back to article TSA agrees to review of perv scanner radiation risks

The US Transport Security Administration (TSA) has finally agreed to take another look at the potential side-effects of its backscatter Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) scanners, over a year after promising the Senate they'd be right on it. "Administrator Pistole has made a commitment to conduct the study and TSA is following …

COMMENTS

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  1. Herby

    Now I know...

    Where to put the hip flask so I don't pay the outrageous price for the mini-bottles of booze!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    don't travel by air. problem solved.

    1. Crazy Operations Guy

      And how exactly are we supposed to do that? trains can't cross the pacific and boats take weeks to get anywhere.

  3. Richard Jones 1

    Why Fly?

    I have not been near an airport for at least ten years and the way that the bozos are going I never want to again. The flying part was OK but as for the arrogant fools who miss run the fiascos known as airports, hanging would be far too kind. Airport operators love the delays and frustrations as they then herd you into the shops to view and hopefully ignore the over priced crap stacked high to trap the less careful.

    Security should profile for threats by all means and do something meaningful. For the rest of us, try to avoid air travel and miss out on the worlds irritation services, touch up sex fiends, deviants and misfits that airports appear to attract as staff*. Hopefully create some unemployment where it ill do good.

    *Comment based on past personal experience of the cattle yards, sorry airports.

    1. Crazy Operations Guy
      Thumb Down

      Re: Why Fly?

      Because we have jobs that require us to be places in a timely fashion and can't afford to take a boat ride to get anywhere?

    2. teebie

      Re: Why Fly?

      I have much the same feelings - the in-the-air-y metal-tubey part is kind of fun, but the I-am-effectively-paying-airport-staff-to-be-arseholes-to-me part has meant that I haven't flown since.

      Of course, being people who are able to just not fly, we aren't really the people the airlines are aiming their services at.

  4. Graham Marsden
    FAIL

    Once again...

    ... it's time for this clip of Adam Savage who went through a body scanner with two 12" industrial razorblades on him....

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3yaqq9Jjb4

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    I'll be surprised if the TSA acknowledges that there is a health threat....

    Now the TSA has become another source of patronage and a federal jobs program. The Democrats won't do anything that would encourage the end of the TSA because its workforce is now largely unionized, and organized labor would shriek if tens of thousands of union members were sent to the mostly non-unionized private sector security industry. As for the Republicans, their civil liberties record is as bad as Obama's.

    Unless you can produce wards full of cancer patients, you can prepare to be irradiated for some time in the pursuit of the appearance of security.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'll be surprised if the TSA acknowledges that there is a health threat....

      The other problem is that this club is so well funded that a civilian suing them would simply be appealed and delayed into bankruptcy..

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    >> No schedule has been given ... for the release of results.

    Well that's simply pragmatic - only a fool would commit to releasing a report before ensuring it has the desired contents. But once that's done I look forward to receiving a wellness-promoting InstaSpa (tm) when I next see the radiant welcoming visages of TSA

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNd8iNx1gGk

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    you WILL get cancer and DIE

    the DEATH SCANNER will cause LETHAL DEATH in your BODY.

    YOU LOW LIFE TRASH.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Typical knee-jerk reaction to technology

    There is more radiation from standing in front of a microwave oven than the TSA airport scanners.

    1. The BigYin

      Re: Typical knee-jerk reaction to technology

      So there should be no problem with running the tests and publishing the results.

    2. edge_e
      Boffin

      Re: Typical knee-jerk reaction to technology

      Microwaves are not xrays

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Typical knee-jerk reaction to technology

      There is more radiation from standing in front of a microwave oven than the TSA airport scanners

      There is more than casual evidence that the testing methods used so far to declare these things safe are SERIOUSLY flawed.

      It still has to be proven by a serious, independent body that these things ARE safe, but I have a feeling literally everything will be done to sabotage such a study. The reason for that is simple: if these scanners turn out to be unsafe, not only will the suppliers be sued to hell and back, but the TSA will have to answer for forcing people through them without sufficient evidence that they are safe. The whole harassment scam of "extreme patdown" is there to make you "voluntary" submit to these scanners...

    4. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

      Re: Typical knee-jerk reaction to technology

      They say that you get extra radiation just from being up in the sky anyway, and if you don't like it then you shouldn't go, but that's maybe a cover story.

      1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

        Re: Typical knee-jerk reaction to technology

        That's a seriously flawed argument. Radiation is cumulative - if you ALREADY get radiation from the flight itself, you surely don't want to add to it with a dodgy scanner..

  9. usbac Silver badge
    FAIL

    The study results are already in the bag...

    That is, if any members of the National Academy of Sciences ever expects to be able to board an airplane again.

    We have to remember what corrupt thugs these people are.

    Also, to the AC @ 23:00:

    Make sure you take off your TSA jacket before you post next time.

  10. Crazy Operations Guy

    What about the children?

    If the TSA are taking images of small children, wouldn't it be considered child-pornography? The law making child pornography was rushed so quickly through congress that they forgot to put in a law-enforcement clause.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I found it interesting that the dosage levels for these devices were almost always couched in terms of whole body exposure; when clearly the important issue is dosage at the body surface.

    I wouldn't be surprised to find these devices increase skin cancer rates in the future; to me the only real question is - by how much?

    In this case I don't think we should take the risk, because there are already body scanners on the market which don't involve bathing people in x-rays.

    Passive millimetre wave cameras are safe - the clue is in the word "passive". They work, and they're available now.

  12. Martin Huizing
    Pint

    Funny...

    Every time I read 'TSA' I think of Tits 'n Asses...

  13. M7S
    Coat

    Are all these comments about the TSA and Administrator Pistole

    just shooting from the hip?

  14. tojb
    Devil

    Change the technology, they will still give you a load of crap

    I changed planes at Washington Dulles back in the summer, on my way from Mexico to Yurp. No intention to step out of the airport, but all the same they made me go through the whole rigmarole. Took 6 hours of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with sweaty fat people in a series of humid, dingy rooms. Light relief was being harrased and having my luggage tossed by sweaty, bullying, fat people in uniforms.

    I travel all over the world for my work, you can bet next time I'm doing my dammnedest to avoid the US. Why do they do it? I've no idea but I hear that their cops are about the same.

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