"We want to be sensitive to people's feelings about privacy," he said. "We have to ensure that each person getting on every flight is secure."

Unlike a medical X-ray, the TSA X-ray machines are a sci-fi fan's dream: they are lower-energy beams that can only penetrate clothing and the topmost layers of skin. This provides TSA agents with a view that would expose any explosives concealed by clothing. But according to the UCSF professors, the low-enegy rays do a "Compton scatter" off tissue layers just under the skin, possibly exposing some vital areas and leaving the tissues at risk of mutation.

When an X-ray Compton scatters, it doesn't shift an electron to a higher energy level; instead, it hits the electron hard enough to dislodge it from its atom. The authors note that this process is "likely breaking bonds," which could cause mutations in cells and raise the risk of cancer.

U.S. senators expected to question TSA official over full-body scanners, aggressive patdowns
Published: Wednesday, November 17, 2010, 7:00 AM
Steve Strunsky/The Star-Ledger

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the use of full-body scanners spreads at Newark Liberty International and other airports around the country, resistance to the machines — and to what some call aggressive patdowns offered as an alternative — is also on the rise.

At a hearing in Washington today, U.S. senators are expected to grill the head of the Transportation Security Administration over concerns the screening measures have gone too far, with critics complaining passengers must choose between a virtual strip search and a grope.

The 10 a.m. hearing was convened by the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, chaired by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.). Aides to Republican and Democratic committee members say TSA Administrator John Pistole will be questioned about the intrusiveness and effectiveness of the agency’s screening procedures. Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey is a member of the committee.

TSA chief likely to face lawmakers' questions on pat-downs, body scans
By the CNN Wire Staff
November 17, 2010 9:50 a.m. EST

...The mood among security officials is "anger over the way the media is playing this story," according to a senior Homeland Security official.

"You had a dutiful [transportation security officer], someone who works on the front lines to protect this country from a terrorist attack, someone who did everything by the book and according to his training, and he was accosted and verbally abused by a member of the traveling public," the official said. "The fact that some in the media would hail the traveler as a kind of folk hero is shameful."

The incident sparked a debate over passenger safety and personal privacy that has remained headline news, just ahead of the holiday travel season.

Pistole, addressing a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on air cargo safety, veered off topic to plead with the American public to see airport security "as a partnership."

TSA plans modest changes to 'virtual strip searches'
by Declan McCullagh

An Internet-fueled backlash against air traveler screening is growing amid signs that the Transportation Security Agency will consider slight changes to its controversial new procedures.

TSA administrator John Pistole said today that the agency will be "announcing some new policies" in the "near future" that will change the screening process for pilots, who have protested being forced to choose between a "virtual strip search" or an invasive pat-down a few minutes before they're handed the controls of a 975,000-pound kerosene-fueled missile in the form of a jumbo jet. (See our previous coverage.)

Fliers in U.S. urged to opt out of airport security en masse
Cathal Kelly, Staff Reporter

As public grousing about intrusive airport-security procedures continues to grow louder in the U.S., an online group is calling on passengers to opt out of “enhanced” scanning and force security staff to use rigorous new pat-down procedures on them.

So called National Opt-Out Day is set for Nov. 24, the day before American Thanksgiving and one of the busiest air travel days in the U.S.

“The goal of National Opt Out Day is to send a message to our lawmakers that we demand change,” the movement’s leader, Brian Nordegren, writes. “We have a right to privacy, and buying a plane ticket should not mean that we're guilty until proven innocent.”

Pat-Downs 101: Nine Things to Know About Your Thanksgiving Airport Screening
By: JOSH SANBURN (8 hours ago)

...So why am I hearing so much about these new security procedures this week?
On Oct. 28, the TSA announced new rules in screening procedures (or what they termed an "unpredictable mix of security layers"). While the procedures are constantly in flux, the change came after the attempted Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, tried to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear mid-flight.

`Fed Up' Travelers, Unions Balk at Airport Body Scans
By Mary Jane Credeur and Mary Schlangenstein - Nov 17, 2010 9:13 AM CT

....“We’re fed up and we’re not going to take it anymore,” said Brandon Macsata, executive director of the Association for Airline Passenger Rights. “We can remain safe as a society without having to be subjected to intrusive screenings that violate our privacy rights.”...U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican, told Pistole at a hearing today in Washington that the government must move to increase passenger privacy after protests against the enhanced pat-down procedures.

“We’ve got to see some action,” Hutchison said. “We’ve got to do more. The outcry is huge.”

Macsata’s Washington-based group is among those backing the Nov. 24 protest, which began with at least two websites opposing the full-body scans. One site, www.wewontfly.com, has attracted 300,000 visitors since it was created two weeks ago, said George Donnelly, its founder.

Have you ever been subjected to an airport security 'pat down'?

Yes, and I felt it invaded my privacy: 57%; Yes, but I did not feel it invaded my privacy: 16%; No: 27%; 17,541 votes

The head of the TSA offered on Wednesday to have airport screeners come to Capitol Hill to give senators a pat-down so they could fully understand the mechanics of the newly deployed, controversial technique.

John Pistole, the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), told senators on the Senate Science, Commerce, and Transportation Committee that he “insisted” on receiving the pat-down to “experience what that involves so that we would know before we rolled it out,” and added that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has gotten a pat-down as well....Pistole said he hopes that new screening technology will soon be available that will depict images of passengers as more like stick-figures rather than the life-like representation currently produced by whole body imaging systems, which have spurred privacy concerns.

Nearly all of the senators at Wednesday's hearing said they had received dozens, and in some cases hundreds, of phone calls from concerned constituents about the new screening procedures.

I'm sick of the craven cliches TSA apologists have cited these past nine years:

"They protect us from terrorists."

No, they impose pointlessly superstitious security theatre, trample Americans' constitutional rights and make foreigners feel sorry for us. TSA protected nobody with its infamous "bathroom bans" after last year's Christmas terror attempt; rules like "keep your lap empty and your hands visible at all times" only demonstrated the agency's willingness to treat ordinary citizens like serial killers in supermax prison.

"You gave up your rights when you bought an airline ticket."

I never gave up any rights. The government stole them while cowards egged them on.

"TSA agents are just doing their jobs."

A lousy apologia and historically ignorant to boot; the civilised world established at Nuremberg that "just following orders" cuts no ice. And my fellow Americans are realising "it'll stop terrorists" cuts none either, at least not to justify low-grade sexual harassment as standard behaviour for government agents.

It's not hyperbole to call the enhanced patdown a low-grade sexual assault; if you don't believe me, go find some woman's boobs or man's balls, start cupping and squeezing them according to new TSA standards, and count how many offences you're charged with. Last month, an agent openly admitted that the purpose of the aggressive new patdowns was to intimidate people into choosing the nude scanners instead.

If the ineffectiveness of body scanners is not enough to give the public pause, the cost ought to be.

An army of executives for scanner-producing corporations -- mostly former high-ranking Homeland Security officials -- successfully lobbied Congress into spending $300 million in stimulus money to buy the scanners. But running them will cost another $340 million each year. Operating them means 5,000 added TSA personnel, growing the screener workforce by 10 percent. This, when the federal debt commission is saying that we must cut federal employment rolls, including some FBI agents, just to keep spending sustainable.

Why cut funding for the people who actually catch terrorists to add more pointless hassles at the airport?