MikeMpls

That's not a problem. We hope that you'll continue to participate and -- perhaps more importantly -- work to educate others that you encounter.

RosemaryT

I can't resist one last question: Does that see-through plastic "cone of silence" around the WBI provide any shielding?

If not, then I got hit with about 40 scans while I stood there, and the aveage TSA employee must get hit with hundreds each day.

Rose

FriendlySkies

Do you mean the box that they hold you in, or a piece of plexi-glass separating the WTMD & NoS? Both of them are useless, so you were probably hit with some radiation. This is why we also need to refuse to walk through the NoS, even if we are opting out..

RosemaryT

I was asking about the shroud around the imager itself. I was not put into any box. I was just ushered off to the side (kinda) - literally right next to the scanner - and watched countless people go by, very close to the main flow of people-traffic.

badrhino

Nope.

That particular NoS was shut down from the moment I opted out until I left the screening area. It made my day to help smooth the way for many other travelers. Confession: I deliberately moved slowly, asked questions, and 'forgot' a couple of pocketed items (e.g., hotel key cards) just to delay the process as much as practical. It's the least I can do.

RoadVeteran

+1000^^^^^^^^^

How long will it be before TSA takes away the right to opt out of the radiation strip search machines?, at first the shoe circus was optional too.

We should start a pool, the best answer I am able to give to my own question is probably a lot sooner that we might believe

MikeMpls

Why does your dental technician step outside the room to push the buttom that causes your teeth to be x-rayed?

The radiation will be more dispersed as you move away from the machine, but you will still be receiving some. The scary part is that TSA refuses to release the test data on these machines. The test data is now the subject of a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) lawsuit by EPIC.

You're not the only one who's been screeched at by Atlanta TSA's low-lifes. Returning through international customs at ATL a while back, my wife & I were repeatedly yelled at to "hurry up" & "keep moving".

My wife has MS, and although she appears physically able to most people, these trips are stressful enough for her as it is.

RadioGirl

Hi Rosemary, and thanks for sharing your story. As many here know, I also object to the nude-o-scope on privacy grounds, as well as the risk of theft, the insane cost of the machines, the slowness, etc. I'm also a radio engineer.

The x-ray scanner looks like two black boxes that you stand between with no glass doors. If the scanner you were next to was a cylinder with glass doors, it was (to the best of my knowledge) a millimeter wave scanner rather than an x-ray scanner. If so, the energy from the scanner is more like a cell phone and is not a health concern. I would worry about the health risks from x-rays, though. One major difference is that x-ray exposure is cumulative - every scan adds to the damage done by the previous ones - where millimeter radio exposure is not.

Even so, the plastic "shroud" should stop quite a lot of the millimeter wave energy; if you had a knife of the same material under your clothes, the scanner would pick up the reflected energy bouncing off it.

Again, I oppose the nude-o-scope on many grounds, but I don't agree with exaggerating the health risks of the millimeter-wave scanner just to try to scare people. TSA exaggerates risks to try to coerce people in their direction; we should not take the same approach in opposing them.

After your traumatic experience, the last thing you need is to worry unnecessarily about radiation exposure.

By the way, one of the TSA people here said that the really personal groping with the palm of the hand was only happening at BOS and LAS, but your incident was at Atlanta, right? Did the screener use the back of her hand, or the palm? If the palm, that's further grounds for complaint.

Again, thanks for telling your story and welcome to FlyerTalk.

docmonkey

Dear Rosemary,
I'm sorry you had to go through this. The TSA is a disgusting organization filled with some very unpleasant people. I encourage you to spread your story and speak out against the type of treatment you received. Welcome to FlyerTalk!

n4zhg

Don't worry about that. Electrons are cheap.

SocialAdept

It might be that I'm confusing different rights and requirement for consent here. But generally whenever I hear a security officer ask if he can search me or my belongings that tells me that he needs consent.

chollie

You surrender that consent when you voluntarily submit to the screening process. Specifically, when you put your bag on the belt (although I suspect TSA would expand that to say as soon as your ID has been cleared by the TDC). In fact, some TSOs have ordered pax to surrender bottles of water while still in line before the TDC.

Further, once you submit to the screening process, my understanding is that it's too late to back out. You can't get in line (past the TDC), realize they are doing a search-n-swab of every single bag, change your mind and exit.

mozgytog

Guys, I've been very absent this past week due to an abundance of work, but I want to share this week's PornoScan experiences as I sit here in BOS, waiting to go home.

Sunday night, at PIT: The upstiairs alternate checkpoint was open at 4 pm. I went there to avoid the downstairs vacationer rush. PornoSccan not in operation, roped off.

Friday afternoon, at BOS: B6 terminal, checkpoint for gates had 3 lanes, one PornoScan, not operational.

So this week I've been in 2 airports and both times the machines were roped off.

Posted from my phone, please excuse typos.

MikeMpls

He's being diplomatic. Once you consent to the administrative search, you have to go through with it, and I believe the courts have upheld that.

Mr. Elliott

Radio Girl, thanks for your explanation about the differences between the backscatter and millimeter wave imaging scanners.

I looked on the TSA website and they show a picture of the L3 ProVision scanner and it is listed as a MMW scanner. On the L3 website for this machine, they give no specific data except to say the ”signals are 10,000 times lower than other commonly used radio frequency devices”, they don’t mention what these other devices are, could be microwave ovens.

I don’t know how much radio wave energy a cell phone or a cell phone tower puts out, but I remember reading somewhere that the older analog cell phones used a more powerful and lower frequency radio wave, and that one of the was the reasons for the extendable antennas was to get the signal away from the persons head, where today’s digital cell phones are using a much higher frequency and use less power to transmit the signal and do not have these extendable antenna anymore and are much safer than the older analog cell phones.

With your background as a radio engineer, and ignoring all the other privacy issues associated with theses machines that we all object to, just on the safety aspect alone, would you have any reason to be concerned about being scanned by a MMW scanner.

Mr. Elliott