TSA employees have identified cancer clusters allegedly linked to radiation exposure while operating body scanners and other screening technology.

Not the best way to get rid of TSA employees, but it will do.

Interesting. Putting aside the Constitutional concerns for a moment, there's a big problem in studying this sort of thing. First of all, there are really three different effected groups: casual flyers, frequent flyers/flight crew, and TSA personnel who operate the machines. The last group obviously undergoes the most direct hazard, since they stand next to the machines 40 hours a week. However, the TSA employees don't have the additional exposure of the radiation incurred from the flight itself, which happens within an hour or so after exposure to the machine for the people actually flying.

It may turn out that the frequent flyers are the ones incurring the greatest hazard. I hope Raddy will chip in here because he knows a lot more about this stuff than I do, but I think the in-flight exposure consists mostly of high-velocity particles (solar wind / cosmic rays) and some gamma, while the exposure from the machine is soft X-rays. Cumulative damage from radiation exposure in multiple bands like this is not well studied, as far as I know. Despite the NIST and NIH general prohibition against rating products, I'd like to see them get their hands on examples of the machines and test them. The reason being that it's very unlikely that a private citizen could ever get their hands on a machine, even if they had the money; I suspect that the machines are on the U.S. Munitions List.

Either way, it's radiation exposure that is completely unnecessary. Have the body scanners actually caught anything significant? Maybe, but I'm thinking that if there had been a major bust thanks to the body scanners, the TSA would be trumpeting it far and wide.

I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you. I mean, their blog said these scanners are perfectly safe! Surely we can believe them, even though we've caught them lying time and time again.
/end sarcasm

We need to get rid of them, before they are a new federal police force "as well-funded as the military".

The solution is fairly simple. Mandate that everyone from the president on down endures the same screening. As soon as the first lady gets felt up by some ten dollar an hour TSA agent, I think we'll see changes.

I am not the one claiming the scanners are safe, so how better to lead than by example?

That won't happen, because our "representatives" are representing themselves ahead of us.

Let me put on my best Gomer Pyle voice Surprise, surprise!

Our "representatives" don't suffer the same screening as the rest of us (I've observed this personally).
These folks have no business whatsoever making laws and regulations that they themselves are then immune from.
And security at the airport is a joke. Check out http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-19/us/dc.plane.held_1_bomb-threat-bomb-squad-transportation-security-administration-spokeswoman?_s=PM:US
If they are 'keeping us safe' then why would they need to re-search a plane after the passengers and luggage had ALREADY gone through 'security' ??

Wait. The governemtn and TSA LIED to us!
*gasp*
*fein woosiness*
I just... can't.. believe it...
*faints*

I just can't a boner over this. If you don't like the scanners, then you get a pat-down. Big whoop. Stupid and annoying, yes.

We spent $3.7 trillion in response to 9/11--is that not a bigger issue? This scanner stuff is just for the fringe crowd to drool about.

I expect Michele Bachmann to make minor hay with this.

ahhh, the idiot has spoken again

TSA employees have identified cancer clusters allegedly linked to radiation exposure while operating body scanners and other screening technology

Uh, yeah, no. Allegedly is a very, very important word there, isn't it?

Not that I think it's impossible for the scanners to cause cancers, mind you.

But A) There hasn't been time for that to happen. (it's been four years since they started deploying them - cancers from radiation exposure tend to take decades, not four-years-for-even-the-first-few-installs).

B) "employees have identified cancer clusters" means "we're throwing anecdotes to see if they stick".

I see nothing in the documents they link to suggesting actual study of rates compared to the general population, or indeed rates at all. Or, for that matter, even a detailed count of people possibly affected.

"Cancer clusters" sets off a whole lot of warning bells these days (remember "power lines give you cancer"?).

(Look at the actual document - it's all about "concerns" and "feelings" and union pressure - and among the things reported as occurring are strokes and heart disease - neither of which are particularly known to be caused by radiation exposure.

At least with cancers, we have a causal connection well-established by decades of experience.)

I'd say I'm disappointed in EPIC's reporting*, but, well, it's EPIC, so I was disappointed before they started.

(* Not because they mentioned the fact that such blather was in the emails, but that they mentioned it as if we should think it's A Real Problem Fer Sher.)

TSA employees have identified cancer clusters allegedly linked to radiation exposure while operating body scanners and other screening technology.

