Originally Posted by
SchmeckFlyer
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Radiation that penetrates clothing certainly does not have to penetrate skin. That's an irresponsible assumption to make.
If it can penetrate clothing, then it will penetrate my bare skin. No thanks.
Further, being honest, refusing to use this scanner technology based on unfounded "health" fears is basically like shooting yourself in the foot. It discredits any arguments against the implementation of the device, because it creates the impression that the opponents have not done their research and are basing their opinions more on scare tactics and vague assumptions about the "unknown" than what is actually known.
You still haven't provided any independent technical verification of your claims. What is the source you have for the technical data around these scanners? Where is the long term research on health?
There is no evidence of medical risk due to "cumulative exposure" to infrared radiation.
These devices are not passive 'infrared cameras' - they use penetrating energy.
Ultrasound would be even worse, both as en effective method to detect objects as well as from a privacy point of view. Ultrasound works on principle of soundwaves, not radiation, and thuis requires direct contact with an object. Medical ultrasounds require direct contact with skin; basically, every passenger would have to get undressed (hardly an improvement over a blurry image as far as privacy concerns go). Furthermore, ultrasound over clothing would not work... it would be sticky mess.
There are transducer-free ultrasound applications, which have been available for a few years, and some of these technologies could be tuned to detect the presence of hard objects against the body. Here is a link to one company that makes a 'through-the-air' ultrasound scanner:
http://www.qualitymag.com/CDA/Archiv...00f932a8c0____
There is no reason to fear "radiation" just because the popular imagination equates radiation with Hiroshima and Chernobyl. Indeed, those incidents involved radiation, but not the sort of radiation we are talking about here, really very far from it.
Thanks, but I am not so dumb that I can't tell the difference between nuclear radiation in super-high doses and controlled radiation for medical/scanning purposes.