TSA (Finally) Studying Health Effects of Body Scanners 225
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.
This is a distraction from the real issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:This is a distraction from the real issue. (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally I don't care about that kind of "privacy". I'd say the time I stopped caring was around the time I lost my virginity. I do care about getting cancer though.
Re:This is a distraction from the real issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that's OK then. So long as YOU don't care, neither should anybody else.
The rape victims, the sexually assaulted, the people with any sort of problem should just get over it, right?
Re:This is a distraction from the real issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you think you should care about both of those things even if one of them doesn't particularly bother YOU, personally?
Re:This is a distraction from the real issue. (Score:5, Interesting)
There are problems with many of the arguments against the scanners.
The medical danger should be a concern to everyone, but evidence suggests that the danger is negligible (though possibly nonzero).
The privacy danger is patently obvious and verifiable (though sometimes overstated), but it's just not a concern to many.
The cost-benefit argument has the problem that the "benefit" can be very difficult to accurately measure and the government may choose not to disclose data about whether the devices are beneficial. (This is, regardless, the argument I prefer.)
That's not to say there are no problems with arguments for the scanners. At the very least (the very least), it makes sense to use the microwave scanners over the X-ray backscatter. The medical danger is known to be zero, which is even better than the backscatter's best-case of "is probably zero". Even if they're less effective, we don't seem to be relying on either system to be particularly effective.
Re:This is a distraction from the real issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
The medical danger should be a concern to everyone, but evidence suggests that the danger is negligible (though possibly nonzero).
But, ironically, bigger than the terrorism risk it's designed to prevent. Apart from the rest of your opinion, which I share, it also feels incredibly stupid to spend trucks of money to actually INCREASE my risk, especially given the economic circumstances and alternatives.
And I'm not even considering that how efficient the scanners are in preventing the terrorism risk in general, which I deem next to zero too. So all things considered, you spend a lot, hazzle and disrespect people considerably, step over privacy rights, don't prevent much and end up adding a new, bigger risk. Fucking brilliant!
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I'm not convinced that the medical risk is bigger than the risk of terrorism it's designed to prevent. I might be convinced that it's bigger than its capacity to actually reduce that risk of terrorism. But for one, the medical risk is really, really small and for another, at that level both things are frustratingly difficult to accurately quantify.
I don't particularly think the scanners are effective at much of anything, especially if you compare them to the impact of other possible expenditures of the same
Re:This is a distraction from the real issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
I read somewhere that one of Bin Laden's objectives was to make the US spend 1 millon for each dolar that they spent. It is guerrilla warfare, it's all they've got, and they have been extremely successful at it. The values and way of life the US people were so proud about are gone. The millions were spent and continue to be. Sadly, the root of the issue it that, bared some reasonable efforts, the only way to fight terror is by enduring it and not being scared. Luckily, very few people are actually determined to do real damage and cause pain.
Re:This is a distraction from the real issue. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with terrorist is that little can actually be done to stop it.
The much, much bigger problem is that there are a small number of people who are getting very rich selling the illusion that they can do something to stop it. If it wasn't for the opportunities to funnel money into the pockets of unproductive generators of dead-weight losses in the security/industrial complex terrorism would simply be a minor nuisance, akin to traffic accidents.
It is the quislings who make terrorism so problematic.
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The homicide rate in the US is about 5/100,000, so making a whole lot of sweeping assumptions, you would expect to see 9 homicides per year in airports and on airplanes past the security checkpoints. There are about 330 primary airports, so maybe 1,000 checkpoints active on average. That gives each checkpoint a 1% chance of finding a "bad guy" per year.
If on the other hand, you did absolutely no security screening, what would the mortality rate be? Let's just say there were just police officers walking a
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A reasonable and very rough estimate. I agree that scanners, and lots of other security measures, are well into poor cost-benefit territory. Of course, real measured effect is hard to come by.
That gives each checkpoint a 1% chance of finding a "bad guy" per year.
But of course the false positive rate is incredibly high, since the scanner cannot detect intent. The only way we'd get a solid estimate of how many bad guys were actually caught is if we successfully did a thorough investigation for each positive to weed out the false ones.
Making a rough estimate by the reports in the
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Also there is a problem: once the criminal manages to go through the checkpoint, one way or another, he is in the clear and has the red carpet all the way to the airplane.
