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I don't consent to any form of non-necessary irradiation, regardless of the quantity. Not sure why the NYPD gets to irradiate me without consequences (which co

• aaronkrolik 11y ago
  I fail to see how my post is implying that you should be fine with non-necessary irradiation. I'm quoting and linking the manufacturers website.
  • cryoshon 11y ago
    The quantities of radiation quoted by the manufacturer are extremely low. The actual effective absorbed dose might be different from what they actually say, of course. I am anticipating that someone will come forth to defend this illegal searching by claiming that the radiation dose is negligible or irrelevant. I want to counter this defense by posing the matter as philosophical rather than an empirical question of whether the irradiation is harmful or not. EDIT: Ah, in the time that it took me to write this, I have been proven correct.
    • mikeyouse 11y ago
      How's this for a compromise: Philosophically, the government should not be irradiating people without their consent under any circumstance. Empirically, there is no* health risk from doing so with these vans. * By any reasonable measure of increased incidence of cancer from small doses of radiation.
      • rnovak 11y ago
        Except there's nothing to support the latter statements. The statement made by the manufacturer 1) could be totally false, 2) refers to a specific single-use of the technology. They're claiming a specific output per-scan. What if the police are using this van with 10-second scan intervals, pointed at the same building, with people inside, for several hours? That's a fairly plausible scenario which could result in several ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more irradiation.
        • TeMPOraL 11y ago
          > That's a fairly plausible scenario which could result in several ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more irradiation. "Orders of magnitude" is not a magic phrase you get to throw around to scare people. Assuming 10 seconds intervals and instantaneous scans going on for 8-12 hours you've gone up just about 3 orders of magnitude. That is, from banana-equivalent dose to about the background radiation dose, per this handy radiation reference[0]. In other words, people in that building receive twice the amount of radiation that they would naturally do. That is assuming a hell and a lot of scans while also ignoring the protection offered by distance and the building itself. I refuse to be scared. [0] - https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/
          • rnovak 11y ago
            It wasn't thrown around to scare people, it was used because it's accurate. I fail to see how my statement is inaccurate considering by your own admission there are indeed several (3) orders of magnitude difference. The point I was trying to make was saying that it's some negligible number is wrong. By your own handy reference, it's the equivalent of 2 Dentist x-rays. The dentist at least has the decency to put a lead bib over you.
            • TeMPOraL 11y ago
              > I fail to see how my statement is inaccurate considering by your own admission there are indeed several (3) orders of magnitude difference. "Three orders of magnitude" is a meaningless thing without context, and I just pointed out that in this context it still doesn't change the conclusion that the exposure is neglible and not worth considering. > The dentist at least has the decency to put a lead bib over you. That's because people are irrational and you need to dance around them for their own sake.
              • rnovak 11y ago
                My context: Person A says 1 does of product A is Amount X. What I'm saying is: That's not entirely relevant if we don't know how many doses people actually get. I agree about irrational, among other things.
      • vacri 11y ago
        > Philosophically, the government should not be irradiating people without their consent under any circumstance. So you are against public broadcasting systems? You also don't think that a government should have a moral duty to operate an emergency broadcast system for helping people deal with natural disasters? X-rays and radio waves are both EM radiation. To be even more pedantic, this stance also means that a government building would not be able to have any lights or heaters (amongst other things). Or a cop searching for a suspect at night wouldn't be able to use a torch. I think it's a bad, absolutist philosophical point to make.
        • ytpete 11y ago
          I think the poster was referring only to ionizing radiation (the kind proven to increase cancer risk). Light fixtures and heaters (infrared) don't fall into that category.
          • vacri 11y ago
            You are correct - I was mostly speaking for effect. But the absolutism is still a problem. For example, if you get into a car accident and are taken to an emergency department in a state where your life is in jeopardy but you are unable to provide consent - should the medical staff have the moral right to do x-rays, which greatly aid their diagnoses?
            • CamperBob2 11y ago
              The medical staff had to take health physics courses and receive state certification before being allowed to use x-ray machines on humans. The cop took physics in high school and got a 'B'. Oh, wait, no, that wasn't physics, that was physical ed.
              • ytpete 11y ago
                Also, the medical staff are irradiating you for the direct purpose of aiding you specifically. The police are irradiating you because they've decided you are by default a suspect worthy of search simply by virtue of passing by - the benefit you receive in return for any health risk is debatable at best.
    • aaronkrolik 11y ago
      Again, i was simply quoting the manufacturer. Adding information to the conversation. You dont have to believe it or agree with it, but it's a side that should be heard rather than downvoted.
      • rnovak 11y ago
        it's only objective in the context of people who understand the magnitude of the numbers being quoted. No data is provided as to alternate sources of radiation. An analogy is made by the manufacturer, but they have incentive to claim that level is as low as possible. And, without any other information, the specific quotation being presented appears to imply you think it's no big deal (since you didn't offer any interpretation or make a statement relating to your opinion on the matter). (though to note, I didn't downvote you, I'm just explaining how the information could be seen as "subjective" and not "objective").
      • deet 11y ago
        I don't think you should be downvoted, but realize that people might be responding negatively because the citation you provided is exactly the citation that defenders of the vans and backscatter scanners at airports provide to dismiss safety concerns. So, without context around your citation, it might seem that you're trying to provide an opinionated defense of the safety of the vans. As others have mentioned, there are also issues regarding whether those numbers can really be interpreted to mean that they are relatively safe. The manufacturers of backscatter tech claim that's true, but others suggest that because of the concentration in the skin, it's not a good estimate of safety. To interpret your cited numbers, the discussion also needs that side of the story, which other commenters have provided, but your original post did not.
