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."

Comments

Who makes them?

[Kenja]

Is it the same company profiting by replacing their old useless hardware with the new?

Re:Who makes them?

[Joce640k]

Here's the citations, I'm sure you left them out by accident...

Michael Chertoff, George Soros

Interesting

[tool462]

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...

Re:Interesting

[TheSpoom]

Is that a bomb or are you just happy to see me?

Re:Interesting

[tool462]

Touch it and see if it goes off ;)

Re:Interesting

[Joce640k]

(the first being "sometimes it just won't fit")

Hint: Girls come in different capacities.

Whenever you hear a girl say "I prefer big ones" she's really saying "I have a cavernous bucket of a vagina". Remember that and you won't go far wrong in life.

Re:Interesting

[parkinglot777]

I think that has already happened before... http://www.deadseriousnews.com/?p=573 Not a pleasant outcome though... :(

tsa blowing taxpayer money for no benefit

[Dan667]

if these scanners are so important why is rapiscan allowed to make a profit on them?

Re:tsa blowing taxpayer money for no benefit

[Jeng]

What is your objection to them making money on a specialized product like that?

Now, I can understand being upset if lets say the person majorly involved in getting them instituted turns out to own a very large part of that company.

The politicians shouldn't profit from it, but the manufacturer should.

Re:tsa blowing taxpayer money for no benefit

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect it's because we don't live in a communist country.

Actually, it would seem we kinda do live in a communist country

In a capitalist country, airports would purchase the devices if these were needed by shopping around and choosing the best provider. And then if the public wanted the devices in the airport, the airports that had the devices would flourish (or vice versa). Also, in a capitalist country, devices that were demonstrably flawed (at actually detecting things) would be returned for a refund

Now in a communist country, the government might mandate that the devices must be built, irregardless of whether these devices actually work and installed everywhere. By the one contractor chosen by their government friends

Which country are we living in, again?

just to be clear

[nimbius]

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.

That's not the most important problem

[dkleinsc]

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).

Re:That's not the most important problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The potentially cancer-causing radiation is not a key problem? I think the standards for security screening need to start with "First, do no harm."

Waste and ineffectiveness is a problem, but it comes second to directly harming innocent people.

Re:That's not the most important problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the fact that they were unregulated x-ray equipment operated by un-certified amateur radiologists hired through ads on pizza boxes might qualify as a problem.

Looking back at history

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Looking back at history

[Githaron]

With our luck lately, we will look back at this era as the "good old days" when the TSA was only in the airport and they only irradiated us instead of doing a strip and full-cavity search.

Except....

[Luthair]

millimeter wave scanners may unzip dna strands and no studies have been done about the long term effects of human exposure, hurray!

Re:Except....

[claar]

Whoever marked this as flamebait should read this article posted by numbius above. Worth study, it seems.

New and Improved

[edibobb]

mm wavelength scanners will prevent Logan Airport from being blown up by LED T-Shirts.
We need more scanners.