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UCSF researchers have some hard questions for White House science advisor John Holdren. An interesting new round in the airport scanner wars: Why won't TSA make its scanners available for independent scientific assessment - the same kind of assessment required for medical imaging machines? That's the question asked of White House science advisor John Holdren by five researchers at UC San Francisco and one at Arizona State University in a letter titled "There is Still no Rigorous Hard Data for the Safety of X-Ray Airport Passenger Scanners." [link at url]...

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...

DUBAI // Full-body scanners will not be introduced at Dubai International Airport, police have confirmed. Security teams will instead rely on well-trained personnel to provide screening, Brig Gen Ahmed bin Thani, the director of the Airport Security Department at Dubai Police, said yesterday. The airport had been considering purchasing the controversial machines - which create images of passengers' bodies through their clothing - as recently as December, when officials suggested they could be modified to protect privacy and health. However, Brig Gen Thani said that international standards adopted by the airport in 2007 were already adequate to ensure passenger safety....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New tests of full-body scanners deployed at airports found that the radiation they emit was within acceptable levels, the Transportation Security Administration said on Tuesday after previous checks found some anomalies in results. The machines, which have provoked health concerns about excessive radiation exposure, have been deployed at dozens of airports to thwart attacks on the U.S. aviation system which has continued to be a prime target of al Qaeda militants. "The latest reports confirm previous testing and show that every backscatter unit currently used for passenger screening in U.S. airports is operating well within applicable national...

“It’s not an explosive detector; it’s an anomaly detector,” Clark Ervin, who runs the Homeland Security Program at the Aspen Institute, told the Post. “Someone has to notice that there’s something out of order.” Which means those security employees who stare at the screens have to be sharp enough and well-trained enough to detect things that are abnormal. (And some experts think that if the explosives are flat and pancake-shaped and taped to your stomach, they could not be detected anyway, because the picture would look too normal.) snip Citing an ABC report, Crowley said, “There are some major airports...

Terrorism: A pilot who posted a YouTube video documenting flaws in TSA's airport security has his home raided and federally issued firearm confiscated. Body scanners and junk-touching are just the beginning. Ever watchful all 364 days of the year, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has discovered a new security threat — pilots who fly our planes and have questions about the TSA's security practices and policies. Three days after a 50-year-old veteran pilot living outside Sacramento, Calif., posted a YouTube video to shed light on the security gaps he believes exist at major U.S. airports, he had his home raided...

The companies that build futuristic airport scanners take a more old-fashioned approach when it comes to pushing their business interests in Washington: hiring dozens of former lawmakers, congressional aides and federal employees as their lobbyists. About eight of every 10 registered lobbyists who work for scanner-technology companies previously held positions in the government or Congress, most commonly in the homeland security, aviation or intelligence fields, a Washington Post review of lobbying-disclosure forms and other data shows. Industries routinely employ well-connected lobbyists to seek favorable legislation and regulations in the nation's capital. But the extent of the connections to the federal...

The next step in tightened security could be on U.S. public transportation, trains and boats.

Just a few facts that may or may not go together. I'd like to ask for help in understanding this combination of facts: We know that William Ayers, who appears to be one of Obama's mentors, planned for the killing of 25 million Americans. It may be that someone who accepted Ayer's mentorship might be willing to countenance such mass killings. Some believe that someone within the Obama administration is racist, as evinced, for example, by the administration's handling of the Black Panther voter intimidation case. If a racist wanted to kill 25 million people, and wanted to do so...

Freepers, please. I have a loved one with airline tickes for mid-December to the New Year, from Montgomery, via Memphis, to Louisville, and returning to Montgomery by the same route. I am abroad, and this loved one has asked for my advice. We are wondering if any Montgomery area, Memphis area, and Louisville area Freepers have any information on the current TSA security procedures at those three airports. You may send me a private message or post openly. And I sincerely thank you. John

NEWARK — The choice between a "virtual strip search" and a "grope" was strictly academic Wednesday for most holiday travelers flying out of Newark Liberty International Airport. The majority of Newark’s full-body scanners were idle throughout much of the day, depriving most passengers of the chance to opt out of the controversial screening procedure even if they had wanted to. All in all, Thanksgiving eve was a non-event at Newark Liberty, reflecting the relative calm reported at airports around the country. "Things have gone very, very smoothly,"

If the Times Square bomber had successful, would you be okay with TSA officers pulling people out of their cars at roadblocks and doing the same thing they are doing now? And fining them $11,000 for non-compliance?

