These full-body scanners that will start showing up at airports...

We should all start buying fake poop, and carrying it in our underwear. Or better yet, wear some adult diapers and...you get the point. Of course leave it with the TSA people.
 
smigaldi said:
That has happened before and it WILL happen again. Terror is about terrorizing. Not about actually doing something strategic.
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Actually, it's very strategic. But instead of figuring out how to do the most physical damage, the goal is how to terrorize the most. It's just different than what those of us with traditional military views consider strategy.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Actually, it's very strategic. But instead of figuring out how to do the most physical damage, the goal is how to terrorize the most. It's just different than what those of us with traditional military views consider strategy.
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Sort of an oxymoron I would think. June 6th anyone?
 
I read the line somewhere "War is the rich man's terrorism and terrorism is the poor man's war". I'd wager that most terrorist "leaders" aren't all that poor, though.
 
Keith Lane said:
I read the line somewhere "War is the rich man's terrorism and terrorism is the poor man's war". I'd wager that most terrorist "leaders" aren't all that poor, though.
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Wealth, like most other things, is relative. In all the wealth that the terrorist leaders may have, I would be surprised if they could afford to support one F-15 (or even a MiG) for any sort of active combat. Meanwhile, we'll burn Jet A (or JP-8? I can't remember what the military uses) like it's going out of style on all sorts of aircraft.
 
Matthew said:
If TSA wants people to believe that an electronic strip search is required to prevent explosives from getting on board, and they allow you to refuse those scanners, then will they be offering a pat-down or a real strip-search as an alternative? A pat-down can't 'see' what the scanner would show, and a real-strip search is more intrusive than the scan.

Right now, the pat-down is more of a hassle to travellers than the metal detector. If passengers decide that the pat-down actually is simpler than the scan, then everybody will just choose that method. They are going to have to come up with something that's worse than the scanner in order to keep us all in the scanner line.
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At Dallas, they offered the human search if you didn't want the electronic one.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
At Dallas, they offered the human search if you didn't want the electronic one.
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At what level was the human search? A pat-down or a "let's go into this other room and see what's under those clothes" type of search?
 
Matthew said:
At what level was the human search? A pat-down or a "let's go into this other room and see what's under those clothes" type of search?
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Just wait until you see what they have to do to "resolve" alams generated by this new strip-search machine. :yikes:

(If only it could be a Woody Allen Orgasmatron....) ;)
 
wsuffa said:
Just wait until you see what they have to do to "resolve" alams generated by this new strip-search machine. :yikes:

(If only it could be a Woody Allen Orgasmatron....) ;)
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Yeah - that's what I'm getting at. If you decline the electronic strip-search in favor of the "hands-on" search, the manual search has to be more stringent otherwise there'd be no reason NOT to decline the scanner in the first place. How much more stringent can the manual search be than the scanner? It has to be able to detect more than what the electronic scanner can sense.
 
Matthew said:
It has to be able to detect more than what the electronic scanner can sense.
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Yep.

glove.jpg



Trapper John
 
Matthew said:
I looked at the site for one of the scanners:
http://www.rapiscansystems.com/

that was mentioned in one of the earlier posts.

It looks like the claimed radiation exposure is pretty low, but it still all adds up over time. I haven't looked at the radio wave exposure levels and frequencies yet - I do know that cell phone radio wave exposure is in the news, though.

They also claim their scanner can handle up to 200pph. I'm assuming that's people-per-hour. Or about 18 seconds per person. To get someone in place in the scanner might be 5 seconds? That leaves 13 seconds for the scan and for a TSA guy to check you out and turn on the green light.

If you figure it takes 5 seconds at most to walk through a metal detector and 18 seconds to get scanned then each metal detector would have to be replaced by 3 or 4 scanners to keep the same capacity. Then they'll have to hire more TSA guys to manage all the scanners. Sounds expensive.

I wonder - will they only get one or two scanners per security station and rely on the metal detectors to pre-screen? Then pull those folks out of line and scan them? Probably not, because the scanners are supposed to catch the stuff that the detectors can't.

Or will they profile? Then send only select folks through the scanners? Probably not, profiilng is a dirty word.

I guess it's looking more like we'll all buy a ***load of scanners and have 100% compliance.
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It does not add up over time. There are two basic types of radiation. Ionizing and non-ionizing. X-rays are one type of ionizing radiation. Exposure does add up with ionizing radiation. Thus, all those dental X-rays you've had over the years add up - in localized exposure. Damage is done as electrons are stripped from atoms when this high energy radiation strikes. Other forms may be energized particles, such as Alpha particles (Helium nuclii), Beta particles (energized electrons) and gamma waves.

Non-ionizing radiation, such as radio waves, are much lower in energy. The hazard from radio waves comes from having enough energy deposited in your tissues such that they warm up. The two most sensitive parts of your body are the cornea of eye (kind of like the white of an egg, think about what that does when it hits a hot frying pan) and the family jewels. The body is removing heat through blood flow and when the RF is turned off, things return to their original state. No damage at the time and you're good to go.

Ah, the things you learn when you work on nuclear propulsion plants in submarines (nuc yard bird at MINSY in the mid 1970s).
 
