I don’t know - I don’t know what they’re qualifying as a “surge.” Language can be tricky in this case. For instance, take the definition of a “mass stranding” of whales: two or more whales within six days of one another within 74 kilometers. That’s not particularly “massive,” but if you just throw it out there it sounds like you’ve got thousands of animals doing the reverse lemming trick against the coast of California. Without knowing how they’re defining “cancer surge,” I can’t even hazard a guess as to how likely it is that their findings would actually indicate anything of use or not. They’ve got all the actual data hidden behind the scenes - all we have is a press release without any knowledge as to the underlying methodology or the actual raw findings.
It’s an extraordinary claim to suggest that backscatter x-ray systems (I assume we’re not discussing millimeter wave scanning, which lack any plausible vector by which they could create an increased risk for any cancer) would expose the individuals operating them to any significant risk of cancer. We know that the actual exposure you get from going through the INSIDE of the machine is negligible when compared to your total exposure to all ionizing radiation over the course of a year. It’s plausible that there could be some sort of manufacturing defect in the machines that would cause them to leak excessive radiation on the operators, but at this point we don’t have a proposed mechanism by which that leakage would take place (a statement that I make because if there were some sort of easily identifiable mechanical flaw in the systems, they should have been pointed out and addressed by now, with all of the undue terror over the scanners). I’m open to the possibility that there could be risk associated with the scanners, but all that I can find in that story are claims - secondhand claims, in fact, made by EPIC on the basis of information that they either cannot or will not reveal. In a situation like that, the responsible course of action is to maintain a healthy skepticism of the claims being made until the substantiating evidence is presented for verification.
You’re the one making assertions saying they improved. I’m just asking for you to back it up :)
Fuck if I know, I’m going off memories of news stories. Go ahead and eliminate the agency entirely in a rage for doing what your elected politicians told it to do. I’m sure nothing bad will happen when baggage is no longer x-rayed.
You mean like the congressman who sponsored the TSA bill, urging airports to get rid of them? I didn’t elect that guy, but I do agree with him.
Oh and re: longer lines, from that article I just linked:
The airport believed a private contractor would have more flexibility to supplement staff during busy periods with part-time employees, airport spokesman Mike McCarron said. Also, the city’s high cost of living had made it difficult in the past to recruit federal employees to run immigration and customs stations — a problem the airport didn’t want at security checkpoints.
I would think that if they make a claim that can pretty easily be checked then they should be able to back it up. According to what I’ve read the machines can cause a specific type of skin cancer so it should be easy to see if there are more than the normal amount of cases among TSA workers.
Since they have filed a number of lawsuits against the TSA about these machinesI would think they have SOME evidence to back up their claims or else they just have a ton of extra money lying around. Personally I don’t fly enough to worry about it but the TSA workers probably do so the claims should at least be looked into. It’s not like the government never lies about health risks once they are heavily invested in a policy.
Yeah! How could we get along without the security the TSA provides? It would be like returning to the dark ages of the 1990s, when you could rarely get near an airport without being hit by shrapnel from an exploding plane! They’re just doing what politicians tell them to do, so this must be good public policy! Further, it is impossible to x-ray luggage without the TSA, why, the first time anyone ever thought of doing that was the glorious day that that agency was formed!
At their peak, about 95 machines were installed in 34 airports…TSA had planned on installing 434 machines; however, due to maintenance problems, they have halted installation and “have no plans to acquire more.”
So maintenance issues are sufficient to let the terrorists win, eh? Where’s the screaming fear of this loss of capability?
I agree. And they haven’t yet. I don’t know whether that’s because of legal issues or some other reason.
Lamentably, no - it’s not nearly that simple. First, we don’t have any good reason to believe that the scanners themselves would cause any particular kind or variety of cancer. The reason is, the total amount of radiation that you’re exposed to during the course of a scan is perhaps 1/500th of the total amount of actual ionizing radiation you’re exposed to throughout the course of the year simply by existing on the planet Earth. The notion that they could create an increased risk for skin cancer are plausible (you are pumping ionizing radiation through your skin in two directions), but you’re throwing out a fraction of the radiation you’d get from a simple chest x-ray, which should present precisely the same amount of risk of damage to the skin, along with the additional risk of damage to all those internal organs between your skin and your bones, where large amounts of the radiation are actually absorbed.
