
TSA eliminates all invasive X-ray machines  - jamesbritt
http://www.nbcnews.com/travel/tsa-eliminates-all-invasive-x-ray-machines-6C10138818
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chrisbennet
"..all US airports scanners equipped with the ability to produce the
penetrating images will now only show a generic outline of a passenger to the
operator. "

The headline is incorrect. The TSA did _not_ eliminate the machines. The
machines have been modified to show less detail, that's all.

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blcknight
Correct! The machines still take dirty pictures of you -- they just provide an
abstraction layer and a human ostensibly doesn't view the raw image. They
removed one of the two types of machines, only because the backscatter scanner
vendor couldn't provide the abstraction layer in time. The millimeter wave
machines are still in place.

I heard a TSA agent basically tell a nervous traveller this when I was in the
U.S. last: "Oh no, we go rid of those machines, these are totally different --
see it just shows me a picture of where any hidden items are. Not any
different than are old metal detectors! Safe as can be!"

Millimeter wave machines still violate your privacy, and still expose you to
radiation. But, freedom, amirite?

~~~
mpyne
Uh, you're exposed to radiation all the time, by that definition. Much more so
when you step out into the sun (despite the bears being outside I do hope you
try to brave the solar radiation every so often).

As it happens millimeter wave machines are a fancy way to say "EHF radio",
which is very much non-ionizing and is not known to be harmful.

One caveat is that _any_ radiation beam that the body is not fully transparent
to can be harmful at high power, but that is from the heat effect, not
anything inherent to the radiation (i.e. it's the same hazard as standing
under a heat lamp for too long).

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auctiontheory
The TSA's claims about these machines have repeatedly been shown to be false.

The article does not provide much reassurance that this time will be
different. Who is making the determination about "potentially forbidden
items"? An AI?

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basseq
I always refuse to go through them and opt for the pat down. At this point I
know the routine better than the TSA employee.

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mickdarling
There is still evidence that those particular wavelengths can cause genetic
damage, and as someone who already has a propensity for sub-dermal tumors, I
will still opt out.

Ref: [http://www.technologyreview.com/view/416066/how-terahertz-
wa...](http://www.technologyreview.com/view/416066/how-terahertz-waves-tear-
apart-dna/)

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glenra
Ugh, even just seeing that _picture_ of an airport security checkpoint makes
me angry. I cannot believe we are collectively so dumb as to require the waste
so many hours, so many billions of dollars, and so many lives on this
ridiculous security theater. We pay morons in blue outfits to actively make
our trips less convenient and our lives less safe. The cost is staggering. So
many politicians claim they want to "repair our crumbling infrastructure",
presumably so we can get where we're going faster and more safely, yet this
option is constantly overlooked: abolish the TSA. Leave security up to the
airlines and passengers. That one change would do far more to improve our
transportation network than any bridge or road project, and it costs nothing -
it would _save_ money. And time, and lives.

Forget trimming the leaves on this tree - we need to find _some_ way to hack
at the roots and the trunk.

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marssaxman
Nothing the TSA has ever said about this program has turned out to be true, so
I'll believe that the machines are gone when I stop having to opt out of them.

