7 ms·

TSA's X-Ray Nude Body Scanners Output 50% More Radiation Than Admitted to by TSA

160 points by tsaoutourpants 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- tsaoutourpants 12y ago
  On the plus side, I get a lot of hits from people looking for porn who instead get news. :) [Edit -- Comment above, now deleted, suggested that using "nude" in the title will result in fewer hits because of Web filters.]
autism_hurts 12y ago
Opt out. Just opt out, every single time. I've flown every month this year, sometimes multiple times. I opt out every single time. More irritating is the randomness of metal detectors vs. scanners. It's the luck of the draw.
- tsaoutourpants 12y ago
  Opting out is the easiest way to protest these machines. Just tell the person running the machine, "I opt out!" before entering it, and they will pat you down instead of using the scanners. Considering the false-positive rate of the scanners, you may get pat down anyway, so might as well protest and skip the dose.
- sitkack 12y ago
  Funny thing is, when you opt-out, they don't send you through the metal detector. Or even wand one down with a metal detector. Whole thing is a farce.
- cjensen 12y ago
  My pet peeve: when you opt out, they say "please stand right next the machine for a few minutes while we get somebody."
  - pavel_lishin 12y ago
    "MALE OPT OUT!" And then you get to watch the employees' form of protest as they chit chat for a few minutes before heading over to fetch you.
    - practicalpants 12y ago
      Yep, I have never not waited at least a few minutes for someone to come over and pat me down. Once I waited 10 minutes at SFO, and I had to ask the same TSA agent who was nearby multiple times to get someone. I was in fear the whole time that my laptop, just waiting around on the other side of the conveyor belt, might disappear.
  - mindslight 12y ago
    If you're opting out, you're already not blindly following their orders. So why would you stand right next to the machine just because they said so? I make sure to stand a comfortable distance away, and if harassed I tell them that's as close as I'm comfortable with. It also seems to cause a bit of confusion to the lemmings going through the microwave^wmilliwave, who feel bad about cutting in front of me. I also wouldn't be surprised if that turbulence causes the molester to arrive quicker than they would otherwise.
- ddelphin 12y ago
  Random? What are you talking about? You've never seen that amazing iPad app that the TSA officers use to tell you which line to get in? You know... the one where they tap on the screen and a large arrow tells them whether to send you to the left or right? And for which they probably paid tens of thousands of dollars (maybe more) to have built? Wish I had gotten that contract! :-p
  - saryant 12y ago
    That just picks whether or not you get PreCheck if you weren't already on the list. It doesn't necessarily determine if you're in a metal detector or MMW line (though PreCheck lines only have metal detectors).
- jff 12y ago
  I opt out whenever I can, but not because I'm afraid of radiation--I just don't think the new scanners are necessary or useful.
  - mindslight 12y ago
    And therein lies the rub. When rule by science is declared to be just, it leaves those trying to preserve autonomy ultimately at odds with science. (As well as corrupting science by people seeking power) It bothers me to play on fears about radiation and sexual paranoia to get people to see that government interests diverge from theirs, and that perhaps maybe there is something wrong about eg deploying these ridiculous scanners. But whenever I try the ideological approach, people resist applying abstract concepts to judge the concrete situation. Either they have little experience doing so, or the more erudite have merely used their intelligence to internalize all the flimsy justifications that, by common law, have destroyed any basis of this government's original charter. I guess the analog of my initial observation applies to rule by the masses (with respect to rationalism) as well so, at least for this topic, hysteria it is.
- Steuard 12y ago
  I've finally given up on opting out, or perhaps I should frame it as finally declaring a partial victory and moving on. I still think the scanners are a huge waste of money and time, but they've gotten better. The x-ray versions are gone (and with them any small chance of dangerous radiation exposure). And I'm told that they no longer show your naked body to agents, but rather a generic outline that labels potential objects of concern. So the things about them that I've felt had the potential for a direct negative impact on me personally are mostly in the past. Because of that, the last time I flew, it struck me that opting out was purely a political protest, and that the only effect it was likely to have was to make things flow a little bit less smoothly for all the other poor folks standing in the long line behind me. I just didn't see the payoff anymore. So for the first time, I went through the blasted machine. They did a quick patdown anyway, but I guess that's par for the course. I wish I knew a way to take an effective stand against this system. But I've ceased to believe that opting out is it.
  - DanielStraight 12y ago
    Actually, the agents don't see anything unless the machine detects a "potential threat item", then they see the generic outline. See: http://www.tsa.gov/ait-how-it-works http://www.tsa.gov/ait-how-it-works
