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Boston Airport Replacing X-ray Body Scanners
OverTheGeicoE writes "Boston's Logan International Airport is in the process of replacing its X-ray body scanners with millimeter-wave ones. According to the article, nine of the new scanners have been installed already, and ultimately 27 of these scanners will replace the 17 X-ray backscatter scanners that were installed in March of 2010. The new devices are 'being installed come with software that replaces "passenger-specific images" — or nearly naked views of travelers — with generic outlines that highlight only anomalies such as belts, jewelry, wallets — or guns or bombs.' Perhaps this will help TSA workers avoid being part of a cancer cluster. Some speculate that TSA will ultimately eliminate all of its X-ray body scanners."
Is it the same company profiting by replacing their old useless hardware with the new?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I wonder if ..um... shall we say "abnormally endowed" men will have their endowments highlighted as a generic outline?
If not, countdown until we hear about the "dildo-bomber" on the news...
if these scanners are so important why is rapiscan allowed to make a profit on them?
1. its still an invasion of privacy as the outline concept or any other concept related to the technology cannot be verified
2. its still a health risk
tin foil bonus round: it would also be much easier considering the entirety of the TSA revolves around security theater to simply remove the existing units, replace the chassis, and reinstall them with livery to suggest millimeter wave scanning is in progress.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The key problems with the X-ray machines were:
1. They were invasive searches without anything remotely similar to probable cause.
2. They don't actually stop people from carrying bombs onto aircraft (as has been tested several times).
I am officially gone from
We're going to look back at this era in disbelief. It will be like us looking back at early medicine where people took elixirs full of Mercury.
I always thought the problem was calibration, and more specifically that the company responsible for building and selling these was also responsible for ongoing testing, calibration and certification -- a clear conflict of interest. After that series of articles in the NYTimes a couple years ago about people getting fried to death in misconfigured x-ray machines, fear of ending up like Spock (before re-genesis of course, but I digress) was my main reason for taking the pat-down every time.
Secondary reason was European airports banning them, but that has since been reversed. UK doesn't let you opt for pat-downs, not sure about the rest of Europe.
The whole ionizing radiation deal gives me the creeps. Let's hope they do all switch over to millimeter wave. Right? Or is there a fatal flaw with those too?
As my upper-middle-class, female, New Yorker friend just found out, the problem with the sanitized images is that forgetting a dime in your pocket will cause it to trigger a general alert and you'll be whisked aside for gate-rape.
And let's not forget that a butt-bomb, like that used by terrorists in Saudi Arabia in 2009, is still undetectable by gropers and scanners.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
When the multimeter wave scanners were installed, it was a lot of "don't worry, only a subset of travelers will be subjected to it" and "you can choose to be sexually molested instead". Fast forward a few years and now they're replacing regular X-ray machines with them.
How soon before you have to pass through one to go into a government building? A grocery store? Outside your own home?
More Twoson than Cupertino
millimeter wave scanners may unzip dna strands and no studies have been done about the long term effects of human exposure, hurray!
When anonymous gets a hold of the image data and tags it to passenger's facebook wall... that will be the day public has had enough. It is hard to get people off the theater. When anonymous puts a hold of the image data and publishes senator's likenesses, that will be the day they outlaw it.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Secondary reason was European airports banning them, but that has since been reversed. UK doesn't let you opt for pat-downs, not sure about the rest of Europe.
Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm about to cite the Daily Mail), but it looks like they're no longer in use in the EU -- the Manchester use was a temporary extension, an exception to the general ban last year.
According to this the Manchester machines will be replaced by the end of October.
Boston isn't really all that bad. Occasionally, you do get stuck in a security line behind 19 guys trying to bring box cutters on a flight. But other than that, its OK.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yes, now that we can see all these wonderful tasty organs it's time to cook them.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Good, I can stop requesting on a hand search when I fly out of Boston. It's not that I consider the exposure particularly hazardous--I don't; I've voluntarily exposed myself to far more radiation over the years--I just saw no point in additional exposure to ionizing radiation when I can avoid it, and I don't really mind the hand search.
mm wavelength scanners will prevent Logan Airport from being blown up by LED T-Shirts.
We need more scanners.
At the risk of beating a dead horse... I'd like to share my experience with beating these systems. I'm personally much more interested in Boston's integration of Israeli style interview tactics. I lived in the Middle East for a couple years and went through the borders on an almost daily basis, and several times through the Tel Aviv airport (Israel's only international airport). Israel doesn't use anything resembling our body scanners, and instead relies on brief interviews of every person flying to determine what additional screening will be necessary (all the way up to strip searching), supplemented with American bomb sniffing machines. Their security works. Were it not for the fact that I went through it so often, I wouldn't have been able to beat it.
You could imagine my surprise when on one of my most recent flights to/from (I can't remember which way) Boston I was treated to such an interview. I was caught off guard, but immediately recognized it as the identical setup. I quickly put on my "set off no alarms" interview demeanor and made it through fine. Frankly I hope this catches on. I would like to think of myself as something of a "getting through borders" professional, I've gotten through Israeli and American airports and onto planes with everything from a can of pepper spray to a live scorpion. You can scan my body (though I always opt out) and my bags all day, but sit me down for an interview and after long enough even the best person will crack if they are hiding something.