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TSA (Finally) Studying Health Effects of Body Scanners
An anonymous reader writes "A 2011 ProPublica series found that the TSA had glossed over the small cancer risk posed by its X-ray body scanners at airports across the country. While countries in Europe have long prohibited the scanners, the TSA is just now getting around to studying the health effects." I'm not worried; the posters and recorded announcements at the airport say these scanners raise no health concerns.
The real issue with these was never the health effects. That was just an extra thing that privacy advocates tossed in there to lend additional weight to their arguments. The primary argument against these things is the fact that they are a violation of privacy. Arguing the health issue just weakens objections, when it gets defeated.
...In context with Fukushima and a non-polluting energy source: RADIATION BAD!
...In context with police state enabling technology: RADIATION GOOD!
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
Says who? Do you have hard info on this type of radiation?
If the machines only give one person in 100 million cancer, they're still more dangerous then the terrorism they're supposed to be preventing.
(Which they aren't...terrorists can put the C4 up their asses...)
No sig today...
These scanners should have to go through the same FDA approval process as any medical device. People are putting their kids in there.
If the odds of getting cancer from the scanners in their lifetime is 1: 1,000,000 then 1.5 people will get cancer from them--every day!
We cannot suspend our judgement just because there are terrorists in the world and money to be made.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Says who? Do you have hard info on this type of radiation?
GP is suggesting that the TSA study will back up whatever the TSA wants it to. Almost as if it's a foregone conclusion. Almost like they're gonna deliberately fudge the results. See?
I am not a crackpot.
Forget whether or not there are scanners. The real issue is whether or not there should be a TSA at all. There's no evidence that the $BIGNUM dollars spent has done anything whatsoever to stop or dissuade terrorist in-flight attacks.
I'd suggest to the libertarians, Repubs, and other "personal liberty small government invisible hand of capitalism" folks that airline security should be the responsibility of the airlines themselves. I'd choose a "walk-on no problem" vendor over a "scan, remove your clothes, and provide a blood sample" vendor every time.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Either the report will be completed, but in large part classified leading to conspiracy theories.
Or the report will say no hazard, but no-one is going to believe this because they do not trust the TSA to be truthful.
Says who? Do you have hard info on this type of radiation?
I do. If you really want result "X" and you are willing to pay a lot of money to someone to produce a report that looks like they did something science-y that co-incidentally matches the conclusions you were looking for, and you make it perfectly clear they'll never get another penny from their sole source of research funding (the fedgov) then yeah, I think I can predict the result.
Same thing as tobacco companies reporting their stuff is safe, or pretty much every pharmaceutical (coincidentally, most of them almost accidentally happen to be safe), etc etc. Even "x% of dentists prefer Y brand toothpaste".
The only real question is how psuedo-science-y it'll be. Will they play the natl security card and not release any data other than "I've got a PHD, trust me" or will they take the different track of contracting out to a subsidiary of the machine mfgr, or will they have the good taste to at least distance themselves into hiring the CEO's brother in law, or will they go the bribery track and the guy who plays along gets a plum job at the mfgr "safety scientist" or some BS next year ... what exact form of corruption will they use is the only question, not will it be corrupt or not.
The funniest part is the journalist filter is calling them x-ray scanners but I'm guessing the actual report is THz scanners. Xrays see thru things, THz sees thru things, therefore a dumbass would assume they must be the same.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Not to mention the frequency range is about 6 to 10 orders of magnitude lower... Its not relevant beyond the "I don't understand therefore I'm scared, and I don't want to understand, so you do the math" level.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
eg Michael Chertoff, former Homeland Security secretary who shilled hard on the "need" to install full-body scanners, then later acknowledged that his consulting agency had a client that manufactured the machines. That is the kind of corruption one would expect in a third world tinpot dictatorship.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
Maybe they'll even discover why everyone who steps into one gets a strong urge to punch the operator of it and most others within a 10 foot radius. It must be some kind of brain wave-interfering radiation, lol.
All those radiation are in the same "nature" they are electromagnetic radiation, or better called photon. They differs in *energy* and thus in effect. Simplifying, Microwave will excite barely rotational level in molecules, Infra red is akin to vibrational levels in structure/molecules, and short infrared/color/UV is electron excitation from an outter shell level to another. Xray more or less is excitation from the inner core shell level. Gamma is even more, can only be gotten IIRC thru nuclear reactions. But they are the same in nature, only the different energy level and the quantic nature of matter make the effect different.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Frequency matters. I can sit in front of my IR heat dish and dump watts/cm^2 into my body and get no effect other than pleasant warmth. When you start talking about ionizing radiation, that is individual photons that are energetic enough to knock electrons off atoms, you get effects that you'll never see simply by dumping energy into a volume.
I'm not bothering to look up what radiation these scanners use, merely pointing out that comparing watts is not what you want to be doing.
Average radiation exposure is much higher for pilots than the maximum allowed for nuclear plant workers.
Cancer rates are obviously not linear with dosage, and the level is none the less low enough that its unlikely to show an increase.
You can google, by yourself, for numerous studies.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I'm not bothering to look up what radiation these scanners use, merely pointing out that comparing watts is not what you want to be doing.
I'm no tinfoil hatter, and there's a lot more to safety than merely peak power, and there are serious differences in primary input power vs output power aka efficiency, but there's a pretty obvious argument where if you quote the giant machine thats wired to a wall socket 30 amp 440 3-phase ckt as being 4 orders of magnitude lower power than a cellphone that runs for days off a tiny little battery, something is wrong with the numbers beyond simple comparison of wattage.
Also uW/cm figures start approaching the radio-telescope and cosmic background radiation range, like someone accidentally gave you a noise level instead of a signal level figure. Unless you cheat and use lots of attenuators, its kinda hard to make an intentional radiator at that low of a level. A couple microwatts per cm equivalent is a pretty well tempest shielded faraday cage device, for example. I used to have access to a cage like that along with an array of spectrum analyzers, standardized antennas/horns, etc. I'm sure the cheapie dell I'm in front of here emits more interference than double digit uW per cm of surface, for example.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I travel every other week between LAX and SFO and both airports have removed the backscatter machines from security checkpoints I use. In addition to standard metal detectors, you will still find the older millimeter wave machines (the ones that give a simple red or green indicator) in some places.
It's nice not to have to go through the "opt out" groping routine on a regular basis any longer.
Up until a couple months ago, there were *both* backscatter X-Ray machines and millimeter wave machines in use in US airports. The backscatter X-Ray machines WERE NOT properly tested and WERE deployed FIRST. They're undoing that mistake now by removing the backscatter machines (at least from the airport checkpoints I frequent.)
I heard that the backscatter machines were being relegated to smaller airports, but I have no firsthand knowledge of that situation.
So long as the people who make these part of the "Law" and yet are never subject to it themselves, nothing will change. The day they see their children or loved ones or themselves get cancer or suffer to a state mandated molestation, or even if they simply have to take off their shoes and catch a foot fungus, that's the day when this crap will stop. Until then, who cares... this will always be so, and incremental, meaningless studies will be done to give the impression that the people who purport to represent us, "care". Sorry to sound jaded, but the current Executive, Legislative and Judiciary are the worst ever.
One guy, over 10 years ago, makes a failed shoe bombing attempt so the Republicans make all of us take off our shoes whenever we get on an airplane.
One guy successfully guns down almost all 30 people and they will not pass one law regulating guns.