The Cheap Thrill-Airport Security Measures run Wild

[Keim]

They need a new slogan: Reach out and touch someone.

 

[RonBoyd]

Good. If you don't like what the TSA is doing let them know:
https://contact.tsa.dhs.gov/DynaForm.aspx?FormID=10

I did. Of course, now I'll probably be subject to the super duper enhanced pat-down.

They also have a fairly decent Blog at The TSA Blog. There is a lot of Public input -- and some (most?) not so complimentary -- so their skin is not that thin.

 

[harley]

They need a new slogan: Reach out and touch someone.

Here are a bunch of new slogans (ripped off from Reason.com)

 

[DoingHomework]

Can I file a sexually harrasment claim against a TSA employee if they touch me? Nah, didn't think so......

There are some lawyers on flyer talk forum that believe you can. A DA somewhere says he will file sexual battery charges against TSA officers if the local laws are violated. That includes unwanted touching outside clothes.

With videos of kids being stripped and search circulating I think the politicals winds are going to shift very fast.

 

[haha]

Be thankful for small dispensations

Transportation Security Administration Chief John Pistole Says No Body Cavity Searches

 

[clifp]

Thank goodness I'm not the only person who can do the math on this.

Here's a letter sent by members of the faculty of UCSF, a leading cancer research and treatment center:

I suspect the TSA is going to soon learn my internet 101 rule.
"The collective intelligent of the net on any subject exceeds any individual organization" Plus since this is TSA we are talking about and not say Google or Goldman Sachs this isn't even a close contest.

Here are some additional scary things the machines "deliver to the scalp 20 times the average dose that is typically quoted by TSA and throughout the industry.” The Congressman raising the alarm earlier in the year is no idiot with a PHd in Physics and the former assistant director of the Princeton Plasma physics lab. Evidently the initial biomedical panels recommendation was that TSA adjust the scanners so that the head and shoulder weren't part of the scanning. The TSA felt that adjusting the scanner to accommodate different heights would be too timing consuming so they aren't doing it.

So we combine the information Paquette posted and that was confirmed and amplified by UCSF letter and BTW one of the letter signers is a Nobel laureate that radiation doses are concentrated to the skin and the Comic ray comparison is a BS smokescreen.

Next we take the fact that TSA screens ~800 million people and the TSA agents are treating the scanner the same way they do the X-ray scanner for our handheld luggage. Namely that if they are unsure of the image they rescan. I think it is pretty clear to me the our government in the name of safety is subjecting us collectively to a 1+ billion dose of radiation which is absorb primarily by the skin around our brains.

When the controversy started, I thought this was just another example of classic expensive and stupid but ultimately benign government policies. I really had zero problems with walking through the scanners and was basically amused by the comedy. I realize that risk is still very low of cancer from being scanned but I now I genuinely concerned about the health aspects of additional 6-10 (average number of flights per year for me) doses of radiation the TSA subjecting me to.

Over the last 10 years 246 people were killed by terrorist acts (all on 9/11) on US commercial aircraft. Between the cockpit doors and the Flight 93 legacy I think the risk for airplanes being used as weapons is tiny.

I'll leave it to the nuclear engineers and doctors on the board who know way more than I do about this stuff to tell me what the health risks of 1 billion screenings are but I'd shocked if it wasn't more than 25 fatal cancers per year.

 

[BigNick]

Transportation Security Administration Chief John Pistole Says No Body Cavity Searches

Or to put it another way, TSA chief reveals to would-be terrorists just how far they have to go.

In other news, the USAF reveals exactly which missiles their latest fighter aircraft is vulnerable to, and the Secret Service announces that President Obama will be going for a walk with Michelle, with no bodyguards, on the White House lawn next Tuesday at 11am.

 

[ls99]

They need a new slogan: Reach out and touch someone.

I thought that was copyrighted by snipers.

 

[BigNick]

I'll leave it to the nuclear engineers and doctors on the board who know way more than I do about this stuff to tell me what the health risks of 1 billion screenings are but I'd shocked if it wasn't more than 25 fatal cancers per year.

A propos of nothing, I read many years ago - in a book! - that the odds of dying for a 60-year-old man are about one in a million every 15 minutes (just by being alive, plus his share of driving cars, flying in planes, jogging, etc, all the risky stuff that 60-year-olds do).

As I said, that's a propos of nothing. I suspect that both sides of the backscatter argument can use that to their advantage. Have at it.

 

[RonBoyd]

With videos of kids being stripped and search circulating

You do know that the father stripped the child (took his shirt off)... and in contradiction to the TSA don't you?

