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New scanners at the airport will leave you with nothing to hide.
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—In response to a failed Christmas-day attempt to blow up a plane over Detroit, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is moving forward with plans to place 150 more full-body scanning machines in U.S. airports in the coming months. The machines will allow security workers to virtually undress passengers, checking to make sure they aren't hiding any metallic or nonmetallic weapons, drugs, or explosives. The announcement is getting mixed responses, including criticism from privacy-rights activists, support from security experts, and questions from passengers concerned about their health. The words "body scan" are causing some worry among health-conscious air travelers, partly because last month the journal Archives of Internal Medicine published studies estimating that the radiation levels from medical CT scans cause more than 20,000 new cancers a year. (Currently, about 70 million scans a year are performed in the U.S., compared to just 3 million in 1980.) However, before you worry yourself sick over exposure, it's important to understand the radiation dose of these machines, and also your rights as a U.S. citizen in line at a security checkpoint.
THE DETAILS: There are two types of body scanners being put into place. Millimeter-wave imaging-technology units do not produce ionizing radiation, the kind we're exposed to when we get X-rays, or, in much higher doses, when we have CT scans. Currently, there are 40 millimeter-wave scanning machines already in use in 19 U.S. airports. They are used as either the primary screening machines that passengers walk through, or more commonly, for secondary or random screenings. The other type of body scanning that has been tested by TSA uses backscatter technology, which does produce small amounts of ionizing radiation by using extremely weak X-rays. After testing them in a pilot program, the administration has 150 of these machines on order, and they will be deployed to U.S. airports in the coming months.
WHAT IT MEANS: The first step is to put the radiation exposure in perspective. According to TSA, the amount of radiation you're exposed to during a two-second millimeter-wave scan exposes you to radio-wave radiation that is 10,000 times less powerful than radiation levels that pulse from a cellphone. A backscatter scan exposes you to the same amount of radiation you would experience during two minutes of a cross-country or ocean plane flight, thanks to cosmic radiation in the atmosphere. According to the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement (NCRP), a traveler subjected to at least 2,500 backscatter scans a year would barely reach the Negligible Individual Dose. In same report, NCRP found that a traveler subjected to at least 2,500 backscatter scans per year would barely reach the Negligible Individual Dose.
Backscatter technology is
Backscatter technology is safe, the TSA says, and enables the detection of nonmetallic threats, including weapons and explosives. It has been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, according to the agency. wage garnishment
I think that it would be
I think that it would be really interesting to create such discussion with other this website visitors. Anyway thanks a lot one more time for the great and informative publication.
Joney
Not very nice to be in the
Not very nice to be in the "panty line" as CJC said. It is definitely a question here. I do wish everybody from my plane to be scanned or I want to find out there is a bomb in my plane?
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Of the three million people
Of the three million people that have passed through Manchester Airport since the scanner trial, only 14 people have refused to be subjected to a scan, despite ongoing negative publicity about privacy fears and health issues.
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Does anyone if airport
Does anyone if airport body scans actually put your health at risk? I agree that there are a lot of products and activities that present a risk to your health but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take care of ourselves. Thanks for sharing this informative article.
Sam
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Does anyone if airport
Does anyone if airport body scans actually put your health at risk? I agree that there are a lot of products and activities that present a risk to your health but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take care of ourselves. Thanks for sharing this informative article.
Sam
cctv
There are many products
There are many products and activities that present a risk to your health. Particularly when overused. I the risks may be increased. I like the initiative of options for other methods if you are uncomfortable being screened through airport scanners.
Stan
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defeneetly bad
a very good and intelligent question this dude Aaron DelSignore went to an airport and the thing started to beep so he hose forced to strep down and that caused a lot of inconvenience for him ,but this scanners are constantly working the hole period that you stay there ,in a long time this espoused is bad for your risk !
Better Security
Israeli Security starts on the sidewalk. Your taxi or sherut driver is part of it. On the lookout for suspicious behavior, appearance, word is flashed to the Inside Security, who will stop a suspect and ask key questions. Good answers and you are free to check in. Poor answers and you get a strip search and baggage search.Profiling? Definitely. Older women get a "charge" if body searched, and it's hard to get them politely to move on.Dogs that sniff explosives might provide a cost saving. But intelligence agencies who don't send on new info quickly on someone who might be a jihadist should be closed down. No more private Old Boy's Clubs will be tolerated!
While I don't like some of their other policies re: passengers, TSA in United Air area at O'Hare last Sunday was efficient and rapid.
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Before suggesting txting as a solution for minimizing radiation, perhaps you would like to look in to the unbelievably detrimental effects of texting on honey bees and how essential honey bees are to our environment.
Wondering.....
It seems to me that scans are totally useless....I mean I never heard of anyone catching someone with a bomb since they are doing all this crazy expensive security....and then the day someone that has a bomb they dont see it?? Makes me wonder.........
If scans were so efficient they would be using them in Israeli airports and such...where bombing is an almost daily event....They need just a LOT more INTELLIGENCE and people screening........
Wrong line
That would be the "panty line" .....get it? hahahaha
Gosh...
The scenery has never been that interesting when I checked through security! Must be in the wrong lines.