' she says. She wants TSA screeners to have more training. Was this a predictable outcome, considering that no one outside TSA has access to millimeter-wave scanners for testing? Would oversight from the FDA or FCC prevent similar incidents from happening in the future?"
TSA: Nearly killing innocent people, to keep you safe!
The White House just said the war on terror is over.
We don't need the TSA screeners any more, send them home and stop the unnecessary abuse of U.S. citizens.
She is a teenager. I bet they bullied her into "voluntarily" going through the scanner.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Of course they force her... she is 16 and looking good!
Anything to get a mm wave look at some underage breasts.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Every time there's a story about the TSA making life unpleasant for Americans, a terrorist gets his wings..
Congratulations, the terrorists have won.
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
If you read the article the TSA agents advised her that the insulin pump would not be damaged by the scanners, despite a doctors note to the contrary. She took their advice, assuming they knew what they were doing, and chose to go through the scanner rather than requesting a pat-down.
While her actions are understandable, if she had simply requested a pat-down like the doctor instructed her to do rather than asking for a second opinion, this would have been avoided. Likewise if agents weren't so stupid as to disagree with a doctor's order on a matter they knew nothing about, this would have been avoided. Given their position of authority they should be liable for the cost of the pump since their negligence caused it to be destroyed.
Electrical devices like that are full of amplifiers and things like field-effect transistors - things that take small changes in, and output much (relatively) larger ones.
It doesn't take much interference at all to cause problems, and this is made even worse that circuit traces etc can be resonant (where you most certainly will not) with the incoming interference, making things worse.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Why lie?
"I want to opt out."
"Why?"
"Because."
"Why?"
"......"
"Why?"
"......"
You have the right to remain silent and are not required to give ANY answers to a government employee except your name and ID (varies from state-to-state).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
And they have the power to detain you until you miss your flight.
Because she's 16 and away from home, and probably just wants to get back. Quit expecting everyone to have a vigilate chip on their shoulder.
You know, as adults, we should have already fixed this god damned problem with our government - not expect our children to have to rise up against the man for something as simple and common place as a plane flight.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Which is why you should give them the same courtesy you should be giving any other person, even if you hate them.
It's amazing what a little courtesy can do. If money makes the world go 'round, then courtesy is the grease on the axle.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Maybe it's time for the TSA to have their imaging equipment evaluated by the FDA like every other piece of human imaging equipment out there. Or better yet, stop using it.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Being an insulin dependant diabetic, they could have easily killd her. It could have failed the other way and dumped several days of insulin into her at once. I guess once she passes out, they would have done a body cavity search before calling the paramedics.
It's not that they don't have common sense (I'm not saying they do), but they're not ALLOWED to exercise common sense. There is so much hubbub about patdowns of 90 year old grandmothers and 3 year old toddlers, but they're instructed to treat everyone equally. Otherwise, it would be profiling.
We need to learn from the Israelis that have the best security, but they do lots of common sense profiling.
A few people posting on Slashdot != "the public" anything. People here tend to care greatly about privacy issues, "the public" not so much as a whole. Slashdot is not a good cross-section representation of "the public".
"But this one goes to 11!"
Yes. By the police.
TSA agents are not police no matter how much they try to act like them. The real problem is people *need* to fly in many cases. This is a 16 year old girl on her way home - she didn't have the option to cancel a trip because of a bad tsa policy. She's also (in many states at least) too young to drive and definitely too young to rent a car from almost any company. That leaves busses and trains - without advance planning by a minor far from home. She had effectively no choice but to submit to screenings - and THIS is why the fact you cannot refuse TSA/FAA rules on the basis that flying is not a 'need' is utter bullshit.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
After 9-11, do you really think the passengers of any plane is going to allow any idiot to hijack a plane ever again? You'll have grandmothers on oxygen rushing them before they ever get near the door to the cockpit.
As for bombs, bombs [that actually work in a manner that would provide a large enough explosion] would be easily visible on ordinary x-ray machines like those we sent our shit through all the time before 9-11.
Patting down children, harassing insulin dependent teenagers and scaring the shit out of old ladies is just theater. Terrible terrible theater.
.
One question lays to rest all this apologist nonsense. Was TSA formed in response to 1995 bombing? or 2009 plot? If you were concerned so much about "homegrown terrorism", why were all these measures taken in response to 911, an event that was NOT homegrown terrorism? That fact alone signifies that so-called homegrown terrorism was not really much of an issue.
As far as so-called homegrown terrorism is concerned, none the specific cases you cite, involve any flights apparently. I find that significant and interesting.
I mean the bombing of buildings... the shootings... it is pretty easy to get a gun(and by that extension explosives) in USA isn't it? What measures are there today to stop someone get a gun legally, and start shooting up people in crowded market street or in some mall? ... or in a bus? How exactly are your protected from occurances of such bombings or attacks at traffic stops, just by having scanners and pat-downs at some airport which is say, 40 kilometers away from the said spot? McVeigh carried out the attacks without any need of any conspiracy being discussed on internet or phone with anyone. So what exactly can all the internet/phone surveillance can do against such nutcases acting alone?
But I guess folks like you would rather not think logically and rationally and just drink the cool-aid, so that someone can take away your rights and tax money to give you a false sense of security.
There was a recent article on slashdot, where FBI itself cooked up a terrorist plot, went out of its way to motivate some criminal types by offering cash to plant bombs, and then arrested him and declared it to be a terrorist plot foiled by its diligence. And occasional murders by fringe lunatics/murderers happen in every nation, and have happened for centuries in fact. But it had to be you who had to come up and declared these murderers to be "terrorists" instead.
Key question : How do these security measures help, considering that a) a terrorist can easily plant a bomb just before the security check point and still blow up hundreds of folks in the waiting area. b) These machines are pretty much useless and have been repeatedly demonstrated to be so, with severe known flaws in them. c) Terrorists do NOT need to rely on a single method of attack. They can just plant a bomb at some political rally next time.
And to repeat, what are you hoping to achieve with all this futile circus? Save lives? Far, far more people die on road accidents. Where are the billions being poured into preventing that? Or is it that most of the 5000 at WTC were rich folks, whose lives are worth more than just random road-kills? You decide. It is all about proportions.
Only thing the government needed to do was put all foreigners entering the country under full surveillance. It should be easier than monitoring every single communication happening across the globe. But instead, they decide to declare war on its own citizens and you think this is fine.