 

[Nords]

I'll leave it to the nuclear engineers and doctors on the board who know way more than I do about this stuff to tell me what the health risks of 1 billion screenings are but I'd shocked if it wasn't more than 25 fatal cancers per year.

We're going to have to get back to you later on that particular topic. Right now we're considering hiring the UCSF team to take another look at the effects of ionizing radiation from naval nuclear power plants-- and hey, M_Paquette, just how much stay time have you accumulated around the primary coolant sample sink? I'm beginning to have second thoughts about all those monitoring evolutions I so enthusiastically used to volunteer for.

Maybe instead of worrying about the radiation effects of their machines on our testicles, the TSA should have it the other way around. I just hope I don't find myself saying: "No, officer, I don't know why your very sensitive detector screen is glowing like that either!"

I will volunteer that at these low levels of radiation the UCSF & TSA guys need to consider the effects of clothing, and perhaps compare the TSA emitters to cell phones. Using enough power to see that something is strapped to your body is one thing. Using enough power to see where you have titanium staples inserted into various pieces of your anatomy is quite another.

 

[ls99]

Seems to me TSA should disclose to each [-]customer[/-] sucker who went through the machine, the number of times they scanned him/her and the total radiation dosage.

 

[Gumby]

Or to put it another way, TSA chief reveals to would-be terrorists just how far they have to go.

In other news, the USAF reveals exactly which missiles their latest fighter aircraft is vulnerable to, and the Secret Service announces that President Obama will be going for a walk with Michelle, with no bodyguards, on the White House lawn next Tuesday at 11am.

I'm sure Klaus Barbie said he was just protecting his countrymen against the terrorists.

In my view, there are worse things in life than terrorists -- like living in a police state. I agree with an earlier poster; our abject fear has made mockery of the "land of the free and the home of the brave."

 

[M Paquette]

We're going to have to get back to you later on that particular topic. Right now we're considering hiring the UCSF team to take another look at the effects of ionizing radiation from naval nuclear power plants-- and hey, M_Paquette, just how much stay time have you accumulated around the primary coolant sample sink? I'm beginning to have second thoughts about all those monitoring evolutions I so enthusiastically used to volunteer for.

Sample sink? Pbthttt. I'm more worried about all that time spent doing manual eddy current probes of the steam generator tubing. Gloves, anti-Cs, pressurized hood, dosimeter 'chips' on the fingertips, back of hands, forehead. How many people do you know that have stuck their arms and heads inside the primary coolant piping of a really old plant?

Given that, and that I just completed the now-annual pruning of my skin ("Bathe in Efudex? Really? Yeowch."), I'm now a little over-cautious of exposure. As in upsetting the poor dental tech who just wanted to update my x-rays.

 

[Nords]

Sample sink? Pbthttt. I'm more worried about all that time spent doing manual eddy current probes of the steam generator tubing. Gloves, anti-Cs, pressurized hood, dosimeter 'chips' on the fingertips, back of hands, forehead. How many people do you know that have stuck their arms and heads inside the primary coolant piping of a really old plant?

Are we talking "how many people total" or only the survivors? Just kidding. I knew some guys at the original S3G prototype in the 1980s but I thought they were just trying to scare us newbies.

I forgot from whence you came. I thought I had a cruddy plant, but you probably picked up more in one duty weekend than my 311 mrem lifetime. I hope we're not seeing full-page legal ads in the back of the submarine magazines in the next 30-40 years.

Given that, and that I just completed the now-annual pruning of my skin ("Bathe in Efudex? Really? Yeowch."), I'm now a little over-cautious of exposure. As in upsetting the poor dental tech who just wanted to update my x-rays.

Of course you're still below the federal lifetime limits, so no problem!

I wonder if we can ask the TSA for dosimeters before going through the scanner. That's probably just asking for a [-]smart-ass[/-] intrusive patdown.

I guess I'll recommend to my nuke-wannabe daughter that she ask a few pointed questions about general-area and RC after-shutdown radiation levels during her submarine cruise...

 

[brewer12345]

Considering how I feel about this, I would say it is only a matter of time before some TSA agent is looking for their teeth after "patriotically touching" a protective father's daughter (cue arrests, lawsuits, etc.). Gawd, I hope they kill this nonsense before I fly with the kids in February. If not, whenever I fly for business I plan on refusing the scanner. You want to pat down and pester someone who had to pass a background check to get their current job? Be my guest, I have all day.

 

[Gumby]

I'm now a little over-cautious of exposure. As in upsetting the poor dental tech who just wanted to update my x-rays.

I had a recent dentist visit where they were attempting to get xrays, but the computer would not cooperate. After the third try, I told the tech "as much as I just love radiation, perhaps I should come back another day when the computer works."

 

[M Paquette]

Of course you're still below the federal lifetime limits, so no problem!