  - _up 12y ago
    I have no doubt that the NSA stores all the naked pictures. The data is far to valuable.
  - jghn 12y ago
    One could argue that making things flow a little bit less smoothly is a positive effect in and of itself. If the powers that be see that they're getting no actual security and snarling lines perhaps they'll come to their senses. Ok, probably not, but still ...
  - JadeNB 12y ago
    > the only effect it was likely to have was to make things flow a little bit less smoothly for all the other poor folks standing in the long line behind me. Why should it have this effect? When I opt out, they have me stand in a little area off to the side until a scanner is ready for me. I don't hold up the line, and, as far as I know, most people don't even notice that anything is happening (except that some wonder curiously why I am electing to stand around, apparently for recreation, without belt or shoes).
- clairity 12y ago
  yay for opting out! wish everyone would opt out... i look at it like getting a mini-massage to relieve the stress of going through all that security theater. i read somewhere that if we were serious about security, we'd be better off hiring a couple dozen sniffer dogs per airport and letting people walk right through, but the tsa looks to me more like a national jobs program than a security force (which is fine if it didn't make travel such a hassle).
  - joshfraser 12y ago
    I've flown in New Zealand where you don't need to talk to anyone or go through even a metal detector before boarding. I felt safer and happier than flying in the US.
    - JadeNB 12y ago
      > I felt safer and happier than flying in the US. I agree with your main point, and am sorry to nit-pick, but I think that it's important: how you feel doesn't, and shouldn't, have any effect on the policy. In fact, the whole phrase 'security theatre' describes precisely the phenomenon of making (easily mollified) people feel secure instead of being secure. I am not at all saying that you are in this boat (it sounds like you're not), only that I think the word choice is very important.
      - joshfraser 12y ago
        I 100% agree that my feelings should be irrelevant to security policies. But the precautions taken by the TSA are completely disproportionate to the amount of risk we face while flying. It's a total joke to say that it's anything but "security theatre". That feeling of security is really all we're buying with all that money and inconvenience.
        JadeNB 12y ago
        I agree; but what I meant here was that praising a different set-up for making you feel more secure risks implicitly suggesting that this feeling is the goal (rather than at best a pleasant by-product), thus playing into the whole security-theatre game.
- dangoor 12y ago
  I signed up for Global Entry with the Customs and Border Patrol and it definitely makes things faster and I don't have to go through the millimeter wave machines (just the traditional metal detector).
- HelloMcFly 12y ago
  I don't even see the X-Ray machines anywhere these days. Where do they still have them? I only see the other kind, the millimeter wave or whatever they are.
- DanBC 12y ago
  That woman, who had a letter from the TSA saying that breast milk didn't need to go through the xray scanner, didn't have a fun time when she asked for her breast milk to not be xrayed. http://rt.com/usa/154672-tsa-breast-milk-settlement/ http://rt.com/usa/154672-tsa-breast-milk-settlement/ But she did get a settlement and so -if you have the time and know your rigts and can keep calm[1]- it might be a good idea to opt out. [1] calm because otherwise tasers or guns.
ben0x539 12y ago
150% of "not worth mentioning" is still not worth mentioning.
- ben0x539 12y ago
  tho they probably mean 100% more, I'm confused
DanielStraight 12y ago
So apparently the TSA says: "Each full body scan produces less than 10 microrem of emission, the equivalent to the exposure each person receives in about 2 minutes of airplane flight at altitude." And the author says the dose is really 14.76 microrem, but doesn't dispute the equivalence to flight time. So really it's equivalent to 3 minutes of flight, not just 2. 50% of trivial is still trivial. Oh, and the author says that the margin of error on these measurements is large. So perhaps the TSA didn't lie at all, they just measured 10 microrem. Even if the margin of error is 1000% the result is still trivial. So... basically this is non-news about a technology which isn't even in use anymore. The TSA now uses millimeter wave technology as the author is aware ("these backscatter x-rays are decommissioned and sitting in a warehouse"). There are a lot of good reasons to be concerned about the TSA's use of imaging technology. This is not one of them.
- astrodust 12y ago
  I'm just concerned a wildly mis-calibrated machine might output 10 millirem of radiation and nobody would notice. Considering how oblivious some companies are to the difference between $0.02 and 0.02 cents, milli and micro might be way beyond the ability of some TSA technicians to understand.
  - DanielStraight 12y ago
    ...because then the dose would be equivalent to about a day of natural background radiation. I think "nobody would notice" is a pretty accurate description of what would happen in that case.
  - IvyMike 12y ago
