[Nupbeaupeteew]

The TSA uses two types of machines. One is a millimeter wave that exposes you to radio waves. Officials say it's no more than talking on your cell phone. The other machine is a back scatter which is a type of x-ray machine that emits traces of radiation. The maker of this machines says it emits 3 microRems. A dental x-ray is 1000 microRems. A chest x-ray is 6000 microRems.

http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/stor...6&provider=top

This would seem to argue the opposite of what I am suggesting, that the amount of radiation you get is inconsequential. Here is why I think that regardless of how safe we think they are, we should not use them. First of all, the actual amount of radiation received, despite what the TSA, and the machines manufacturers say, is still largely up for debate. The few studies done say that Body scanners give 5 to 20 times the amount of radiation that the TSA claims.

"For the average passenger, the risk of dying from body-scanner induced cancer is about equal to the risk of dying from a terrorist attack -- 1 in 30 million. "They're both incredibly unlikely events. There's still a factor of 10 lower than the probability of dying in any one year from being struck by lightning in the United States.""

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/forge...-scanners-safe


Body scans not only do not allow any protective gear, but they also expose the agents administering the scan little protection.

When a doctor or nurse do an X-ray, they protect themselves thoroughly, and go into another room. They also usually provide protective gear to cover all but the necessary part that needs to be seen. Full Body Scans are rarely used in medicine, because you can find an anomaly with nearly any person you pull of the street, even if there is nothing medically wrong with them. Unlike X-rays, body scanners in airports have a negative effect on health.

The TSA claims that the agents do not receive any more radiation than an hour of flight, per year. This is with them assuming that it has the low scatter faction of 1/1000 at standing 8 feet away. This also means they are assuming the agents are never standing within 8 feet of any of the scanners, and that all radioactivity prevention instruments are functioning properly. The scatter factor increases greatly. Some experts have estimated that the scatter factor could easily reach 1/4, in best case scenarios. Under the 1/4 scatter factor, an employee could receive up to the equivalent 9 chest X-rays per year!

Another claim the TSA is making is that body scanners use a type of radiation called terahertz waves, which only pass through non-conducting materials such as clothes , paper, wood and brick. The TSA is operating under the false assumption that the theory saying terahertz waves do not emit photons powerful enough to break chemical bonds or ionize atoms or molecules, means that they are not harmful to humans. In truth, The evidence that terahertz radiation damages biological systems is mixed. "Some studies reported significant genetic damage while others, although similar, showed none," say Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies. although the forces generated are tiny, resonant effects allow THz waves to unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. Some scientists believe the reason test results have been divided half and half between tests that showed major genetic mutations, and ones showing none at all, is the occurrence of nonlinear resonances. This is a variance in the strength of the waves, something that applies to all radiation. There is no evidence to prove that Body scanners have found some way to avoid The Resonance Radiation effect. There are factors that can reduce the occurrence spikes to being extremely rare, some airports can control, some they can't. changes in light, the direction of radiation, the irradiated object, whether the object contains impurities, air composition, solar activity, nearby magnets and where you are located relative to the Earth's magnetic field. Although it is possible to mostly control the light, it is not possible to remove, or even tell if anything from clothing, to the body itself contain impurities, due to Inverse Compton scattering ionization. Ionization over continued use could slowly ionize anything in the vicinity around the source, including the machine itself. The TSA argues that terahertz waves are not powerful enough to cause ionization, but the even the small amount of radiation emitted from smoke detectors results in significant ionization. Resonance effects also have a higher chance of occurring over the life of the radiation, the amount of radiation it takes to penetrate a substance is determined by it's density, that's why you wear lead vests during an X-ray.

http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/03/advanced...51904417912070
http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.5294
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictiona...ance+radiation
http://www.ndt-ed.org/EducationResou...tionradmat.htm
http://iopscience.iop.org/0305-4616/12/9/008

Another issue that doctors have raised with the Full Body scan, is that unlike any other scan, it focuses specifically on the entire surface area of the skin, including places that are most vulnerable to skin cancer. The face, neck, V-shaped area of the chest, and upper back are all hit by the full body scanner, this may expose people who are already susceptible to skin cancer from heredity or too much sun exposure.

http://www.ehealthmd.com/library/ski..._symptoms.html


Beyond the medical danger, and privacy issues, there is also the question of practicality. As of now, body scanners cost $150,000 per unit, with at least several units being needed per airport. There are around 300 functioning full body scanners in 60 US airports. The TSA plans to have 500 deployed units by the end of December 2010.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/am...244546623.html

As of right now there are between 4 and 5 scanners per airport, and there are about 600 airports that support airplanes big enough to do a significant amount of damage if hijacked or destroyed. This means to even reach the minimal level of body scans we would have to purchase around 3,000 of them costing in total at least $450 million.

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/fligh...-numbers_x.htm

There are an average of 812 flights leaving the Dallas Fort Worth, Texas airport every day, while a smaller airport like JFK boasts 352. Some of the Smaller commercial airports have a much lower number of commercial flights, Grand Folks North Dakota has an average of only 4 flights daily. Even the smaller airports like Idaho Falls, which has only 9 flights on average per day, have planes as large as the Boeing 747, a plane nearly twice as large as the two 767s that were used to collapse the World Trade Centers in 2001.

http://flightstats.us/airport.php?code=DFW
http://flightstats.us/airport.php?code=JFK
http://flightstats.us/airport.php?code=gfk
http://www.suite101.com/content/fact...rcraft-a185322

The reason I tell you all of this information, is because I believe that Body scanners would only be effective if they were implemented in every airport supporting aircraft large enough to carry hundreds of people, or cause damage to large structures. If we were to implement them in only most of the airports, terrorists would simply target the airports that do not have them, therefore making them completely useless when it comes to stopping an uncommon, yet well planned attack.

Another hole in the full body scanners is that they are unable to detect things inside a body cavity, which would be the next logical place for a terrorist to hide an explosive or weapon.