7 ms·
Comment Period for TSA Proposed Nude Body Scanner Rule Ends; 97% Opposed
- tsaoutourpants 13y agoHappy to report this major victory to you guys. The TSA for years has cited badly worded and poorly conducted opinion polls to show that America is ambivalent towards the nude body scanners and pat-downs. This is a clear blow to any argument of a public mandate.
- krichman 13y agoBut they aren't going to remove them because wealthy people with connections have a vested interest in selling Rapiscanners to airports.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoThanks for posting the link to their webpage in here Sunday. I don't want to miss any chance to fling poo at the TSA. edit: FYI, My comment hasn't appeared yet. When I submitted it, the form had a notice that comments were subject to moderation and that it may take (a few days?).
- danielweber 13y agoA "badly worded and poorly conducted opinion poll" is surely more scientific than a call-in survey triggered by outraged groups.
- jrockway 13y agoWhy are we outraged about the body scanners, again? They don't show the TSA agents any pictures of you, just "yes" or "no". They don't delay lines anymore, either, you step in, the thing spins around, you step out, and in like 2 seconds, you get the "yes" or "no". (There were reasonable complaints about backscatter x-ray machines, but those are gone now and only millimeter-wave units are in airports. So there's no nudity and no ionizing radiation anymore.) I dunno, I'm just not outraged. The machines seem pretty nice, to be perfectly honest.
- lukifer 13y agoI'm deeply skeptical about any procedure involving radiation that isn't a medical necessity, even though I'm sure the vendors have commissioned plenty of studies to support their alleged safety. (It's telling that they don't make pilots and employees go through the scanners daily.) I already get enough naturally-occurring radiation by living high above sea level.
- wl 13y agoYour objection applied to the backscatter X-ray machines that are no longer in use. It doesn't apply to the millimeter wave machines, which do not expose passengers to any ionizing radiation.
- lukifer 13y agoDo you have a link that describes the exact difference? I'm still skeptical/squicked about these machines by reflex, but I'm willing to re-examine the issue.
- SamReidHughes 13y agoThe radiation frequency is different.
- cheald 13y agoWikipedia's a good start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millimeter_wave_scanner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millimeter_wave_scanner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum Basically, millimeter wave radiation is ~6 orders of magnitude less energetic than x-rays and is non-ionizing (that is, it doesn't have the energy to knock electrons out of atoms). Ionizing radiation is the nasty stuff, and is what causes DNA damage - non-ionizing is generally safe, and includes things like light and radio waves.
- lukifer 13y ago
- bulatb 13y agoThe headline seems to be misleading: it's 97% of the last 100 comments.
- michool 13y agoWhatever the rationale for body scanners they aren't an effective means to detect explosives for the simple reason that they don't see inside the body. There are already plenty of cases, in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan to name two, of bombers hiding explosives in their anal canal.
- jmadsen 13y agoThere are so many potential jokes about the 3%, I can't even think where to start