If enough people have the intent, they can carry a ton of explosives into the secure area, one gram at a time. Nobody would pay any attention to their actions, and small quantities of anything cannot be detected. So in the end it's just a matter of money.
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Those are some bold generalizations that are accurate enough in this context. But note that some things can be detected in smaller quantities than they can reasonably be divided into. (Plutonium can be detected in incredibly small amounts, and photons can be detected individually.) Of course in the end it's just a matter of money--with enough money they could just buy everything and blow it all up legally.
The thing is that increasing the cost of an attack is a successful defense strategy, because it reduces
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The medical danger should be a concern to everyone, but evidence suggests that the danger is negligible (though possibly nonzero).
What evidence?
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I stopped caring was around the time I lost my virginity.
Ha.. nice try. You're clearly lying. This is Slashdot.
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You get a much higher radiation dose from the flight (less atmosphere to block cosmic rays) than you do from the scanners.
According to who, the TSA?
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Nope, from the National Radiological Protection Board [bbc.co.uk]
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There is nothing in that report talking about TSA scanners.
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Hmm nope, still don't see it sorry. PATRIOT is an invasion of privacy that runs way, way deeper, but I don't see people doing anything about that. Yet everyone is up in arms about people seeing their naughty bits or taking their shoes off. The airline stuff is symptomatic of the way your country is heading as a whole and I don't like it sure, but it would be nice if the American public had a concentrated campaign to sort out the problems at their roots rather than getting all blustered about this.
Re:This is a distraction from the real issue. (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't speak for everyone, but personally I value my lack of cancer more than I do my privacy.
Re:This is a distraction from the real issue. (Score:5, Interesting)
As others have said, I'll believe that the cancer risk is hypothetical or neglegible, but ONLY if every scanner must go through the same rigorous requirements needed for any other medical x-ray machine to be certified.
As it stands, they're built by the lowest bidder (or whoever happens to be related to someone high up in the TSA, which is possibly even worse, since they're likely corrupt as hell too). So while they're *supposed* to put out X amount of radiation, I'd like to know that it's literally an physical impossibility that it can ever put out 5X or 500X radiation due to cutting corners or poor design.
Until those are done, I'll consider the cancer risk of those to potentially be the same as the Shoe-fitting fluoroscope [wikipedia.org]. Because seriously, who's telling me they're safe right now? The people that are extremely biased towards, and have the vast majority of their existence based on, the scanners being safe, after being built by the lowest common denominator.
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Sounds like a strawman plant.
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recreational strawman use has been recently voted legal in 2 states.
Re:This is a distraction from the real issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more than that. It's a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment. They have no good reason to search so invasively each and every person in this country who flies. There's no basis for them to believe that every person is a possible terrorist. It's just a blatant, idiotic expansion of powers and a jobs program for the terminally unemployable so jackasses can stand behind the metal detectors and look like they're important.
The TSA has accomplished precisely shit in the entirety of its existence. It's successfully engaged in mission creep as it starts doing things for the DEA and whatnot, and managed to violate the dignity of a growing number of people. I have no respect for anyone that works for the TSA, on both a professional and personal level.
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That too. I always make sure to point out that I'd like for my stuff to not be stolen, and ask 'em to hurry up with calling over the ballgrabber.
The hypocrisy just keeps getting worse. (Score:5, Funny)
...In context with Fukushima and a non-polluting energy source: RADIATION BAD!
...In context with police state enabling technology: RADIATION GOOD!
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...In context with Fukushima and a non-polluting energy source: RADIATION BAD!
In the context of nuclear power, "radiation" really is referring to radioactive isotopes and potentially-large quantities of high-energy electromagnetic radition, alpha rays, and beta rays. In the context of a nuclear accident like Fukushima, it more is referring to the uncontrolled dispersal of radioactive isotopes (which are toxic independent of their radioactivity) and the uncontrolled release of very large quantities of mostly high-energy electromagnetic radiation.
...In context with police state enabling technology: RADIATION GOOD!