    That was my concern, too. There's a precedent for a radiation-emitting machine failing in a very bad way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 Of course these new machines cannot fail the exact same way as the Therac 25. But could they fail in a new, unpredicted way? I dunno. I am not familiar enough with how the backscatter machines are implemented to be able to predict how they could fail. But I maintain neither are most of the people who defend these machines as safe.
kolev 12y ago
I've always opted out, but they (on purpose?) make you wait and get nervous about your belongings. Sometimes I've waited 15 minutes for the pad down guy to show up and my stuff was unattended all this time.
- tfe 12y ago
  I always hold my stuff up before it enters the scanner; this serves the dual purpose of making it harder to ignore my request and keeping my bags safer. Usually they'll then ask you to hold your belongings outside the line or put them on a shelf somewhere in eyesight.
  - kolev 12y ago
    I've never been allowed to. They always make me run them thru the X-Ray and wait in the separate line until the guy shows up... which varied between 5 and 15 minutes. Then the guy usually shows up and starts making faces and keeps reciting the rules. I told him: I'm in a hurry, I agree, I've heard this a million times already, but, no, he needs to repeat the same thing over and over again.
    - tfe 12y ago
      I'd be interested to hear their response if you said "I prefer to keep my belongings with me until I can go through with them." In fact, on occasion I've had them insist on me keeping my belongings outside the scanner. I wonder if it's a liability for them to have them back there where I can't monitor them. After all, the screenings are always conducted with your luggage in eyesight.
      - kolev 12y ago
        I will try harder next time.
  - r00fus 12y ago
    This gets much harder if you have a family and all want to opt out. Of course, a crying or annoyed kid usually provides sufficient motivation to TSA to not keep you waiting as long as you stay courteous (as much as possible given the conditions).
mark_l_watson 12y ago
I don't want to get too down on the TSA corporation since their public facing staff have always been polite and pleasant enough to interact with. I always opt out, so I have to get searched, but they are polite about it. That said, I don't like it that TSA staff don't wear radiation badges, at least I haven't noticed any. One lady working for TSA, at the backscatter device, was very pregnant and I wondered about the radiation hazard for her, if any.
- tsaoutourpants 12y ago
  They're actually prohibited from wearing dosimeters... imagine that...
  - smtddr 12y ago
    To add to this reply... http://blog.tsa.gov/2011/06/tsa-cancer-cluster-myth-buster.html http://blog.tsa.gov/2011/06/tsa-cancer-cluster-myth-buster.h... Q: Why aren’t your officers permitted to wear dosimeters? A: There is a really good reason for this. The emissions from our X-ray technology are well below the requirements that would require their routine usage. To help reassure passengers and employees that the technology is safe, however, health physicists with the U.S. Army have been conducting area dosimeter surveys at multiple airports nationwide. Sounds like nonsense to me... at the least, I'd like to see the resulting data from those surveys posted online and kept up to date so the public can see it.
    - fleitz 12y ago
      The entire thing is theatre so why wouldn't they keep up the theatre. The funny thing is most of the fear stems from TSA style non-sense that has people freaked out about radiation. Everyone worries about dirty bombs, and TSA x-rays, fukushima, no one about the thorium / uranium released from burning coal.
    - zorpner 12y ago
      This is insultingly nonsensical from the TSA. The reason they list might be a reason not to require dosimeters, but it's certainly not a good reson to prohibit it. And it's not a good reason not to require it, either, since the purpose of dosimeters is not just to measure radiation accumulated by an operator, but as part of the alert system for a malfunctioning device.
uptown 12y ago
I opt out every time, but I'd hate to be one of the TSA employees standing next to these machines day-in and day-out for hours on end.
jstalin 12y ago
I travel a lot and I haven't seen these machines in a while. I thought they were all phased out in favor of the radio-wave types. Regardless, I always opt out too.
- pdonis 12y ago
  > I thought they were all phased out in favor of the radio-wave types. They are.
bnolsen 12y ago
The bigger problem are the TSA agents operating the scanners. They are constantly getting exposed to these machines during their workshift. I think that's the biggest upcoming "disaster" surrounding these lame ineffective scanners.
tedchs 12y ago
The "body scanners" do not use X-rays. They use millimeter waves, which are totally different. Most importantly, millimeter waves are non-ionizing and therefore safe, unlike X-rays.
crystaln 12y ago
Unworthy of hacker news: - Inflammatory headline irrelevant to content ("Nude" Body Scanners) - 50% more than an insignificant amount of radiation is still insignificant, and likely difficult to measure precisely. The idea that the TSA would "lie" about this is silly. - I'm not a fan of the TSA, however inflammatory articles are not what I look for on HN.

