According to reports, the TSA is removing backscatter full-body scanners, which use very small amounts of ionizing radiation, from major airports and replacing them with less-controversial millimeter wave scanners. But those X-ray scanners aren’t going to the Museum of Bad Ideas; they’re being shipped off for use at smaller airports.
[…]
The TSA says that privacy and health concerns were not behind its relocation of the backscatter devices. Instead, it’s a matter of staffing requirements and processing time. Millimeter wave scanners seem to offer a more expedient and efficient scan of passengers. Which of course makes us wonder why the TSA would continue spending money on the backscatter devices.

Does that mean those who live near smaller airports are less lightly to ‘opt out?’



  1. dusanmal says:

    “backscatter full-body scanners, which use very small amounts of ionizing radiation,…” – why that lie again. It is not small or very small amount. It is approximately yearly safe exposure allowance from a single (assumed done properly) scan. Would you call a yearly dose of coffee, cheese, broccoli,… a “small amount” if taken in a single dose?
    And, yes I am authority on that statement, fully qualified and with “high end” (national nuclear laboratory) working experience on the subject.

  2. Mr. McGeux says:

    Wow. I wasn’t aware that they had special scanners for old naked bodies. What’s the cut-off age?

  3. ECA says:

    LETS SEE..
    ” it’s a matter of staffing requirements and processing time.”

    being able to CUT employees and still get the same amount of money??
    Shipping SOME agents to smaller locations and lower pay??

    How much are WE PAYING NOW??

  4. ECA says:

    Umm,
    I didnt think they did search, in smaller airports. Why now??

  5. GregAllen says:

    Instead of spending millions on buggy equipment, how about paying high wages to hire really smart screeners?

    Nope.

    That doesn’t make contractors rich.

  6. MikeN says:

    The smaller airports had resisted most of the security measures. Now they are being moved there to build up the security level, in anticipation of larger TSA presence in more areas and more modes of transportation.

    Those opposed should vote Romney. It is clear Obama will do nothing, and indeed has expanded it. I think it is unlikely for Romney to be against TSA, HOWEVER he is very flexible, and we know he fears a primary challenge. He was endorsed by Rand Paul, but he is a likely challenger. Foreign policy, drug policy, TSA, Fed, gold standard, etc. Romney is going to have to cave on something to keep Paul in check, and perhaps have his endorsement a second time around.

  7. MikeN says:

    Even more important than voting for Romney, it is important to vote Tea Party. Romney has no interest in constraining executive power. Obama has made recess appointments when Congress is not in recess, used executive orders to implement laws that Congress would not pass, and used bureaucratic regulations to pass requirements that Congress never authorized. Measures need to be passed to constrain a repeat of such things by future presidents. It is safe to say that will not be on Romney’s agenda, but it will be on Tea Party’s agenda, and could get bipartisan support.

    Not sure what can be done to prevent ObamaCare’s provisions that the law may never be repealed nor reviewed by a court.

    • noname says:

      “Romney has no interest in constraining executive power”

      Oh great, a Vote for the tea party or Romney is like a vote for NIXON.

      That’s just what we need, unchecked and unconstrained Executive power getting us caught in WARS based on lies.

      NIXON had his Plumbers unit, GWB had his Dick unit, Reagan had his Iran–Contra affair (Reagan Alzheimer helped him not know of the extent of the multiple programs).

      The Republicans certainly have established a consistent pattern since NIXON; LIE => WAR or WAR => LIE.

      The %1 profits and the 99% sends their family or a friend to war, to win GOD who knows what! What have these WARs won AMERICA? Why are the republicans always so willing to trade in the American blood of 99%; just so the 1% can profit?

      And don’t forgot, not all the fighting USA MEN/WOMEN are American citizens; who can and sometimes are kicked out of the country afterwards.

      • MikeN says:

        It is Obama’s abuse of executive power which needs containing.

        • tcc3 says:

          Yeah, because the guy making claims of weakness and passivity against the current administration isnt going to double down on authoritarianism?

          {rolls eyes}

          *All* executive power needs to be constrained/checked. Your singling out of Obama reveals your partisan agenda.

          • MikeN says:

            Perhaps you should read my posts. Obama is the one currently in power, who has expanded TSA to buses, trains, and even highway checkpoints. It is important to vote Tea Party to constrain Romney and future presidents.

          • tcc3 says:

            “It is Obama’s abuse of executive power which needs containing.”