In the context of backscatter X-ray s
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Chance of measurable exposure to loose radioactive isotopes in the environment after 2 major nuclear accidents in the world: >0.000001%
Chance of ionizing some of your cellular chemistry from high-school-education-level TSA employees using an X-ray source to see your body before you get on a plane: 100%
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Chance of measurable increased exposure to ionizing cosmic rays once the plane is at altitude: 100%
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But the wavelength and penetrance is substantially different - we know an awful lot about the radiation exposure associated with flying. We know less about the effects of the radiation exposure from the backscatter scanners, and TSA fudged their numbers in icky misleading ways (calculating exposure as if it were spread throughout the body, etc). That TSA presented the radiation from flying and radiation from backscatter as equivalent also seemed quite misleading - though, of course, incompetence is also alw
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But the wavelength and penetrance is substantially different - we know an awful lot about the radiation exposure associated with flying. We know less about the effects of the radiation exposure from the backscatter scanners
That's not really true. Mostly what we know a lot about is the damage caused by particular radioisotopes, some sources of X-rays, and nuclear accidents. The rest is modeled. X-ray backscatter scanners emit a measured amount of X-rays at a known frequency that's well within the realm of what we know about.
TSA fudged their numbers in icky misleading ways (calculating exposure as if it were spread throughout the body, etc)
Sort of. That's a common and very reasonable assumption when the dosage is many orders of magnitude below an acute dosage (which it is). Some people, after this became a big news item and political issue, d
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X-ray backscatter scanners emit a measured amount of X-rays
Measured by who?
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See reply to your other comment asking the same thing.
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But the wavelength and penetrance is substantially different - we know an awful lot about the radiation exposure associated with flying. We know less about the effects of the radiation exposure from the backscatter scanners
That's not really true. Mostly what we know a lot about is the damage caused by particular radioisotopes, some sources of X-rays, and nuclear accidents. The rest is modeled. X-ray backscatter scanners emit a measured amount of X-rays at a known frequency that's well within the realm of what we know about.
I'm no radiation expert, but when a group of PhD's and MD's who *are* radiation experts have concerns about the machines, then I have concerns:
http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2010/05/17/concern.pdf [npr.org]
The X-ray dose from these devices has often been compared in the media to the cosmic
ray exposure inherent to airplane travel or that of a chest X-ray. However, this
comparison is very misleading: both the air travel cosmic ray exposure and chest Xrays
have much higher X-ray energies and the health consequences are appropriately
understood in terms of the whole body volume dose. In contrast, these new airport
scanners are largely depositing their energy into the skin and immediately adjacent
tissue, and since this is such a small fraction of body weight/vol, possibly by one to two
orders of magnitude, the real dose to the skin is now high.
This letter was written almost 3 years ago, have any of their concerns been addressed?
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I've seen this before. It's disagreed upon by experts, but I don't think these guys hold the prevailing opinion. Notably, their estimate of the difference is correct--a couple orders of magnitude. However, 2 orders of magnitude, or even 3, above what the X-ray backscatter scanners emit is still an incredibly small dose. I think this may have been written before radiation dosages for in-the-field scanners were publicly available. (Rough dosages for the prototype models have always been available, but underst
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Chance of exposure to radioactive isotopes from nuclear accidents (there's been more than two): 100%
Chance of exposure to radioactive isotopes from nuclear weapons: 100%
Chance of exposure to radioactive isotopes from burning coal: very close to 1 for most parts of the world 100%
Chance of ionizing some of your cellular chemistry by eating a banana: 100%
Chance of ionizing some of your cellular chemistry by going into a basement: 100%
Chance of ionizing some of your cellular chemistry by going outside: 100%
Chan
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The radiation exposure from an X-ray backscatter scanner is 0.05 uSv/yr.
I assume you got that number from the TSA?
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From publicly-released results of third-party tests of the devices.
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What third-party tests?
Re:The hypocrisy just keeps getting worse. (Score:5, Funny)
Boooo!
Very well, no radiation for anyone!
Boooo!
Hmm... Radiation for some, miniature American flags for others!
Yaaaay!
Re:The hypocrisy just keeps getting worse. (Score:5, Informative)
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Yes and no. Only Gamma radiation is electromagnetic in nature. Alpha and Beta radiations are not photons at all, but atomic particles ejected with high energy. An Alpha particle is a helium atom without electrons and a Beta particle is free neutron.
Depending on the radiation source you may get any of the radioactive emission types and all three are dangerous, but to differing degrees depending on volume and location of exposure.