        • bmelton 11y ago
          > there are also issues regarding whether those numbers can really be interpreted to mean that they are relatively safe. And contributing the manufacturer's stated specifications ADDS to that conversation, which meets the criteria for 'goodness'. Not directing this at you, as you've already acknowledged that the OP should not have been downvoted, but additive facts should, probably as a rule, never be downvoted on account of knee-jerk reactions.
    • CamperBob2 11y ago
      The quantities of radiation quoted by the manufacturer are extremely low.... when the machines are in proper working order, and maintained and operated as intended by the manufacturer. My dentist had to take a course in health physics before being allowed to use an X-ray machine on humans. So did my doctor. What makes TSA agents and New York cops so special?
    • enraged_camel 11y ago
      Why did you downvote his post?
  • coldtea 11y ago
    Was it supposed to imply anything? Or it was just an information dump for information's sake, leaving it to the readers to make their own conclusions? Because regardless of what your post's purpose was, people are obviously gonna read that extract as "hey, it's inside safety limits, so it's ok". When we post something without further comment it's quite safe to assume that people will think we agree with it, and we're using it to pass a message (especially the most obvious reading it has). The only other interpretation that's (a little less) common, is for people to think we've quoted it sarcastically.
• VLM 11y ago
  "I don't consent to any form of non-necessary irradiation, regardless of the quantity." Standing in front of the US capitol building for about an hour is also about 0.1 uSv. Granite is quite radioactive, you know. Some kitchen countertops are much worse. 0.1 uSv is also the generally accepted as the "banana equivalent dose". Bananas are a decent source of potassium, which aside from being an essential element is also somewhat radioactive. There is no fixed accepted dose rate for flying. More than a couple and less than a dozen uSv/hr is about as accurate as you're gonna get. Depends on flight path and altitude and who knows what all else. The claim that its a couple minutes of flight is not all that far from the truth, more or less. People who don't really understand what they're afraid of can't rationally minimize risks anyway. Perhaps the granite in a kitchen countertop or architectural decorative feature would increase cancer death rate by 0.0001% but cancer due to chemical catalyst contamination in a replacement laminate countertop MIGHT be ten times the cancer death rate of radioactive granite. Or maybe not. Assuming they're telling the truth about the dose, I wouldn't worry about the radiation dose. Its small enough to be measured but biologically irrelevant. What is highly suspicious is a police state violating constitutional amendments probably isn't very concerned with citizen health and probably feels no need to tell the truth. I could see some PR guy claiming its only 1 banana-equivalent-dose or an hour sitting at a granite countertop or whatever because he knows its irrelevant, even if the actual dose is so high that passersby hair is falling out and they're getting radiation burns because its an enormously higher dose. I mean, the government would never lie to us, would they?
  • colordrops 11y ago
    Your argument is fallacious. An analogy of your argument: gravity exerts harmless levels of physical force on your body, therefore the government has the right to exert harmless levels of physical force on your body. By the way, radiation exposure is cumulative throughout your lifetime. There is no safe minimum level of radiation exposure. How much radiation you get on a flight is irrelevant to the topic at hand.
    • hugh4 11y ago
      The government already entitles itself to do far worse things than bounce a few photons off me now and then -- eg every year they pry open my wallet and entitle themselves to a very large fraction of my income.
• randyrand 11y ago
  Your consent is not needed even for unnecessary radiation. If I shine my high beams on your car, or have a cellular phone call next to well - too bad. I'm entitled to bombard you with radiation if I want to. But for the sake of argument Ill assume you just care about ionizing radiation (UV, Xray, Gamma, Neutron, etc). In that case I agree consent should be needed for medium to high dose. It's unfeasible to get the consent of everyone for low doses (x-ray machine x-rays can travel for miles and theoretically infinitely far). In this case it appears the dose is only about that of eating a banana. Hard to argue you need to consent to that for radiation concerns unless you also agree that everyone should consent to every xray scan that every hospital executes, or every time your colleague brings in bananas to work. Privacy concern is valid though. Radiation one is just fear mongering if OP is correct.
  • rnovak 11y ago
    That's PER SCAN. Do you think the Police roll up, do a scan, and then take off? No. They're sitting there scanning constantly (most likely), so to use your analogy, that's a lot of banana eating.
    • AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      Even more banana eating for the cops running the thing...
      • rnovak 11y ago
        Did you even read the article? can be operated remotely from more than 1,500 feet Yeah, totally dangerous for the cop </sarcasm>
        • AnimalMuppet 11y ago
          Can be, yes. How often will it be? How often will it be operated remotely, and there's no other police in the immediate vicinity doing traffic control or some such? [Edit: the article also talks about scanning the inside of a house in 15 seconds. That's not going to happen if they drive up the van, park it, get out, walk 1500 feet away, scan the house, walk back... (Yes, I know, they can drive away and back in another vehicle. It's still not likely to be operated remotely in that usage - all the activity makes it too conspicuous.)]
• vacri 11y ago
  > I don't consent to any form of non-necessary irradiation, regardless of the quantity. TV, radio, cell towers...
• oh_sigh 11y ago
  I suspect you don't actually hold true to this policy of not consenting to "any form of non-necessary irradiation, regardless of the quantity."