160 points by tsaoutourpants 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

tsaoutourpants 12y ago
On the plus side, I get a lot of hits from people looking for porn who instead get news. :) [Edit -- Comment above, now deleted, suggested that using "nude" in the title will result in fewer hits because of Web filters.]

autism_hurts 12y ago

Opt out. Just opt out, every single time. I've flown every month this year, sometimes multiple times. I opt out every single time. More irritating is the randomness of metal detectors vs. scanners. It's the luck of the draw.

tsaoutourpants 12y ago
Opting out is the easiest way to protest these machines. Just tell the person running the machine, "I opt out!" before entering it, and they will pat you down instead of using the scanners. Considering the false-positive rate of the scanners, you may get pat down anyway, so might as well protest and skip the dose.
sitkack 12y ago
Funny thing is, when you opt-out, they don't send you through the metal detector. Or even wand one down with a metal detector. Whole thing is a farce.
cjensen 12y ago
My pet peeve: when you opt out, they say "please stand right next the machine for a few minutes while we get somebody."
- pavel_lishin 12y ago
  "MALE OPT OUT!" And then you get to watch the employees' form of protest as they chit chat for a few minutes before heading over to fetch you.
  - practicalpants 12y ago
    Yep, I have never not waited at least a few minutes for someone to come over and pat me down. Once I waited 10 minutes at SFO, and I had to ask the same TSA agent who was nearby multiple times to get someone. I was in fear the whole time that my laptop, just waiting around on the other side of the conveyor belt, might disappear.
- mindslight 12y ago
  If you're opting out, you're already not blindly following their orders. So why would you stand right next to the machine just because they said so? I make sure to stand a comfortable distance away, and if harassed I tell them that's as close as I'm comfortable with. It also seems to cause a bit of confusion to the lemmings going through the microwave^wmilliwave, who feel bad about cutting in front of me. I also wouldn't be surprised if that turbulence causes the molester to arrive quicker than they would otherwise.
ddelphin 12y ago
Random? What are you talking about? You've never seen that amazing iPad app that the TSA officers use to tell you which line to get in? You know... the one where they tap on the screen and a large arrow tells them whether to send you to the left or right? And for which they probably paid tens of thousands of dollars (maybe more) to have built? Wish I had gotten that contract! :-p
- saryant 12y ago
  That just picks whether or not you get PreCheck if you weren't already on the list. It doesn't necessarily determine if you're in a metal detector or MMW line (though PreCheck lines only have metal detectors).
jff 12y ago
I opt out whenever I can, but not because I'm afraid of radiation--I just don't think the new scanners are necessary or useful.
- mindslight 12y ago
  And therein lies the rub. When rule by science is declared to be just, it leaves those trying to preserve autonomy ultimately at odds with science. (As well as corrupting science by people seeking power) It bothers me to play on fears about radiation and sexual paranoia to get people to see that government interests diverge from theirs, and that perhaps maybe there is something wrong about eg deploying these ridiculous scanners. But whenever I try the ideological approach, people resist applying abstract concepts to judge the concrete situation. Either they have little experience doing so, or the more erudite have merely used their intelligence to internalize all the flimsy justifications that, by common law, have destroyed any basis of this government's original charter. I guess the analog of my initial observation applies to rule by the masses (with respect to rationalism) as well so, at least for this topic, hysteria it is.
Steuard 12y ago
