Originally Posted by
WillCAD
If ATR were anywhere NEAR as effective as a human being at interpreting patterns, there wouldn't be so many false positives resulting in targeted area pat-downs, caused by sweat, folds of cloth, an ID mistakenly left in the pocket, etc.
But, you know, TSA says it is, and you believe them, right? ^
In a perfect world, neither of these machines would ever have been deployed for use in administrative searches, but been kept strictly to prisons and classified military installations where invasive search methodologies may be used.
In the real world, however, the effectiveness of the machines, with or without ATR, is irrelevant next to the health dangers of the BSX. I don't care if it sees through you - which, incidentally, it actually DOES, since you can see finger and hand bones in many of the example images on the net - the machine uses dangerous, carcinogenic ionizing radiation in its scans, and should thus never be used on a living being, not even in prisons.
The NoSs are highly effective for what they were intended for: Security Theater. The TSA wins every time local TV goes out to the airport and shows long lines with people having their IDs checked and assuming the surrender position. It's easy to find a Kettle or two who absolutely loves all of this because it makes him or her feel safe -- note use of the word "feel" in almost all of their interviews. The bang for the buck for these things approaches zero. Propaganda Village with their weekly body count of big heavy metal guns found at checkpoints is proof-positive. Somebody needs to go to jail for allowing deployment of a system that irradiates the citizenry with ionizing industrial radiation that concentrates on the skin and in the eyes. That's just downright criminally negligent.