Let's just say that where 10 CFR 20 says '1.25 rem per annual quarter, or 5.0 rem per year', they definitely went for the OR, and went for reduced limits for the other three quarters, based on the TLD on the belt. They also used that '50 rem to the skin or any extremity', which was why we had fingertip dosimeters.

I'm a bit leery of any further dosing, particularly when some $10/hour person whom I'm pretty sure hasn't even been through Intro to Health Physics is controlling my dosage. When I catch The Management telling stretchers about the dosage I become even more concerned.

So, if I am a TSA selectee, I'll be asking them to give the wiggly a jiggly. Maybe I'll toss in some sound effects...

 

[RustyShackleford]

I am curious if any of the several law-enforcement folk here can
comment on how the TSA "pat down" compares to the standard
"frisk" ? It is fairly common, is it not, for police in big
cities to do "stop and frisk" operations on persons they
believe are suspicious ? Seems like an interesting
constitutional question, especially in light of the recent
outrage over the TSA.

The most disturbing thing of all about this, to me, is that I'm hearing
that neither the machines nor the pat-down is effective against these
powdered explosives. And certainly not against the "body-cavity
bomb"; is there any good reason to think the terrorists, clearly
willing to die, would not resort to this ? Seems like a device, like
the one that's been used for awhile to detect trace explosive residue
in carry-on bags, is the only effective solution. And it wouldn't have
the issues of privacy or health effects either.

 

[RustyShackleford]

In my view, there are worse things in life than terrorists -- like living in a police state. I agree with an earlier poster; our abject fear has made mockery of the "land of the free and the home of the brave."

Good point. And for this reason I predict that the outrage will die out fast, and the "whatever it takes to keep us safe" sentiment will win the day.

That being said, a solution that does not have the negative issues of the pat-down/scanner thing - privacy, humiliation (real or perceived, and what's the difference ??), health effects from X-rays - should be sought. Like the chromatography machines to which I allude in the previous post.

 

[haha]

IAnd certainly not against the "body-cavity bomb"; is there any good reason to think the terrorists, clearly
willing to die, would not resort to this ? Seems like a device, like
the one that's been used for awhile to detect trace explosive residue
in carry-on bags, is the only effective solution. And it wouldn't have
the issues of privacy or health effects either.

If a bunch of young women are willing to swallow condoms full of cocaine and get on an airplane in Colombia for nothing more than money, I think the answer to your question is obvious. True that they are not facing certain death, but these things do break.

Ha

 

[Gumby]

Good point. And for this reason I predict that the outrage will die out fast, and the "whatever it takes to keep us safe" sentiment will win the day.

That being said, a solution that does not have the negative issues of the pat-down/scanner thing - privacy, humiliation (real or perceived, and what's the difference ??), health effects from X-rays - should be sought. Like the chromatography machines to which I allude in the previous post.

I personally could give a rat's fat @ss whether someone sees me naked (actually, the guy who draws that duty is to be pitied more than anything else). But I am chagrined to live in a nation full of sissies who are willing to cower in the corner and surrender their civil rights to the first person to say "I'll keep you safe".

 

[Westernskies]

I personally could give a rat's fat @ss whether someone sees me naked (actually, the guy who draws that duty is to be pitied more than anything else). But I am chagrined to live in a nation full of sissies who are willing to cower in the corner and surrender their civil rights to the first person to say "I'll keep you safe".

Even better- "I'm from the Theatrical Security Agency and I'll keep you safe".(now spread 'em...)

 

[haha]

Yes. This is an old movie that has played many times before, and it has never yet had a happy ending.

 

[clifp]

Let's just say that where 10 CFR 20 says '1.25 rem per annual quarter, or 5.0 rem per year', they definitely went for the OR, and went for reduced limits for the other three quarters, based on the TLD on the belt. They also used that '50 rem to the skin or any extremity', which was why we had fingertip dosimeters.

I'm a bit leery of any further dosing, particularly when some $10/hour person whom I'm pretty sure hasn't even been through Intro to Health Physics is controlling my dosage. When I catch The Management telling stretchers about the dosage I become even more concerned.

So, if I am a TSA selectee, I'll be asking them to give the wiggly a jiggly. Maybe I'll toss in some sound effects...

I am making the same choice. Although I am hoping by Jan sanity will prevail. It seems to me if the scanners are safe as they TSA/manufacturers say (1,000 times before they are any health risk) that managers at both the TSA and the scanner manufacturers should be willing to devote one day to go through the real life screening procedures at the airport (as opposed controlled experiments) 100 times and with dosimeters attached to various body parts. If independent Doctors say the scanners are safe than I'll change my mind.