
TSA's X-Ray Nude Body Scanners Output 50% More Radiation Than Admitted to by TSA - tsaoutourpants
http://tsaoutofourpants.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/tsas-x-ray-nude-body-scanners-output-50-more-radiation-than-admitted-to-by-tsa/
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DanielStraight
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
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.

~~~
IvyMike
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.

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mark_l_watson
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
They're actually prohibited from wearing dosimeters... imagine that...

~~~
smtddr
To add to this reply... [http://blog.tsa.gov/2011/06/tsa-cancer-cluster-myth-
buster.h...](http://blog.tsa.gov/2011/06/tsa-cancer-cluster-myth-buster.html)

 _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.

~~~
zorpner
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.

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uptown
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.

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kolev
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
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.

~~~
r00fus
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).

~~~
kolev
Last time my family and I went back to Europe, at Tom Bradley International
Terminal at LAX, our family was directed to a special families-only line,
which didn't have full-body scanners at all, and didn't even do pad downs -
just went thru the old-fashioned metal detector and X-Ray for the carry-on
luggage. We were pleasantly surprised as we were expecting the old nightmare.

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bnolsen
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.

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ben0x539
150% of "not worth mentioning" is still not worth mentioning.

~~~
ben0x539
tho they probably mean 100% more, I'm confused

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jstalin
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
_> I thought they were all phased out in favor of the radio-wave types._

They are.

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tedchs
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.

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crystaln
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.

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autism_hurts
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.

~~~
Steuard
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.

~~~
jghn
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 ...