VIDEO

Did you think that the outrage over airport fondling and nudie scanners was some sort of civil liberties thing? Or a populist uprising? Or individuals standing up to government degradations?Then you've been fooled by the libertarian-corporate-dentite conspiracy.The Nation magazine, a liberal publication that typically opposed George W. Bush's NSA snooping on our phone calls, has a new article attacking those who oppose Barack Obama's TSA snooping around our boxer briefs.Here's the headline:TSAstroturf: The Washington Lobbyists and Koch-Funded Libertarians Behind the TSA Scandal And the article only gets dumber from there. The general gist seems to be that the dental lobby...

Zogby Interactive: 61% Oppose Full Body Scans and TSA Pat Downs; 48% Will Seek Alternative to Flying Frequent Fliers: 59% Oppose Enhancements and 43% Will Seek Alternative to Flying The implementation of full body scans and pat downs by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) as part of security enhancements at our nation's airports will cause 48% of Americans and 42% of more frequent fliers to choose a different mode of transportation when possible, a recent Zogby International Poll finds.  Overall, 61% of the 2,032 likely voters polled from Nov. 19 to Nov. 22, oppose the use of full body scans...

The new TSA airport scanners have justifiably garnered a lot of attention and criticism. Frankly, the entire scheme is nothing more than a cheap contrivance to give the impression that Democrats care deeply about national security. Insofar as Democrats actually care about national security, it could not be more obvious that it is a mere afterthought to their main agenda of turning America into a tawdry imitation of socialist Europe. It is only an uninterested administration that views national security as a perfunctory and unserious task that, as a response to radical Islamic plane hijackers, would conceive of fondling every...

Something for everyone here. For TSA skeptics, evidence that relentless media scrutiny over the past week is turning the public against the new protocol. That widely linked CBS poll taken between Nov. 7 and 10 showed 81 percent support for full-body scanners; this new one from ABC conducted just yesterday shows support down to 64 percent for the machines and a 50/48 split (within the margin of error) against the patdowns. (Among those who fly at least once a year, it’s 54 percent.) For skeptics of the skeptics, it’s evidence that for all of Drudge’s heavy breathing, most of the...

This open letter from a group of scientists [...] is entirely to the point, in my view as a radiation transport physicist who is intimately familiar with the processes by which x-rays deposit energy in tissue. [...] As it stands, these machines are a pure act of state-sponsored violence against anyone who is mislead into one. I would certainly not allow myself to be scanned by one of these machines, nor allow one of my minor children to be scanned by one. [...] Based on a back of the envelope calculation with a 50 KVp Bremsstrahlung spectrum and the standard...

Rapiscan is one of the two companies that makes the nudie-scanners at airports for the TSA. Rapiscan CEO Deepak Chopra (who has the same name as the more famous Deepak Chopra, M.D.) recently was tapped by Obama to accompany the administration on Obama’s trip to India. Also, Chopra is an Obama donor. Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2010/11/nudie-scan-ceo-obama-ally#ixzz15xjJ7JKX

Here's one I don't get.If you opt out of the TSA backsplatter x-ray for whatever reason, and are directed into the aggressive (genital pat included) physical examination, it would seem you are automatically governed to a TSA screener of the same sex. First, someone correct if this is an incorrect understanding. As far as I have been able to research, the TSA states in its "Head-to-Toe Screening Policies": "It is TSA's policy that passengers should be screened by an officer of the same gender in a professional, respectful manner." Now, there can be only one plausible and logical explanation for...