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Can Imaging Technologies Save Us From Terrorists?
slashdot ^ | Tuesday January 05, @11:08AM | timothy

Posted on 01/05/2010 2:05:54 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach

"In the aftermath of the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack, full body scanning technologies such as millimeter wave and backscatter are regaining popularity, writes blogger Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols in a recent post. But, he asks, do they really work? The TSA seems to think so. It has just issued a contract to purchase more millimeter wave scanners from L3 Communications.

(Excerpt) Read more at yro.slashdot.org ...


TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Military/Veterans; Science
KEYWORDS: abdulmutallab; alqaeda; crouchbombgate; flight253; security; yemen
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British sources say they do NOT....Related thread:

New Full Body Scanners Can't Detect Liquid Explosives Properly say Experts

1 posted on 01/05/2010 2:05:56 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
I'm still trying to figure out how some scanner that sees through everything down to someone's skin will help anything. Doesn't everyone have skin?

ML/NJ

2 posted on 01/05/2010 2:09:15 PM PST by ml/nj
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To: ml/nj

Will show guns and detonators...but not liquid explosives like the Christmas bomber was carrying!


3 posted on 01/05/2010 2:11:37 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ( Support Geert Wilders)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
but not liquid explosives like the Christmas bomber was carrying!

It wasn't a liquid. At least not the part sewed into his underwear.

4 posted on 01/05/2010 2:14:36 PM PST by UCANSEE2
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To: UCANSEE2
Correct,...but he had a liquid to trigger the powder....not sure where he had it or got it.
5 posted on 01/05/2010 2:17:05 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ( Support Geert Wilders)
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To: UCANSEE2
From a comment on slashdot...we have this article:

Can full-body airport scanners harm you?

*****************************EXCERPT***********************************

January 4, 2010 4:28 PM PST

by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore

Since explosive materials were sneaked onto a U.S. domestic flight on Christmas Day, full-body scanning machines are far more likely to make their way to security lines at your local airport, even though they might not have detected said materials.

While the Transportation Security Administration already has 40 such devices in place, it just bought 150 to be placed in U.S. airports and says it plans to buy 300 more (they go for $170,000 apiece). On Wednesday, the Netherlands announced that these scanners would be used on passengers for all flights out of Amsterdam to the U.S., and there is talk of scanners in Nigeria as well.

So, setting aside the non-health-related question of whether the scanners will work in detecting explosive materials, are they safe?

These full-body scanners fall into two main categories: millimeter wave and backscatter. The first directs radio waves over a body and measures the energy reflected back to render a 3D image. The latter is a low-level X-ray machine that creates 2D images.

The scanners are supposed to be the high-tech (and energy-inefficient) version of a pat down, and can detect items such as nonmetallic weapons and explosives not picked up by metal detectors. (They only scan surfaces, so body cavity stashing may soon get all the more popular.)

Millimeter wave scanners produce 30 to 300 gigahertz electromagnetic waves, and reveal explosives if they are denser than other materials. This means that these scanners emit less radiation than a typical cell phone, according to TSA. Whether cell phones are harmful is of course the topic of many debates.

The backscatter machines, meanwhile, are low-level X-ray machines that expose bodies to as much radiation as about two minutes of flying in an airplane does. In other words, if you already use a cell phone and you already fly, you are already exposing your body to more radiation than these scanners will.

David Brenner, professor of radiation biophysics at Columbia University and co-author of a report on radiation scanning systems (PDF here), tells me that the risks associated with these low-level radiation scanners are extremely small.

6 posted on 01/05/2010 2:22:00 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ( Support Geert Wilders)
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To: SunkenCiv; Marine_Uncle; Fred Nerks; NormsRevenge; Oynx

fyi


7 posted on 01/05/2010 2:25:14 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ( Support Geert Wilders)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

These will deter NORMAL people. They won’t deter maniacal fanatical dirty-beard life members of the Cult of Death who are willing to hide explosives and/or chemicals anywhere on/in their body because they are so full of hate for Christians and Jews and self-loathing that they will gladly desecrate and destroy their bodies to bring about world wide sharia.

Is there anything that will deter people who are happy to strap explosives around their 6 year old children?


8 posted on 01/05/2010 2:26:59 PM PST by Leftism is Mentally Deranged
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

A better and more upfront appropriate question would be: Will political correctness, giving terrorists that same rights as American citizens, the unionization of TSA, and protecting ‘privacy rights’ save us from potential wouldbe terrorists?


9 posted on 01/05/2010 2:39:02 PM PST by cranked
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

From what I can find, the liquid was a ‘sensitizer’. PETN is hard to detonate, in and of itself.

Other passengers reported hearing what sounded like firecrackers going off. They may have been just that, firecrackers.

If so, they likely would have worked, had he mixed the sensitizer into the PETN completely.

Where he got it? Could have been from the ‘well-dressed man’ who got him around customs and onto the plane.

Or it could have been the other passenger who was removed from the plane.

We will probably never know.


10 posted on 01/05/2010 2:53:01 PM PST by UCANSEE2
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Thanks for providing the explanation of how these scanners work.


11 posted on 01/05/2010 2:55:25 PM PST by UCANSEE2
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To: Leftism is Mentally Deranged
Is there anything that will deter people who are happy to strap explosives around their 6 year old children?

Quit sending them money.

12 posted on 01/05/2010 3:04:57 PM PST by UCANSEE2
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Useless. It’s not even gonna detect liquids/powders. What a waste of money! Thanks NObama!


13 posted on 01/05/2010 3:17:43 PM PST by AustinCityDude
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Perhaps the State Department will suggest all the folks we import from Somalia and Nigeria etc., should be first in line to operate these new scanners. Throw in some Paki and Yemeni’s to for good measure.


14 posted on 01/05/2010 4:00:05 PM PST by Marine_Uncle (Honor must be earned....)
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To: Marine_Uncle; SunkenCiv; onyx; NormsRevenge
I heard something new on Fox Special report....we are issuing 86 Diversity Visas to Syria...and other countries including 50+ I think to Yemen....

Not sure whether that is visitation or a right for immigration....

15 posted on 01/05/2010 5:18:35 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ( Support Geert Wilders)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Man copy is not working right with Firebird or Ubuntu...not sure which...shutting down...be back later.


16 posted on 01/05/2010 5:20:44 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ( Support Geert Wilders)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

“Can Imaging Technologies Save Us From Terrorists?”

No moreso than increasingly armored vehicles can save our troops from IED’s in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The peculiar notion that we should use technical means to a “solution”, rather than hunting down the guilty and slaying them Old Testament style is an artifact of Western Culture that we will have to put on the shelf sooner or later.


17 posted on 01/05/2010 5:25:40 PM PST by RFEngineer
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
That is what I was wise cracking about in my post #14.

18 posted on 01/05/2010 7:25:44 PM PST by Marine_Uncle (Honor must be earned....)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

I saw the report but didn’t understand it.


19 posted on 01/05/2010 8:06:51 PM PST by onyx
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To: onyx
From the Wiki:

Diversity Immigrant Visa

It is also known as the Green Card Lottery.

20 posted on 01/05/2010 8:49:00 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ( Support Geert Wilders)
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