Originally Posted by
redtigeriii
I agree. This whole 'software incompatibility' is cover to give them an excuse to remove the backscatter machines. One thing, however, is that if they are secretly worried about possible radiation effects, why would they consider to bring back backscatter machines in the future?
Because they're secretly worried about lawsuits and controversy, not about the actual health and safety of people who may come into contact with those machines.
Besides, Rapiscan will eventually develop a functional ATR software upgrade for its machines, and once that happens, you can bet that Chertoff and his cronies will lobby heavily to have the BSX machines brought out of storage and put into use once again. But that would be more difficult to do if anyone at TSA admitted even the slightest possibility of BSX technology being less harmless than a bag of sleeping kittens.