Public Acceptance of New TSA Procedures Has Been Exaggerated

Pajamas Media ^ | November 21, 2010 | Dan Miller

[DanMiller]

The mainstream media ask all the wrong questions. A CBS survey concluded that:

Americans overwhelmingly approve of the use of full-body digital x-ray machines — a new technology in use at some airports in the U.S. Most, meanwhile, do not approve of racial or ethnic profiling — a practice not in place.

The following questions apparently were not asked: “Have you or an immediate family member flown on a commercial airliner in the United States since November 1, 2010?” and “Do you or an immediate member of your family intend to fly on a commercial airliner in the United States in the near future? If not, have your plans been changed on account of recent changes in airport security procedures?”

The report of the survey speaks of “two potentially inconvenient and invasive practices” at airports. However, the reported question asks only about the new “‘full body’ digital X-ray machines.” No question was reported about the second and certainly more invasive of the “two” techniques, presumably the “enhanced pat-downs.”

As to “profiling,” the question was whether it would be justified or unjustified for people of “certain racial or ethnic groups to be subject to additional security checks at airport checkpoints.”

[Hulka]

“The hollerers routinely go to medical clinics for safety’s sake and go actually nude, not “nude.” “

You are actually comparing TSA mouth-breathers with doctors?

Seriously?

How about body cavity searches by the TSA, after all, doctors do rectal exams and TSA is only doing the poke and prod for our safety, and we do know that last year an assassin had a bomb up his backside and detonated it. . . .do it for SAFETY is the ultimate excuse for those that embrace the nanny state and abandon all claim to their civil rights.

Have a nice day.

[little jeremiah]

It’s qwertypie#29 making the comment, not samtheman!

[nightlight7]

A scan doses you at the same level of radiation you will get from TWO MINUTES of cruising altitude flight on the jet you’re about to board.

That's what TSA says. As you may know, they have lied before. Also, do you really imagine you could take a picture of an object, say a penny, in a plane by placing it on a film for 2 minutes. In contrast, you will surely get it (as a negative of a circle) if you place a penny on a film when you go behind the scanner (you can get far more considering how many pixels they get on their screens). They haven't given technical specs of the exposure to anyone outside government and prohibit TSA operators from wearing radiation badges.

Note also that comparing high energy cosmic radiation (typically gamma) to low energy X ray photons is comparing apples and oranges.

a) One cosmic ray photon will have equal energy as millions of soft X ray photons. Yet each of these photons may break a chemical bond if it strikes a molecule, hence even though you are exposed to the same energy from 1 cosmic ray (gamma) photon as from million X ray photons, the latter will break many more chemical bonds (each break is a possible mutations, e.g. if it is on the DNA molecule).

b) Soft X ray photons have much larger wavelength than cosmic ray photons, hence much greater cross section with interaction with molecules. Hence even one for one, each X ray photon has more chance of striking molecule than a gamma ray cosmic photon (because of greater cross section).

c) Each pixel they get on their screen is equivalent to at least one back-scattered X ray photon (along with damaged molecules from which it bounced back, plus all molecules for photons absorbed i.e. those that didn't bounce). Those images we have seen seem to have several millions pixels (1000x1000 is 1 million pixels), hence you will have tens or hundreds of millions damaged molecules after the scan. While many will be just water molecules, some will be proteins in your retina and some DNA in your skin cells, thus causing mutation, possibly cancerous.

d) Ask your doctor should pregnant womenm, children or elderly go through it? Ask also about eyesight damage. Doctors are already advising patients to opt out.

e) Experts on this technology are warning, based on quality and size of published images, that TSA's proclamations are at least one to two orders of magnitude understated (because of comparisons of apples and oranges and because of using volume rather than surface exposure units, which will superfically average the total absorbed radiation over all molecules in human body rather than just over molecules of the skin, making it thus appear as much lower average exposure per molecule; while cosmic gamma radiation will go through your entire body, mostly merely passing through due to low cross section, the soft X-ray photons from the scanners will either abosrb entirely or scatter inelastically from molecules, doing damage ether way).

[little jeremiah]

OOps, I guess samtheman agrees with her.

I violently disagree.

Target the ones who actually do the bombing/throat slitting. Muslims.

Leave everyone else alone.

[samtheman]

Target the ones who actually do the bombing/throat slitting. Muslims.

And there are no muzzie converts. They all look exactly the way you expect them to look. (Boy are you stupid, and ultimately, dead.)

[little jeremiah]

Here’s what a Professional Pilot’s website has to say about the scanners:

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/433265-apa-president-advises-pilots-against-using-new-body-scanners.html

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/434370-tsa-pilots-exempt-scanners-pat-downs.html

[little jeremiah]

AlQ boasted about all the blond Muz converts they were going to round up for missions and it hasn’t happened.

The only converts they get other than a very rare Adam Gadahn or that other Johnny Jihad are black Muzzies in prison.

I can’t believe that you think random invasive searches of normal non-Muz Americans including nuns, grandaperents, little children etc is somehow going to make us safter. I don’t see how anyone in their right might can make excuses for this.

