Originally Posted by
senseker
We have one wbi at sfo here, and I work with it every day at the checkpoint. Honestly, the images we see aren't that great, but good enough to determine if you have a wallet in your pocket or a knife strapped to your chest (and that's happened with me before). It's great technology, and it does work. There are signs next to it to explain what it does, and we have people explaining what it does as well. As a passenger, it is your right to not go through it. Anyone who opts out of the wbi instead gets a patdown. Nobody can force you to go through the wbi. It uses zero x-rays, so it's not going to expose you to anything. If I remember correctly, the machine that uses x-rays is the backscatter, a machine we don't use.
There are reports from overseas in the past few weeks that prolong exposure standing near these sort of machines may lead to a significant risk of thyroid cancer. The studies were primarily about MRI technicians but they also speculated that security employees may be in more danger of this cancer because they aren't protected at all like the MRI techs. How do you feel about working next to these machines knowing they may give you cancer 10 years down the road?