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TSA's mm-Wave Body Scanner Breaks Diabetic Teen's $10K Insulin Pump

Posted by Soulskill on from the terrorists-are-known-to-have-insulin dept.

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?"

5 of 811 comments (clear)

  1. forced? by X0563511 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Wait a minute... I think the larger issue here is that they forced her through the scanner.

    Maybe I'm wrong, but is that not improper? I thought they had to allow manual inspection at your request.

    --
    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...
    1. Re:forced? by samazon · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This is what I found - http://saizai.com/tsa_rights.pdf - it's a "cheat sheet" of what is legally permissible. Though I haven't been in a situation with TSA like that, I have had (on two separate occasions) doctors "spring" invasive medical exams on me during follow-up visits (a biopsy for a first-time abnormal test result, when standard procedure is three abnormal results... someone wants to charge my insurance company exorbitant lab fees...) and while I have the cojones to tell my doctor he can shove it because I -know- he's doing something wrong, most teenage girls don't (I WAS a teenage girl going through TSA and it IS intimidating). It's tragic, and her little crusade for education is fine, but it doesn't scrape the real issue - which is, of course, daily violations of people's privacy. As Ben said... "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

      --
      I have the hiccups.
  2. forensic analysis by hoxford · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I want to see the results of a forensic analysis of the unit to find out why it failed. if the scanner is putting out enough energy to permanently damage the circuits it's a strong argument against the safety of these things.

  3. Re:new slogan by lgw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Wasn't there a Cornel (?) study showing that the TSA caused more American deaths (from people deciding driving was better than molestation) than terrorists over a decade?

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  4. Re:new slogan by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You have the same odds of being killed on an airplane by a terrorist as you do being killed by cancer from a body scanning device (1 in 30 million):

    http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120405/04390118385/tsa-security-theater-described-one-simple-infographic.shtml