7 ms·

TSA Admits Bungling of Airport Body-Scanner Radiation Tests

85 points by jvilalta 16y ago

etherael 16y ago
Clarification, not bungling the actual scans, but bungling tests of the scanners, and by bungling tests of the scanners; not testing incorrectly, but omitting a single critical step. Standard procedure is to take ten consecutive measures and then average the results (sum and divide). Their test staff have simply missed the final step on that list. Raises competence questions, yes, but nothing to get bent out of shape about in terms of real world effects in isolation.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
asr 16y ago
This article is confusingly written to obscure the fact that there's no story. Some field tests showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected, but the TSA has determined it's because some field testers, who were conducting 10 tests at a time, reported the sum of the individual radiation levels instead of the average. Apparently this is due to a confusing field test form. So the TSA has fixed the form. I mean, I hate the TSA too, but come on...
- lutorm 16y ago
  That doesn't even make sense. If they forgot to divide by 10, the results are actually 10 times too large, meaning the actual radiation is 1/10 of the previously reported result.
  - asr 16y ago
    Correct. These new tests produced abnormally large results. If these results were true, then this would be front-page news. But the results are faulty. So the actual radiation is ... the same as what we thought before these new tests were conducted. It's confusing because, once you understand it, you ask why they wrote a story about it.
    - lutorm 16y ago
      Oh now I see. I thought they forgot to divide by 10 in the old results. But the story is that they did new measurements which were too large because they screwed up. So the story is that nothing's changed. Yeah, I agree with you...
    - etherael 16y ago
      I think it's called fan service, though at this point it's almost indistinguishable from picking on the retarded kid.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- kinetik 16y ago
  Averaging the results? They probably discard outliers too. Unusually high output is something you'd want to be aware of rather than hiding it in an averaged result.
  - CWuestefeld 16y ago
    Definitely. For safety concerns, we don't care so much what the "average" victim is getting. Much more important is what the machines do to people at the worst. Is it OK to give extremely high doses to, say, 1 in 100 people, if the other 99 are normal?
OstiaAntica 16y ago
The real issue is that these scanners violate the 4th Amendment and impose health risk for no gain in security.
- Skroob 16y ago
  I don't know about NO gain in security, but certainly less gain in security than other measures that cost less, don't cause health concerns and don't violate the Constitution.
- Bud 16y ago
  They also cost a lot of money, which (surprise!) is going right to a company in which former Homeland Security goon Michael Chertoff has an ownership stake. And as the above commenter noted, they don't detect the threat they are designed to protect against, which is plastic explosives worn on the body.
- pak 16y ago
  Also, peacefully protesting about ongoing violations of the 4th Amendment in an airport will apparently get you arrested. A student describes how he was intimidated and threatened by the TSA in this filing, starting from page 9: http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/03/tobey.pdf http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/03/tobey.... He had done nothing more than write the amendment on his chest and expose the text after being selected for body scanning. The story was submitted earlier: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326382 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326382
- StavrosK 16y ago
  And there's no hope of doing anything against it because apparently the constitution doesn't apply in and around airports...
  - bluehat 16y ago
    [citation needed]
    - 16y ago
_delirium 16y ago
It's strange that these aren't required to undergo some sort of more standard and professional safety testing. I get that they don't need quite the same level of reliability as medical scanners, but the level of radiation safety should be similar, or perhaps actually higher, since many more people are routinely exposed to them. Could you get a device with the amount of ad-hoc testing that's been done here even into your local doctor's office? My guess is no. I'm not particularly confident in what I've found of the failure analysis and testing, either. For example, the devices appear to work by scanning a beam rapidly across one's body. If the beam got stuck in one place, it would have to shut off extremely rapidly to avoid an unhealthy dose of radiation being concentrated in one place. Is it possible for the beam to get stuck? Are there fail-safes that would cut off the beam, and how fast do they operate, and how reliable are they? As far as I can tell, miscellaneous doctors and medical-device folks have been asking these sorts of questions, but there aren't very professional looking tests and analyses available to answer them.
jtagen 16y ago
I'm not worried. According to the scanned test log, the radiation level was 0.0. Everyone knows that 10 times that is still zero, so we're safe.
Joakal 16y ago
"The Therac-25 was a radiation therapy machine produced by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited .. It was involved in at least six accidents between 1985 and 1987, in which patients were given massive overdoses of radiation, approximately 100 times the intended dose" https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Therac-25 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Therac-25
georgieporgie 16y ago
I bet you get more radiation during your flight. Still, if this fuels irrational public fear of scanners such that it outweighs irrational public fear of terrorism, I'll consider it a good thing.
- theoj 16y ago
  With radiation you shouldn't bet, you should know with certainty.
  - georgieporgie 16y ago
    Japan bet that they wouldn't have an earthquake over, what, 7.8? I forget what the nuclear plants were engineered to withstand. Life is risk management. I agree with others, though, that the TSA should know, to a reasonably high degree of certainty, what the maximum dose of radiation will be from any given scan. But what can you expect from an organization that judges success by the number of water bottles and nail clippers confiscated...
- swaits 16y ago
  We will let you test that theory out. Certainly you don't have a problem with someone else, perhaps more cancer prone and risk averse than you, opting out. Right?
  - georgieporgie 16y ago
    Opting out is absolutely fine. I am in no way supporting these stupid backscatter machines. The only thing that will get rid of them is public outrage, and that is never, in my experience, rational.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  I take exception here. The geometry of exposure is completely different. This is designed to deposit energy near the surface of your body. All of the numbers we have put together for cancer exposure risk are based on data concerning higher energy radiation that tends to pass through you and deposit energy throughout your body. This is why the skin -- which is cancer prone because it's continually replacing cells -- has lower multipliers for risk in those models. The data we have -- the data used in the model used to conclude this stuff is safe -- is for the wrong geometry. Please, no "spherical cow" assumptions when it comes to my health. Zap a bunch of little furry creatures with the same equipment, then I'll feel safe.
ck2 16y ago
This is so last year's question for the TSA. The new question is why the mainstream press isn't repeatedly asking the TSA why they are suddenly appearing in train and bus stations as well as randomly shutting down bridges for car searches? It's happened often yet few know about it.
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  Because the only thing separating the vast majority of the mainstream media from tabloid journalism is mere perception and production value?
  - ck2 16y ago
    I would only add the qualifier "currently" to your question. Because a decade ago NY Times and CNN were actually paying for real reporters to go into the field and research things. Now they've become popculture pushers, anything just to get eyeballs on their websites, though the NY Times still has some good pieces. CNN is long past gone however.
    - InclinedPlane 16y ago
      Even a decade ago, or 4 decades ago, I think there was a lot wrong with mainstream media. The disruption the internet is causing is revealing a lot of these problems more than actually causing them.