I've finally given up on opting out, or perhaps I should frame it as finally declaring a partial victory and moving on. I still think the scanners are a huge waste of money and time, but they've gotten better. The x-ray versions are gone (and with them any small chance of dangerous radiation exposure). And I'm told that they no longer show your naked body to agents, but rather a generic outline that labels potential objects of concern. So the things about them that I've felt had the potential for a direct negative impact on me personally are mostly in the past. Because of that, the last time I flew, it struck me that opting out was purely a political protest, and that the only effect it was likely to have was to make things flow a little bit less smoothly for all the other poor folks standing in the long line behind me. I just didn't see the payoff anymore. So for the first time, I went through the blasted machine. They did a quick patdown anyway, but I guess that's par for the course. I wish I knew a way to take an effective stand against this system. But I've ceased to believe that opting out is it.
- DanielStraight 12y ago
  Actually, the agents don't see anything unless the machine detects a "potential threat item", then they see the generic outline. See: http://www.tsa.gov/ait-how-it-works http://www.tsa.gov/ait-how-it-works
- _up 12y ago
  I have no doubt that the NSA stores all the naked pictures. The data is far to valuable.
- jghn 12y ago
  One could argue that making things flow a little bit less smoothly is a positive effect in and of itself. If the powers that be see that they're getting no actual security and snarling lines perhaps they'll come to their senses. Ok, probably not, but still ...
- JadeNB 12y ago
  > the only effect it was likely to have was to make things flow a little bit less smoothly for all the other poor folks standing in the long line behind me. Why should it have this effect? When I opt out, they have me stand in a little area off to the side until a scanner is ready for me. I don't hold up the line, and, as far as I know, most people don't even notice that anything is happening (except that some wonder curiously why I am electing to stand around, apparently for recreation, without belt or shoes).
clairity 12y ago
yay for opting out! wish everyone would opt out... i look at it like getting a mini-massage to relieve the stress of going through all that security theater. i read somewhere that if we were serious about security, we'd be better off hiring a couple dozen sniffer dogs per airport and letting people walk right through, but the tsa looks to me more like a national jobs program than a security force (which is fine if it didn't make travel such a hassle).
- joshfraser 12y ago
  I've flown in New Zealand where you don't need to talk to anyone or go through even a metal detector before boarding. I felt safer and happier than flying in the US.
  - JadeNB 12y ago
    > I felt safer and happier than flying in the US. I agree with your main point, and am sorry to nit-pick, but I think that it's important: how you feel doesn't, and shouldn't, have any effect on the policy. In fact, the whole phrase 'security theatre' describes precisely the phenomenon of making (easily mollified) people feel secure instead of being secure. I am not at all saying that you are in this boat (it sounds like you're not), only that I think the word choice is very important.
    - joshfraser 12y ago
      I 100% agree that my feelings should be irrelevant to security policies. But the precautions taken by the TSA are completely disproportionate to the amount of risk we face while flying. It's a total joke to say that it's anything but "security theatre". That feeling of security is really all we're buying with all that money and inconvenience.
      - JadeNB 12y ago
        I agree; but what I meant here was that praising a different set-up for making you feel more secure risks implicitly suggesting that this feeling is the goal (rather than at best a pleasant by-product), thus playing into the whole security-theatre game.
dangoor 12y ago
I signed up for Global Entry with the Customs and Border Patrol and it definitely makes things faster and I don't have to go through the millimeter wave machines (just the traditional metal detector).
HelloMcFly 12y ago
I don't even see the X-Ray machines anywhere these days. Where do they still have them? I only see the other kind, the millimeter wave or whatever they are.
DanBC 12y ago
That woman, who had a letter from the TSA saying that breast milk didn't need to go through the xray scanner, didn't have a fun time when she asked for her breast milk to not be xrayed. http://rt.com/usa/154672-tsa-breast-milk-settlement/ http://rt.com/usa/154672-tsa-breast-milk-settlement/ But she did get a settlement and so -if you have the time and know your rigts and can keep calm[1]- it might be a good idea to opt out. [1] calm because otherwise tasers or guns.