            Perhaps *you* should read your posts.

          • MikeN says:

            It depends on what the meaning of the word is is .

        • noname says:

          A President or wannabe that “has no interest in constraining executive power” is a President or wannabe who needs constraining; and your post states clearly, Romney is that person!

          “Romney has no interest in constraining executive power”

          It’s obvious that George W. Bush, Republicans and now Romney don’t understand nor care for American constitutional democracy. GWB stated he’d prefer to be a dictator at least three times; the U.S. government is not a dictatorship!

          • MikeN says:

            Obama announced ‘We can’t wait’, and started handing out work authorizations not authorized by any act of Congress. Romney is not the President yet. Any suspicion I have of Romney is just that, suspicion.

          • MikeN says:

            Democrats in Congress have no credibility in complaining about Romney’s abuses of executive power, after they said nothing when Obama did it. It is not clear to me that Romney WOULD do something out of line. My concern is how to prevent future presidents from doing what Obama did. There is nothing to be done to prevent the ObamaCare debacle, except for the courts throwing it out. However, bureaucratic limits need to be imposed to prevent them from writing their own laws.

  8. Captain Obvious says:

    The OS for the scanners is Windows 8. Obviously no TSA agent will ever figure it out.

  9. msbpodcast says:

    They’re being shipped there so the TSA can expand its empire and not lose face for buying crap.

    The scanners will just be dust catchers; sitting unused in the main building while everybody walks around it on their way to their plane.

    The TSA agents will play Step ‘N Fetch It to the rich pricks who never go near a hub airport if they can help it, and they’re rich so they can always avoid it…

    Flying to or from New York on OPM?

    Then you see the corporate jets all lines up at Teterboro airport. They’ve been doing just as much, not more, rich prick business since 2001. The rich and the big bosses still take helicopters from Teterboro to downtown Manhattan. (There’s no TSA feel-up to get on to corporate helicopters.)

    Fuck using Newark, LaGuardia or JFK…

    What?

    Did you think that the 1%ers flew commercial when they came down from Detroit to take their place at the trough? They were roundly criticized for flying on their own panes. Nowadays they just lease the jets so they don’t show on the books as corporate assets.

    Did you think they changed their ways since?

    How naive.

  10. Van says:

    explain more about this Autofrisk !

    • noname says:

      Well, it has three settings, Pat Down, Arousal, and Orgasm.

      The setting is made automatically depending on your ethnicity and gender.

      TSA can arbitrary override it, if desired for a person of interest while on the machine.

      Just watch all those pretty ladies get excited.

  11. TacoTrainwreck says:

    I think I found my Halloween costume for this year.

  12. Glenn E. says:

    It’s interesting when you consider how long it took for modern radar technology to even be used at most airports. Let alone any of the smaller ones, that might have any radar at all. And yet personal privacy invading technology has trickled down at a much faster rate of speed. Apparently your average vacationing passenger is considered to be more of a danger, than aircraft colliding with each other in the crowded skies. And every aircraft is considered a potential cruise missile, in the wrong hands. But drunk or sleep deprived pilots, not so much a problem.

    • noname says:

      There was a time, when US was a country that the World relied on, and believed it could make honest assessments based on Merits.

      Ever since GWB directed Powell to give the UN a farce about IRAQ weapons of mass destruction, the world doesn’t see America as trustworthy any more.

      Now our politics and thinking have shifted from Merit based thinking; America assesses Risks by it’s perceived political fallout or what gives the biggest gain in political points.

      Disaster Risks should be scored by an objective merit then ranked with priority and resources given the highest score. The score is the product of it’s Probability of occurrence times the Severity of occurrence.

      To manage and reduce the overall Disaster risk you need to detect, manage and reduce the individual events that lead up the main disaster. You score and rank the individual sub events by an RPN score; (S) X (P) X (D) or (Severity) X (Event Probability) X (Lack of Detectability).

      A highest RPN score goes to things that are hard to detect, have severe consequences and high probability of occurrence.

      • MikeN says:

        So what specifically was farcical about Powell’s presentation? The trucks that were moving out as the inspectors were approaching?

      • MikeN says:

        W should have just used the Obama strategy. Actually, Mr Kerry, they did find WMD in Iraq.

        • noname says:

          “they did find WMD in Iraq.”

          Where is/are your credible/authoritative source(s); if you can, pls provide a link or citation?


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