85 points by jvilalta 16y ago

Clarification, not bungling the actual scans, but bungling tests of the scanners, and by bungling tests of the scanners; not testing incorrectly, but omitting a single critical step. Standard procedure is to take ten consecutive measures and then average the results (sum and divide). Their test staff have simply missed the final step on that list. Raises competence questions, yes, but nothing to get bent out of shape about in terms of real world effects in isolation.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

asr 16y ago

This article is confusingly written to obscure the fact that there's no story. Some field tests showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected, but the TSA has determined it's because some field testers, who were conducting 10 tests at a time, reported the sum of the individual radiation levels instead of the average. Apparently this is due to a confusing field test form. So the TSA has fixed the form. I mean, I hate the TSA too, but come on...

lutorm 16y ago
That doesn't even make sense. If they forgot to divide by 10, the results are actually 10 times too large, meaning the actual radiation is 1/10 of the previously reported result.
- asr 16y ago
  Correct. These new tests produced abnormally large results. If these results were true, then this would be front-page news. But the results are faulty. So the actual radiation is ... the same as what we thought before these new tests were conducted. It's confusing because, once you understand it, you ask why they wrote a story about it.
  - lutorm 16y ago
    Oh now I see. I thought they forgot to divide by 10 in the old results. But the story is that they did new measurements which were too large because they screwed up. So the story is that nothing's changed. Yeah, I agree with you...
  - etherael 16y ago
    I think it's called fan service, though at this point it's almost indistinguishable from picking on the retarded kid.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
kinetik 16y ago
Averaging the results? They probably discard outliers too. Unusually high output is something you'd want to be aware of rather than hiding it in an averaged result.
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  Definitely. For safety concerns, we don't care so much what the "average" victim is getting. Much more important is what the machines do to people at the worst. Is it OK to give extremely high doses to, say, 1 in 100 people, if the other 99 are normal?

OstiaAntica 16y ago

The real issue is that these scanners violate the 4th Amendment and impose health risk for no gain in security.