[grumpygresh]

“Conservatives are not doing themselves a favor de-fanging airline security.”

I’m going to have to disagree with you on that one. I cannot think of any meaningful study or historical model that justifies screening ALL passengers with these devices. Can you think of any study that justify indiscriminate use of this technology?

That would be similar to requiring chest x-rays on all individuals several times a year to determine if they had lung CA. Sure, occasionally you might detect someone with lung CA or some other abnormality through indiscriminate screening. But it is highly unlikely that your diagnostic yield would be any greater for 100% screening than for targeting screening. Furthermore, false positives could lead to further interventions that could actually increase morbidity (a lung biopsy for example). In addition, because of limited resources, you are also wasting time and money that could be more profitably spent diagnosing other conditions.

The illusion of security by providing wasteful and unproven techniques is no substitute for the actual provision of security. This makes us LESS safe and I trust you are not for that. This is not a libertarian rant, this is a call for the prudent and effective use of resources.

[Atlas Sneezed]

All of this hullabaloo about going “nude” in this scanner is exaggerated tripe that I would expect from liberals. No one is nude. Not even close.

---

What’s your word for when someone creates a photographic image of your genitalia?

And when I pee, or visit the doctor, no one takes my picture.

PS: Tripe is delicious.

[metmom]

From the stories I’ve read recently, they’re not singling out anyone by race or ethnicity but by their health...those that have medical devices or appliances that show up on the scanner and then are presumed guilty until proven innocent. And how do they prove their innocence...whoopie...they get to show their colostomy or urosotmy bag, breast prothesis, etc. to the screener. It’s disgusting.

The TSA are not highly trained medical professionals capable of determining that a medical device is what it is really claimed to be.

Not only that, what about HIPAA and medical privacy?

When my kids turned 18, they had to fill out forms for their doctors so the doctors would communicate with me.

Now these total strangers are privy to every strangers personal medical conditions? The passengers are being FORCED into telling the TSA agents about them.

Can't someone get the TSA on HIPAA violations?

[metmom]

Let us know how it goes.

Some FReeper should start a vanity for everyone’s TSA travel experiences.

[metmom]

“A scan doses you at the same level of radiation you will get from TWO MINUTES of cruising altitude flight on the jet you’re about to board.”

*********************************************************************************************

What a good little sheeple you are. So naive, so trusting.....

Radiation Experts Concerned With TSA Airport Security Scanners
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/cancer/articles/2010/11/18/radiation-experts-concerned-with-tsa-airport-security-scanners

[NittanyLion]

Excellent post.

[nightlight7]

Here’s what a Professional Pilot’s website has to say about the scanners:

Thanks for the links. Back in physics grad school we used to calculate (as homeworks) cross sections for such interactions, so I knew right off that comparing soft X ray photons of the scanners to hard gamma ray photons (such as the cited 2 minute flight equivalence TSA claim) is comparing apples and oranges, as explained earlier. The cross section decreases with third power of photon energy (see Klein-Nishina formula, the main term P^2 * P ~ P^3, where P ~ 1/E_gamma; E_gamma is the photon energy), so a 1000 times greater energy of cosmic ray gamma photon vs soft X-ray photon will mean billion times smaller cross section for cosmic ray gamma. Since either photon will damage/ionize a molecule upon inelastic scattering (they are both well above ionization threshold), the molecular damage risk of equivalent energy soft X-rays from scanners are many orders of magnitude greater than those of cosmic gamma rays with the same total energy.

[metmom]

As a hard core conservative, I agree with you. The federal government should be tiny, but its main task is security. I’m all for better scanners, even if the next advance isn’t perfect for everyone. All of this hullabaloo about going “nude” in this scanner is exaggerated tripe that I would expect from liberals. No one is nude. Not even close.

These scans and screening violate our 4th Amendment rights.

You're not a hard core conservative.

You're not even a conservative.

You're a useful idiot for the left.

Troll....

[little jeremiah]

There’s a link right above your comment to me about this as well.

I’m a science-tard but I still limp along trying to get a tiny grasp of it all.

[little jeremiah]

Even the DU’ers are freaked out by the scans/groping.

I can’t believe that anyone on FR thinks that groping/Xraying non-Muzzies is even slightly helpful in preventing terrorism. It’s Jihadi Muz terrorism that is the danger. Non-Muzzies don’t do Muz terrorism. Never.

[metmom]

Here’s a link to a you tube video explaining the enhanced searches-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXDLQPfqc04

from this thread....

TSA Enhanced Screening Procedures Explained
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2631009/posts

A little crude, but it does get the point across.

[mojitojoe]

I’ll walk right through with a smile on my face.

__________________

Will you lick their boots as you pass through, and thank them?

[Las Vegas Ron]

A little crude, but it does get the point across.

Very well done...sometimes a being a bit crude can really emphasize the point...not to mention be humorous too...heh!

I want to find out what the real motive is here. This is so far out, there has to be something else to it.