[ex-Texan]

The really BIG news that hardly anybody is talking about -- these scanners emit dangerous levels of radiation. I said so in an on-line survey a week ago. For long trips in the U.S., I plan to take the train.

[Ezekiel]

The scanners make an image of the outside of the body, making them essentially useless for bomb detection, so why the scans (besides the multiple levels of psychological warfare)? To inflict illness?

Or is this all going into a database... a full bodyprint identification system? Start with the airports, move on to the DMV, banks, etc.

[DBrow]

You get more ionizing radiation from sitting in the lane at 30,000 feet than you get from the xray scanners.

The scanners are limited by law to less than 25 micro-REMS, and you get at least 200 micro-REMS per hour from cosmic rays hitting the plane at over 20,000 feet. Depending on the flight, it can be as high as 600 micro-REMS per hour, so the scanners can dose you with as much radiation as you’d get in maybe 20 minutes of flight.

I hate the scanners too, but radiation dose is not going to work to get them shut down.

Better to find the links fom Chertoff to the money to the scanner contractors.