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a Beta particle is free neutron
Beta is a free electron, not a neutron. As the GP said, X-Rays and gamma rays are both electromagnetic in nature.
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As long as we're gettting it right: a beta- is an electron; a beta+ is a positron.
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Re:The hypocrisy just keeps getting worse. (Score:5, Informative)
Nuclear radiation IS electromagnetic radiation.
That's what photons ARE, packets of electromagnetic impulses.
Gamma rays just happen to have higher frequencies than microwaves or radio waves, but fundamentally they are both light.
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Nuclear radiation IS electromagnetic radiation.
That's what photons ARE, packets of electromagnetic impulses.
Gamma rays just happen to have higher frequencies than microwaves or radio waves, but fundamentally they are both light.
To be pedantic, actually nuclear radiation comes in three types: gamma, alpha, and beta radiation. Only gamma radiation is EM, the others are particle decays.
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To be pedantic, actually nuclear radiation comes in three types: gamma, alpha, and beta radiation. Only gamma radiation is EM, the others are particle decays.
Particles are waves, and waves are particles.
I could represent your body and soul with a wave, but my noise floor is too high and my frequency resolution too coarse.
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Particles are waves, and waves are particles.
And fermions are not bosons.
Photon is photn is photon (Score:3)
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Hate to rain on your parade, but nuclear radiation is a completely different thing from electromagnetic radiation. They happen to both have the word "radiation" in them, but they're really not the same thing.
Alpha rays are a helium nucleus
Beta is electrons like what excites phosphors in yer old CRT TV.
Both Alpha and Beta are trivially shielded by small amounts of air, matter, layers of skin..etc. Normally quite harmless unless injested or inhaled then quite deadly.
Gamma rays are high energy photons like the ones presumably collected by Chekov when he beamed aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise.
This "electromagic radiation" is quite dangerous and the reason we require large quantities of bulky matter to shiel
Study should be done outside its influence (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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This is nothing more than the strong oppressing the weak.
The weak being passengers and the strong being the feds.
I point out that the feds have put the TSA with a gun held to air commerce since everyone who boards a plane has to go through them.
So the TSA naturally feels no obligation to not abuse their power.
Since passengers don't have a choice, they have no leverage to resist it.
Add to this non refundable airline tickets and you have passengers locked in for abuse even before they arrive at the airport.
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People are putting their kids in there.
I've flown several times and have never been in one of these scanners. As soon as the TSA staff see my children, we're routed through the metal detectors instead.
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We cannot suspend our judgement just because we are constantly told there are terrorists in the world and money to be made.
FTFY.
After all, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
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Then, in the span of about 5 years, these scanners will have caused cancer in a greater number of people than the number of people killed by terrorists on 9/11/2001?
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That's a relief! (Score:2)
scanner = 13 uW cm^2; cell = 100 mW cm^2 (Score:2, Interesting)
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Re:scanner = 13 uW cm^2; cell = 100 mW cm^2 (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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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 t
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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.
That is literally the exact form of specious reasoning that tinfoil hatters use. If you're trying to recruit them, good job. That kind of "reasoning" is very appealing to them, since it sounds logical and doesn't require a lot of thought or explanation (or even stand up to it!)
My house is wired to a 20 kW circuit. Therefore, I might as well be sitting inside 20 microwaves as be in my house. Through the power of deductive logic, since I am not burned to a crisp, I am immune to radiation.
Hey Fukushima, I hea
This should not be an issue (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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For example, the FAA routinely tries to smuggle fake guns and bombs onto airplanes to see how many get through.
Last I heard, that number had not changed significantly since TSA was started.
One number that has gone up significantly since TSA took over is amount of theft from luggage and at baggage screening points. As I recall, laptop thefts went up over 1000% between 2000 - 2005.
But, major terrorist attacks - yeah, it's hard to measure changes in something t
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There are other options. Examine countries with similar foreign policies and dissimilar airport security policies, and see which has a greater rate of captured terrorists, and which has more terrorist attempts. Of course, there just aren't a lot of countries with similar policies to the US, but there are a few countries with a similar policy by the terrorists, a prime one being Israel. So, what does Israel do to get their rates with dealing with terrorism, and why doesn't the US follow that 40-year pract
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You're looking at it the wrong way. They don't care if you have a bomb/gun/knife in an airport, they care if you have a bomb/gun/knife and then get on a plane and it goes airborne. Then (despite the metal door) they think the plane will fly into something important.