ben0x539 12y ago

150% of "not worth mentioning" is still not worth mentioning.

ben0x539 12y ago
tho they probably mean 100% more, I'm confused

DanielStraight 12y ago

So apparently the TSA says: "Each full body scan produces less than 10 microrem of emission, the equivalent to the exposure each person receives in about 2 minutes of airplane flight at altitude." And the author says the dose is really 14.76 microrem, but doesn't dispute the equivalence to flight time. So really it's equivalent to 3 minutes of flight, not just 2. 50% of trivial is still trivial. Oh, and the author says that the margin of error on these measurements is large. So perhaps the TSA didn't lie at all, they just measured 10 microrem. Even if the margin of error is 1000% the result is still trivial. So... basically this is non-news about a technology which isn't even in use anymore. The TSA now uses millimeter wave technology as the author is aware ("these backscatter x-rays are decommissioned and sitting in a warehouse"). There are a lot of good reasons to be concerned about the TSA's use of imaging technology. This is not one of them.

astrodust 12y ago
I'm just concerned a wildly mis-calibrated machine might output 10 millirem of radiation and nobody would notice. Considering how oblivious some companies are to the difference between $0.02 and 0.02 cents, milli and micro might be way beyond the ability of some TSA technicians to understand.
- DanielStraight 12y ago
  ...because then the dose would be equivalent to about a day of natural background radiation. I think "nobody would notice" is a pretty accurate description of what would happen in that case.
- IvyMike 12y ago
  That was my concern, too. There's a precedent for a radiation-emitting machine failing in a very bad way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 Of course these new machines cannot fail the exact same way as the Therac 25. But could they fail in a new, unpredicted way? I dunno. I am not familiar enough with how the backscatter machines are implemented to be able to predict how they could fail. But I maintain neither are most of the people who defend these machines as safe.

kolev 12y ago

I've always opted out, but they (on purpose?) make you wait and get nervous about your belongings. Sometimes I've waited 15 minutes for the pad down guy to show up and my stuff was unattended all this time.