Ghery said:
It does not add up over time. There are two basic types of radiation. Ionizing and non-ionizing. X-rays are one type of ionizing radiation. Exposure does add up with ionizing radiation. Thus, all those dental X-rays you've had over the years add up - in localized exposure. Damage is done as electrons are stripped from atoms when this high energy radiation strikes. Other forms may be energized particles, such as Alpha particles (Helium nuclii), Beta particles (energized electrons) and gamma waves.

Non-ionizing radiation, such as radio waves, are much lower in energy. The hazard from radio waves comes from having enough energy deposited in your tissues such that they warm up. The two most sensitive parts of your body are the cornea of eye (kind of like the white of an egg, think about what that does when it hits a hot frying pan) and the family jewels. The body is removing heat through blood flow and when the RF is turned off, things return to their original state. No damage at the time and you're good to go.

Ah, the things you learn when you work on nuclear propulsion plants in submarines (nuc yard bird at MINSY in the mid 1970s).
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It's been a long time since my nuke safety classes (mid-80s), and they weren't as involved as yours - but when I was talking about adding up over time, I was talking about the ionizing radiation from the backscatter scanners. There is a certain amount that we are getting every day, depending on where you live some folks get more than others. That's just a normal part of life on this planet. You're absolutely right - exposures like dental x-rays are localized, and a lead apron helps. Also, dental x-rays have the source close to the exposure site and exposure decreases rapidly with distance. We do increase overall exposure levels during certain times of our lives, like getting a full body scan. And, according to the manufacturers data, the amount we get with those scanners at any one time is relatively small, compared to the background levels that we are hit with everyday.

Most of my nuke work was dealing with neutrons - if I remember right, they go through lead but get stopped by human bodies. I always made sure to stand behind one of the older guys when I was on that project.



edit: just for fun I did a quick search for ionizing radiation and found this:
http://www.public.asu.edu/~atppr/images/RPD-Manuscript.pdf

They calculated exposure levels and are pretty sure they are higher than advertised, they used the published numbers from the manifacturer of the same scanner that I did:
http://www.rapiscansystems.com/sec1000.html

These guys claim the actual exposure levels are higher than advertised, but still lower than levels known to cause problems. They did mention something interesting, though. Beause the scans have to show a front view and a rear view, there are actually two scans that take place so the exposure levels are double. Apparently, they say that the exposure levels shown by manufacturers of the equipment are per scan, and don't account for the second view.
 
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Matthew said:
It's been a long time since my nuke safety classes (mid-80s), and they weren't as involved as yours - but when I was talking about adding up over time, I was talking about the ionizing radiation from the backscatter scanners. There is a certain amount that we are getting every day, depending on where you live some folks get more than others. That's just a normal part of life on this planet. You're absolutely right - exposures like dental x-rays are localized, and a lead apron helps. Also, dental x-rays have the source close to the exposure site and exposure decreases rapidly with distance. We do increase overall exposure levels during certain times of our lives, like getting a full body scan. And, according to the manufacturers data, the amount we get with those scanners at any one time is relatively small, compared to the background levels that we are hit with everyday.

Most of my nuke work was dealing with neutrons - if I remember right, they go through lead but get stopped by human bodies. I always made sure to stand behind one of the older guys when I was on that project.
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That really just does not sound good.
 
Matthew said:
It's been a long time since my nuke safety classes (mid-80s), and they weren't as involved as yours - but when I was talking about adding up over time, I was talking about the ionizing radiation from the backscatter scanners. There is a certain amount that we are getting every day, depending on where you live some folks get more than others. That's just a normal part of life on this planet. You're absolutely right - exposures like dental x-rays are localized, and a lead apron helps. Also, dental x-rays have the source close to the exposure site and exposure decreases rapidly with distance. We do increase overall exposure levels during certain times of our lives, like getting a full body scan. And, according to the manufacturers data, the amount we get with those scanners at any one time is relatively small, compared to the background levels that we are hit with everyday.
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That's why I don't feel so bad flying low and slow. The jet pilots get a lot more X-ray exposure than I do.

Most of my nuke work was dealing with neutrons - if I remember right, they go through lead but get stopped by human bodies. I always made sure to stand behind one of the older guys when I was on that project.
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Light nuclei work best for slowing down neutrons. Since we're composed largely of water, all those hydrogen atoms in our bods are pretty effective in slowing those neutrons down. But just to be clear, none of the scanning machines are going to be slinging neutrons at you.


Trapper John
 
Trapper John said:
Light nuclei work best for slowing down neutrons. Since we're composed largely of water, all those hydrogen atoms in our bods are pretty effective in slowing those neutrons down.
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That's why I always stood behind one particular guy, he was my neutron filter.
 
It occurs to me that we would all be much safer if the TSA banned airline travel. Think about it -- how could the terrorists sneak a bomb onto a plane if there are no airlines??? It's a pretty foolproof solution. I think i'll recommend it on the TSA blog. Why hasn't anyone else thought of this???
 
flyersfan31 said:
It occurs to me that we would all be much safer if the TSA banned airline travel. Think about it -- how could the terrorists sneak a bomb onto a plane if there are no airlines??? It's a pretty foolproof solution. I think i'll recommend it on the TSA blog. Why hasn't anyone else thought of this???
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I think you hit the jackpot with that one. Airplanes don't kill people, people kill people.
 
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