And, fortunately for us, private airplanes could never crash into a building. Why, since they're not screened at all, the terr-ists would never think of trying to use them. Also fortuante, no terr-ists are willing to risk getting caught at a TS
Prediction: (Score:3)
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.
strange side effect (Score:3)
How many terrorist have ... (Score:2)
... the TSA caught?
Good grief (Score:2)
Getting the core facts right... (Score:2, Informative)
Okay, there are two kinds of body scanners. One uses backscatter x-rays, the other uses millimeter-wave radio waves. The ones deployed at airports are the latter, not the former; x-rays are not being used to scan people in airports in the United States. So let's recognize that what the TSA is doing here is evaluating a kind of scanner that they have not deployed . In other words, they're making sure it's safe before they use it. Backscatter x-ray scanners are more commonly used to examine vehicles; th
Ok, but you have the core facts wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
For what it's worth (Score:3)
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.
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Study is useless... (Score:3)
TSA & Gun Control (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:TSA & Gun Control (Score:4, Funny)
Guns don't kill people, shoes kill people?
On the other hand, let's just be glad they didn't go the "shoe bomber reaction" route when the underwear bomber struck. Though requiring everyone strip naked to get through the line *would* be a quick way to get the TSA's requirements looked at closely.
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You must be new here.
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They aren't right.
It's just treason to disagree with them.
Re:Let me guess (Score:5, Insightful)
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...)
Re:Let me guess (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:Let me guess (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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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.
THz is sub-mm. Non x-ray scanners currently deployed are all mm as far as I know.
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pay a lot of money to someone to produce a report that looks like they did something science-y
The TSA thought about getting the Mythbusters to do the study, but decided they needed people with less integrity, ethics and skill ...
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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.
And if they give one person in 100 billion cancer, they might not be. Quantification matters, and you can be wrong by 3 orders of magnitude even with back-of-the-envelope calculations (to say nothing of the accuracy of pulling numbers out of thin air).
Says who? Do you have hard info on this type of radiation?
It depends on what you're actually asking. Amount of exposure caused by the devices? Body tissue absorption and cellular damage efficacy of radiation of that frequency? Dosage to cancer probability increase? All of these are publicly-documented. The most poorl
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(Which they aren't...terrorists can put the C4 up their asses...)
Which is what the vast majority of people have been telling terrorists to do for quite some time. Sadly, it seems they started listening...
Re:Capitalisim [sic] (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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That is the kind of corruption one would expect in a third world tinpot dictatorship.
Don't believe the propaganda. Every government that's ever existed on Earth has been corrupt, to one degree or another.
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Do we just not give a fuck about conflict of interest anymore?
'Anymore' suggests that things used to be different. "The good old days" is a myth.
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Yeah, no, it's not.
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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.
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The dosage is much less than the airport scanners. In that the dosage of ionizing radiation in airport scanners is nonzero (for X-ray backscatter type scanners) and the dosage of ionizing radiation in anti-shoplifting RFID detectors is zero. So, yeah, pretty different. I wouldn't worry about the effect, though. It's zero too.
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As well, these now become mandatory for train travel
Somebody's going to hijack Thomas the Tank Engine and crash him into the Freedom Tower, thus collapsing it... not likely. More likely is people switching to train travel, so the airlines purchased the regulation that train passengers must be harassed and punished as much as airplane passengers.
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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.
Re: (Score:2)
There is no completely safe lower limit of ionizing radiation. It's a risk benefit situation.
Actually no, you need to talk to a telecom EE about signal to noise ratios or a statistician or a nuke industry guy about banana equivalent dose.
Depending on who's fishy numbers you use, the BED of a ctscan varies a heck of a lot but is probably around a quarter million bananas depending on your bananas and your scanner. You're wise from a dosage perspective to not ctscan people for fun, but its not a terrifying risk nor certain death, its merely about ten extra lifetimes of eating bananas, depending on ho
Re: (Score:2)
Go easy on the guy. A few months ago he was probably dressed as giant hotdog, busy handing out leaflets in a mall.