tfe 12y ago
I always hold my stuff up before it enters the scanner; this serves the dual purpose of making it harder to ignore my request and keeping my bags safer. Usually they'll then ask you to hold your belongings outside the line or put them on a shelf somewhere in eyesight.
- kolev 12y ago
  I've never been allowed to. They always make me run them thru the X-Ray and wait in the separate line until the guy shows up... which varied between 5 and 15 minutes. Then the guy usually shows up and starts making faces and keeps reciting the rules. I told him: I'm in a hurry, I agree, I've heard this a million times already, but, no, he needs to repeat the same thing over and over again.
  - tfe 12y ago
    I'd be interested to hear their response if you said "I prefer to keep my belongings with me until I can go through with them." In fact, on occasion I've had them insist on me keeping my belongings outside the scanner. I wonder if it's a liability for them to have them back there where I can't monitor them. After all, the screenings are always conducted with your luggage in eyesight.
    - kolev 12y ago
      I will try harder next time.
- r00fus 12y ago
  This gets much harder if you have a family and all want to opt out. Of course, a crying or annoyed kid usually provides sufficient motivation to TSA to not keep you waiting as long as you stay courteous (as much as possible given the conditions).

mark_l_watson 12y ago

I don't want to get too down on the TSA corporation since their public facing staff have always been polite and pleasant enough to interact with. I always opt out, so I have to get searched, but they are polite about it. That said, I don't like it that TSA staff don't wear radiation badges, at least I haven't noticed any. One lady working for TSA, at the backscatter device, was very pregnant and I wondered about the radiation hazard for her, if any.

tsaoutourpants 12y ago
They're actually prohibited from wearing dosimeters... imagine that...
- smtddr 12y ago
  To add to this reply... http://blog.tsa.gov/2011/06/tsa-cancer-cluster-myth-buster.html http://blog.tsa.gov/2011/06/tsa-cancer-cluster-myth-buster.h... Q: Why aren’t your officers permitted to wear dosimeters? A: There is a really good reason for this. The emissions from our X-ray technology are well below the requirements that would require their routine usage. To help reassure passengers and employees that the technology is safe, however, health physicists with the U.S. Army have been conducting area dosimeter surveys at multiple airports nationwide. Sounds like nonsense to me... at the least, I'd like to see the resulting data from those surveys posted online and kept up to date so the public can see it.
  - fleitz 12y ago
    The entire thing is theatre so why wouldn't they keep up the theatre. The funny thing is most of the fear stems from TSA style non-sense that has people freaked out about radiation. Everyone worries about dirty bombs, and TSA x-rays, fukushima, no one about the thorium / uranium released from burning coal.
  - zorpner 12y ago
    This is insultingly nonsensical from the TSA. The reason they list might be a reason not to require dosimeters, but it's certainly not a good reson to prohibit it. And it's not a good reason not to require it, either, since the purpose of dosimeters is not just to measure radiation accumulated by an operator, but as part of the alert system for a malfunctioning device.

uptown 12y ago

I opt out every time, but I'd hate to be one of the TSA employees standing next to these machines day-in and day-out for hours on end.

jstalin 12y ago

I travel a lot and I haven't seen these machines in a while. I thought they were all phased out in favor of the radio-wave types. Regardless, I always opt out too.

pdonis 12y ago
> I thought they were all phased out in favor of the radio-wave types. They are.

bnolsen 12y ago

The bigger problem are the TSA agents operating the scanners. They are constantly getting exposed to these machines during their workshift. I think that's the biggest upcoming "disaster" surrounding these lame ineffective scanners.

tedchs 12y ago

The "body scanners" do not use X-rays. They use millimeter waves, which are totally different. Most importantly, millimeter waves are non-ionizing and therefore safe, unlike X-rays.

crystaln 12y ago

Unworthy of hacker news: - Inflammatory headline irrelevant to content ("Nude" Body Scanners) - 50% more than an insignificant amount of radiation is still insignificant, and likely difficult to measure precisely. The idea that the TSA would "lie" about this is silly. - I'm not a fan of the TSA, however inflammatory articles are not what I look for on HN.