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Full body scanners at the airport


PeteyNice

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Has anyone had to go through them yet? They tried to get me to go through one at Atlanta airport yesterday. The TSA guy asked me why I was refusing I called it a death box. He said loudly that it was not a death box and was not happy when the next guy also said he wouldn't go through the death box.

It was also amusing because he was telling me how fast the machine was and it kept not working while I was being screened.

Anyway, just curious what others here think of these things? I think it is clear from this post that I will always refuse.

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I fly a plethora of times, and only on one occasion did I get asked to go for further screening. This was at EWR and I had no objections, not knowing what the extra screening even was. I was walked through that scanner, and my bags were searched thoroughly. Now I have no problem with them taking their jobs serious, as they should.

So I go into the terminal have a few drinks, and decide to go smoke a cigarette.

I still hate it that Newark doesn't have a smoking lounge or anywhere you can smoke without having to leave the terminal and go through the screening again. Denver airport has a nice bar/restaurant in which you can puff away while being able to see when your plane is boarding.

Anways, so on my way back in I had to go through the screening again, and once again they make me go through extra screening(body scanner) I just thought that was weird being like I said I have flown a lot of times and never had to go through extra screening, and on one day I have to go through it twice. I had no clue that they could actually see you naked through the scanners, I didn't realize that till a few years ago when they showed it on the news and said what they can see.

I am personally all for them. Is it weird, absolutely, but if it can prevent a disaster why not take the extra 2 min and be safe. Sorry for the long drawn out story!

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Has anyone had to go through them yet? They tried to get me to go through one at Atlanta airport yesterday. The TSA guy asked me why I was refusing I called it a death box. He said loudly that it was not a death box and was not happy when the next guy also said he wouldn't go through the death box.

It was also amusing because he was telling me how fast the machine was and it kept not working while I was being screened.

Anyway, just curious what others here think of these things? I think it is clear from this post that I will always refuse.

Walking through one of these things ONCE is around the equivolent of several years of background radiation. So the experts say. On the other hand, I wonder how many people bitching about this are more apt to get cancer from smoking/drinking/cleaning solvents/detergents/fuels/exhaust and just about any other form of pollutant one comes in contact with high regularity.

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Walking through one of these things ONCE is around the equivolent of several years of background radiation. So the experts say. On the other hand, I wonder how many people bitching about this are more apt to get cancer from smoking/drinking/cleaning solvents/detergents/fuels/exhaust and just about any other form of pollutant one comes in contact with high regularity.

I was almost ready to start being outraged at this, but I smoke cigarettes so I can't really say anything.

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Has anyone had to go through them yet? They tried to get me to go through one at Atlanta airport yesterday. The TSA guy asked me why I was refusing I called it a death box. He said loudly that it was not a death box and was not happy when the next guy also said he wouldn't go through the death box.

It was also amusing because he was telling me how fast the machine was and it kept not working while I was being screened.

Anyway, just curious what others here think of these things? I think it is clear from this post that I will always refuse.

So how did they search you since you refused?

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+1

But seriously, these things really deliver THAT much radiation?

Yeah, they do.

In fact, the poor TSA fools who run the machines will likely be dying in about 5-10 years as there is "backscatter".

What is worse, is that Homeland Security has these scanners in panel truck vans, that can randomly scan you while in your car and you wont even know you are getting dosed.

http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2010/08/24/full-body-scan-technology-deployed-in-street-roving-vans/

Edited by ungar
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Anyone have any proof about the danger these things pose?

Bear in mind that the makers of this technology have hired researchers and journalists to attest to it's safety, a lot like the tobacco companies did for generations.

Also, when RADAR was first invented, the operators were unprotected from the backscattter and many died a few years later.

The firing of ionizing radiation at the body effectively "unzips" DNA, according to scientific research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The research shows that even very low doses of X-ray can delay or prevent cellular repair of damaged DNA, yet pregnant women and children will be subjected to the process as new guidelines including scanners are adopted.

The Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety concluded in their report on the matter that governments must justify the use of the scanners and that a more accurate assessment of the health risks is needed.

Pregnant women and children should not be subject to scanning, according to the report, adding that governments should consider “other techniques to achieve the same end without the use of ionizing radiation.”

“The Committee cited the IAEA’s 1996 Basic Safety Standards agreement, drafted over three decades, that protects people from radiation. Frequent exposure to low doses of radiation can lead to cancer and birth defects, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,” reported Bloomberg.

Scientists at Columbia University also entered the debate recently, warning that the dose emitted by the naked x-ray devices could be up to 20 times higher than originally estimated, likely contributing to an increase in a common type of skin cancer called basal cell carcinoma which affects the head and neck.

Here are a couple articles that discuss the health issues of x-ray radiation exposure from these machines:

http://preventdisease.com/news/10/020510_body_scanners_increase_cancer_risk.shtml

http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/naked-scanners-may-increase-cancer-risk/story-e6frfq80-1225868706270

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/health-risks-of-full-body-scanners-questioned-following-report/19346813/

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They gave me a pat down, swabbed my socks and ran it through a machine of some kind. It took 2 minutes.

Good to know you can refuse to go threw. What happens if they start mandating that you must go threw these things?

btw it is really a big joke that airport security makes you go threw all these hoops but yet at MSG, with 18,000 people in it that there is ZERO checking going on. They don't even pat you down, not even in the winter, so people with big coats and what not just walk straight into the garden. I'm more scared about going to the garden then I am about flying.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think I'll just volunteer to take off all my clothes.

In August I was flying with my mother to Chicago for a family thing. She had a hip replacement in January, so they did the almost invasive pat-down on an 82 year old lady. ridiculous.

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  • 4 weeks later...

For the drama queens in all of us... not sure where the notion of large amounts of radiation came from....

Every two minutes, airplane passengers flying at 30,000 feet receive 10 millirems of radiation, says the McLean, Va.-based Health Physics Society.

A rem - which stands for Roentgen Equivalent Man - is a unit of measure for studying radiation dosage in human tissues.

The radiation exposure level from one type of airport scanner, at 3 millirems, is less than one-third of the radiation delivered by just two minutes of flying. The other scanner type gives off no radiation energy.

While a CT scan of the head would deliver 200,000 microrems of radiation, doctors frequently believe the risk of using them is greatly outweighed by the benefit. Similarly, a chest X-ray delivers 10,000 microrems.

http://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/sanbernardinocounty/ci_16729193

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Simple Solution: Profiling

Oh wait, we cannot do that because we are too PC of a society to do this. Bring on the patting down of the grandma's and toddlers!

America makes me sick. Body scanners are cool though and if there is a study that proves one thing, there is always a study to contradict that study. Way of life and at this moment I just do not care, just get me to my damn plane.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've traveled to Israel recently (and accordingly, Ben Gurion airport), it's non-invasive and very efficient and the Israeli's have one of the safest flight records in the world despite being as high (if not higher) of a target than the US. Even though Israel's international airports are relatively small compared to the major hubs that we have, we could learn a lot from them.

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