Second, skin cancer incidence in TSA workers would not directly indicate anything about the scanners, as it would not account for any number of confounding factors. We should probably be excluding any workers who don’t actually use the scanners, for example - it doesn’t really tell us anything if there’s a localized deviation in random occurrence of a type of melanoma among baggage handlers who weren’t even exposed to the hypothetical cause. Further, if the cause of cancer here is proposed to be the radiation that we are directly exposing the scanned subjects to inside of the machine, we should expect to find a dramatically greater incidence of that cancer among passengers, since the scanner should be trying as hard as possible to isolate the radiation from the environment (because that’s how it works - it catches the radiation that bounces back off of you to create the photographic image, so if it’s not catching that radiation it’s going to be doing a pretty terrible job of forming that image). If the alleged cause is leakage from the machine, we don’t have any reason to believe that skin cancer, in particular, would be any more prevalent than any other disease that could be caused by exposure to large amounts of ionizing radiation.
That’s how you would address the claims being made by these people critically. The fact of the matter is that we don’t have ANY evidence at this point that what they’re saying is happening is actually happening. Once we do have that evidence, it’s also entirely possible that they are incorrect. Let’s remember that Dean Radin believes with all of his being that the network of GCP eggs indicate a clear deviation correlated with the September 11 terrorist attacks from random data. He’s got numbers that he cites that suggest that he’s right. At least, they suggest that until another professional statistician can examine that information and point out errors in his methodology (by which he identifies the event as anomalous - other individuals have identified the spike as a not-unexpected result from a not-unexpected deviation several hours prior to their arbitrarily selected event window fully in line with random chance). Without real evidence, we don’t have any reason to assume any credibility with respect to the claims EPIC are making. If you accept their claims as true or substantial, you’re dramatically lowering your standards for evidence below what I would call reasonable.
Didn’t claim bolded sections, don’t know why you guys are being dumbasses. The list of things changed over the years in relation to the TSA and baggage screening is apparently non-trivial, and not just junk-touching. For example, mandatory screening for explosives was added by the original 2001 act.
If you’re so upset about the TSA get mad at politicians who support it. It’s like getting mad at the Pentagon for fighting a stupid wars; they’re doing what they were told to do. It’s truly strange how everyone treats the TSA as some extra-constitutional thing floating around.
I’m not sure you understand how bureaucracy works, or the poor feedback loop of elected politics and legislation. I’m sure there are some blog posts that could help get you started.
Continued confusion among passengers about how to pack liquids
Those nude-o-scope scanners take 5x as long/ person as the walk through metal detectors
The TSA has no metrics for customer service or accountability for passenger delays, so they’re not too fussed about efficient shift changes or proper crewing during rush hours.
Since 9/11, there have been two changes that have truly made us safer. Cockpit doors are much more secure, and passengers now know not to be passive if someone acts up in the cabin. Nothing the TSA has done makes us safer, relative to the pre-9/11 world.
This is based on my own observations over a couple million air miles.
You actually did imply both, Jason—you announced that bad things were going to happen after we stop x-raying luggage as a result of abolishing the TSA, and you suggested we not abolish the TSA because it’s just doing what politicians told it to do, which implies that you think that anything politicians do is consequently a good thing. Your post was extraordinarily stupid, it isn’t the people making fun of it who are engaging in dumbassery.
Notice that it’s quite possible to think that some policy should be changed without actually being angry at the people carrying out that policy. It’s also possible to angry at people for the way they carry out various policies even if they’re good policies
Do you actually have any coherent point whatsoever?
If you’re so upset about the TSA [i]get mad at politicians who support it
Yeah! Only a dumbass would sound off on some public forum about policy matters rather than writing an angry letter to a politician!
My experience is the removing of laptops from and belts have added lots of time as well. The liquids thing is getting lots of press so I’m seeing a lot less of people fumbling with it at the lines (but it was pretty bad when it was first implemented).
Well put, skedastic. It is an utter waste, much like simply piling up all that money and burning – except you get the added benefit of pornoscanning or groping.
One quick question though, where do you get that “six million dollars per life saved” figured? That sounds pretty useful in debate, and I’d love to see the source.
I forgot to report back on our trip to Italy. We did the body scanners and it took all of 5 seconds to get through the process. I wasn’t particularly caring about it at all.
I don’t know if it makes us safer but it certainly didn’t seem any more rage worthy than the metal detectors they make you walk through.
