Originally Posted by
oboshoe
"scanner" is a misnomer.
The machines don't scan anything.
Using ionization radiation, they take a photo of you naked.
Then the viewer visually scans the photo of your naked body to see if anything looks amiss. If they do, then they radio down to the grope-point and have a groper rubdown the offending area to determine what the item is.
The TSA pervert in the private booth is the scanner, not the machine.
Well, from what I have seen (technical info is hard to come by on these machines) the x-ray / radiation "gun" actually does do a sweep from head to toe on each side, with the compton scattered electrons indeed bouncing back to form "photo" of sorts on the detector. However, it is not an instantaneous dose, but indeed a sweep, or scan, from top to bottom, if you will.