Not the best way to get rid of TSA employees, but it will do. - Patrick

No it won't. Guess who's going to pay for their treatment?

I see a huge class action lawsuit on the horizon.

For Darth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6_1Pw1xm9U

Yeah, we probably won't know for decades, when epidemiological studies will have to be done. But if the scanners are so harmless, then why can't the TSA agents wear dosimeters?

We can argue from now till doomsday about whether these things will cause cancer -- I collect these stories and studies because every little bit helps in getting through to sheeple's thick skulls -- but my objection was always to the scanners themselves and what they represent, way before anyone started talking about radiation exposure.

Stepping into the scanner is acquiescence. It's saying to our security overlords, "Yes, I'll do whatever you say." That's not a position I will ever take.

Oh, and BOTU, for the umpteenth time: just because you acquiesce to the scanner doesn't mean you won't also be hauled aside for a grope. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: there are only two political parties, the powerful and everyone else.

If you have to go through the scanner/grope, guess which party you're in?

Here's the ACLU getting up on their hind legs after Obama makes a funny about the TSA interfering with Americans:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/26/obamas-tsa-patdowns-joke-infuriates-aclu/

Sigivald has said it.

You need, still, to name an information source. Such a thing would include the "General Public Dose Limit."

To recap:

A Gamma ray is emitted from an unstable atomic nucleus. An X-ray is an induced ray, coaxed from outside the nucleus - explained here. That should take you a while to comprehend (no, nothing in it is made up!).

Both interact with matter, and if their energy is high enough, they can produce ions - essentially, beat one of your atoms hard enough to make it lose an electron. That atom will then be chemically active and try to glom onto anything it can to become neutral again.

Two things now apply: intensity - the amount of energy transmitted per event, and flux - the number of events made possible by the relationship between the emitter and the target.

Reminder: most of the time, when you are struck by one of these, nothing whatsoever happens, because the Nannites are right - you are an ugly bag of mostly water. Difficulties arise when either individual cells die or mutate because of the ion or ions produced within them.

As for the "General Public Dose Limit"...
Radiation workers have limits set to force them to monitor and minimize their exposure, ALARA - As Low As Reasonably Achievable. The principle is that no exposure will be allowed unless there is a net gain, a benefit, obtained by such exposure.

You're allowed 3 Rem/quarter, or 5 Rem/year by DOE guidelines, if you're a worker. If not, it's 100 milliRem/year - again, only if there is a benefit is this to be intentional.

Since the scanners are looking for an enemy which is either
a) foiled by other means than the TSA, or
b) simply not present
the real issue is why the taxpayers should put up with this at all.

Because there is no net benefit.

"ugly bags of mostly water" falls over laughing... now the rest of the cubefarm wants to know why I'm laughing...

there used to be a machine that detected explosive materials on you or your luggage... but it's too HAAAARRRRD so they got rid of them.

the only thing that had a hope in hell of Detecting The Problem.

Now they are just adding to a radiation profile so that the BOTU's of the world will feel like they are safe boarding that cattle cars.

pay no attention to what they say, only pay attention to the outcome.

How do I know just how intelligent my friendly TSA agent was before a recent flight? When I opted out of the scan, he (very politely, actually) asked me why I did not want to be scanned. I told him until the controversy over the radiation levels was settled, I was not comfortable with the scan. He said, "It's not radiation." DING-DING-DING! Bonus round? "...and if it was dangerous, they wouldn't let us stand next to the machine all day long." Oy.

I'm sure those guys in the ship yards were told not to worry about the asbestos dust. Asbestos is inert. It doesn't even burn. It's got to be safe, right?

MarkD, if you're trying for analogy, not quite.

Radiation effects are well-known, because the workers themselves had to figure out what happens.

It's not hidden. There is no conspiracy whatsoever to hide what happens to living tissue as a result of being shot with rays, particles and what-have-you.

It's just the fallback position of those who won't or can't learn: "yuh, they hidin' sumpin', ah know it!"

I've described the effects. Now, it will NOT BE POSSIBLE to tell if the dose from the scanner or the exposure during the trip to Europe caused the next passenger cancer...

...but since there is no net benefit to having the scanners, no matter what dose they deliver, they should be removed.

Chertoff can suck it. Well, not mine, but you get the idea.

Oh, duh. Sorry.