Posted on 06/28/2011 7:34:09 AM PDT by opentalk
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) says it's got evidence that the Department of Homeland Security has failed to properly evaluate the level of risk from airport body scanners.
Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the DHS, EPIC says it's obtained documents concerning the scanners' radiation risks, including agency emails, radiation studies, memoranda of agreement concerning radiation testing programs and the results of some radiation tests.
EPIC says that TSA staff have been concerned that a large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease. But the documents show that the TSA's response was simply to tell them:
"Because TSA systems comply with federal regulations, the increased risk of developing radiation-induced cancer in later life is extremely small, no greater than other risks people routinely accept in their daily lives".
"One document set reveals that even after TSA employees identified cancer clusters possibly linked to radiation exposure, the agency failed to issue employees dosimeters -safety devices that could assess the level of radiation exposure," says EPIC.
"Another document indicates that the DHS mischaracterized the findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, stating that NIST 'affirmed the safety' of full body scanners."
In fact, says EPIC, the documents show that NIST disputed this assertion and pointed out that the it had not actually tested the devices. Indeed, one NIST study actaully warns airport screeners to avoid standing next to full body scanners.
Further, says EPIC, the documents include a Johns Hopkins University study which revealed that radiation zones around body scanners could exceed the General Public Dose Limit.
EPIc has been fighting the use of body scanners in airports since July 2009, when it filed its suit calling for the program to be suspended.
What’s the problem? If every single employee of TSA was to develop full-on pancreatic cancer, I would rejoice.
Most of them were on welfare before they got on the TSA gravy train. That probably has more to do with it than anything else.
Next, you'll tell me that they think some Swedish grandma from Minneapolis is the same threat level as an imam from Mecca.
Do they pee radioactive urine?
What’s the problem here. They tell everyone their friggin machines are safe, don’t they? They just aren’t living right. Nothing to see here folks, let’s just move along.
.
Lucky for the TSA that the induced cancers
will take seven to thirty years to develop.
Must be a CASH COW to the Congress and those who
force it on the public.
In the late ‘40s and ‘50s when we first began developing airborne radar, what we knew about shielding and protection would have easily filled a thimble. Guys that flew on those early planes were decimated by cancer. Of course they just marked it up as part of their service and sacrifice to their country - and went off to die quietly. No demands, no government studies, no congressional investigation.
While I'm glad they didn't whine like the TSA, they at least deserved a bigger "Thank You" than they got.
The TSA may not know much about cancer, but they know a lot about leukemia patients.
They perhaps know too much about one particular patient, but in point of fact, they know next to nothing about leukemia patients... or about much of anything at all except that they have this certain authority...
I only hope each and every one of them sues Michael Chertoff
Taking a look at far too many of the TSA agents, I'm surprised they don't add type 2 diabetes, bad knees and hips and broken chairs in the TSA lunch room.
TSA advertises for jobs on pizza boxes
Homeland security has also been very evasive about safety reports of the scanners, wonder why if they are as safe as they claim.
He’ll take the millions he made and move to Iran to be with his buddies.
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