Skroob 16y ago
I don't know about NO gain in security, but certainly less gain in security than other measures that cost less, don't cause health concerns and don't violate the Constitution.
Bud 16y ago
They also cost a lot of money, which (surprise!) is going right to a company in which former Homeland Security goon Michael Chertoff has an ownership stake. And as the above commenter noted, they don't detect the threat they are designed to protect against, which is plastic explosives worn on the body.
pak 16y ago
Also, peacefully protesting about ongoing violations of the 4th Amendment in an airport will apparently get you arrested. A student describes how he was intimidated and threatened by the TSA in this filing, starting from page 9: http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/03/tobey.pdf http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/03/tobey.... He had done nothing more than write the amendment on his chest and expose the text after being selected for body scanning. The story was submitted earlier: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326382 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326382
StavrosK 16y ago
And there's no hope of doing anything against it because apparently the constitution doesn't apply in and around airports...
- bluehat 16y ago
  [citation needed]
  - 16y ago

_delirium 16y ago

It's strange that these aren't required to undergo some sort of more standard and professional safety testing. I get that they don't need quite the same level of reliability as medical scanners, but the level of radiation safety should be similar, or perhaps actually higher, since many more people are routinely exposed to them. Could you get a device with the amount of ad-hoc testing that's been done here even into your local doctor's office? My guess is no. I'm not particularly confident in what I've found of the failure analysis and testing, either. For example, the devices appear to work by scanning a beam rapidly across one's body. If the beam got stuck in one place, it would have to shut off extremely rapidly to avoid an unhealthy dose of radiation being concentrated in one place. Is it possible for the beam to get stuck? Are there fail-safes that would cut off the beam, and how fast do they operate, and how reliable are they? As far as I can tell, miscellaneous doctors and medical-device folks have been asking these sorts of questions, but there aren't very professional looking tests and analyses available to answer them.

jtagen 16y ago

I'm not worried. According to the scanned test log, the radiation level was 0.0. Everyone knows that 10 times that is still zero, so we're safe.

Joakal 16y ago

"The Therac-25 was a radiation therapy machine produced by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited .. It was involved in at least six accidents between 1985 and 1987, in which patients were given massive overdoses of radiation, approximately 100 times the intended dose" https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Therac-25 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Therac-25

georgieporgie 16y ago

I bet you get more radiation during your flight. Still, if this fuels irrational public fear of scanners such that it outweighs irrational public fear of terrorism, I'll consider it a good thing.

theoj 16y ago
With radiation you shouldn't bet, you should know with certainty.
- georgieporgie 16y ago
  Japan bet that they wouldn't have an earthquake over, what, 7.8? I forget what the nuclear plants were engineered to withstand. Life is risk management. I agree with others, though, that the TSA should know, to a reasonably high degree of certainty, what the maximum dose of radiation will be from any given scan. But what can you expect from an organization that judges success by the number of water bottles and nail clippers confiscated...
swaits 16y ago
We will let you test that theory out. Certainly you don't have a problem with someone else, perhaps more cancer prone and risk averse than you, opting out. Right?
- georgieporgie 16y ago
  Opting out is absolutely fine. I am in no way supporting these stupid backscatter machines. The only thing that will get rid of them is public outrage, and that is never, in my experience, rational.
stcredzero 16y ago
I take exception here. The geometry of exposure is completely different. This is designed to deposit energy near the surface of your body. All of the numbers we have put together for cancer exposure risk are based on data concerning higher energy radiation that tends to pass through you and deposit energy throughout your body. This is why the skin -- which is cancer prone because it's continually replacing cells -- has lower multipliers for risk in those models. The data we have -- the data used in the model used to conclude this stuff is safe -- is for the wrong geometry. Please, no "spherical cow" assumptions when it comes to my health. Zap a bunch of little furry creatures with the same equipment, then I'll feel safe.

ck2 16y ago

This is so last year's question for the TSA. The new question is why the mainstream press isn't repeatedly asking the TSA why they are suddenly appearing in train and bus stations as well as randomly shutting down bridges for car searches? It's happened often yet few know about it.

InclinedPlane 16y ago
Because the only thing separating the vast majority of the mainstream media from tabloid journalism is mere perception and production value?
- ck2 16y ago
  I would only add the qualifier "currently" to your question. Because a decade ago NY Times and CNN were actually paying for real reporters to go into the field and research things. Now they've become popculture pushers, anything just to get eyeballs on their websites, though the NY Times still has some good pieces. CNN is long past gone however.
  - InclinedPlane 16y ago
    Even a decade ago, or 4 decades ago, I think there was a lot wrong with mainstream media. The disruption the internet is causing is revealing a lot of these problems more than actually causing them.