TWA884

Feature Article: A Self-Service Screening Option is Coming to the AirportMore details in Business Insider:

FriendlySkies

I just saw an article about this on Facebook from Simply Flying and noticed all of the designs just show some form of "scanner" and not a WTMD. I wonder if/when we'll start to see them phased out in favor of the "scanner".

guflyer

This concerns me. In my opinion, the value of precheck is getting to use a WTMD. I am also concerned that some of the pod designs seem to make it difficult to opt-out.

I do not understand why people are all of the sudden comfortable with going through MMW body scanners, when they were not a few years ago. Have new studies come out showing that they are safe? I have not been able to locate any. Have people just given up on their health?

WillCAD

MMW scanners ARE the safe ones. They use non-ionizing microwaves, not ionizing x-rays. Perfectly safe for all users except a few with implanted medical devices.

The concern with MMW scanners has always been privacy based, because in the early days of the AIT, both types of scanners routed their scan data to an image which was displayed on a screen, for a human being to review. Naturally, having essentially nude images of yourself displayed on a screen for some TSO stranger to view raised some objection among the traveling public. After a few years, the monitors were removed from the machines, and the software was updated; instead of using the scan return data to create an image, the machines now analyze the scan data directly to look for 'anomalous' returns, using a technology called Automated Target Recognition (ATR). Naturally, ATR stinks compared to a human brain, so while we're no longer virtually strip-searched by these infernal machines, we now experience many times as many false alarms, all of which are resolved by hands-on searches of a traveler's body.

Around that same time, the government wised up to the health concerns stemming from bombarding millions of people daily with ionizing radiation, including the lucky TSA employees who worked right next to the machines, and retired the x-ray versions of the scanners, replacing them all with MMW versions.

In the context of PreCheck, the AIT scanner takes many times as much time as the WTMD, slowing any line down to a crawl. Partly that's because a WTMD requires you to simply step through an arch, while the AIT requires you to strike a pose for several seconds. But mostly, the speed difference comes from the fact that a suspect, er, traveler must partially disrobe to go through the AIT. Outerwear (jackets, sweaters, etc.) must be removed, pockets must be COMPLETELY emptied, and shoes must be removed, for the scanner to get a clear view of a perp's, er, passenger's body through their clothes. And, since the ATR isn't all that smart, it alarms on all kinds of innocuous, non-threatening, permissible items - thick clothing, extra layers of clothing, folds of clothing, sweat, folds of flesh in obese people, and anything at all in your pockets, including (as I once found out the hard way), your ID or boarding pass.

I cannot imaging any PreCheck lane using AIT except to resolve WTMD alarms. The whole premise of PreCheck is to eliminate the AIT bottleneck, allowing those who fork over their cash and allow a simple background check to receive less invasive (but still effective) screening comparable to pre-9/11 screening. Using AIT on the regular would blow that whole concept out of the water and ruin PreCheck for everyone. Including the TSOs who love not having to deal with as many irate travelers who are understandable upset at being frisked because they're sweating in the Phoenix summer, or because they wore a baggy shirt that folded over when they got into the surrender pose, or because they happen to be carrying a little extra weight around the middle, or because they reflexively put their phone into their pocket instead of their carry-on after showing their mobile BP.

So, try not to get upset yet. I think instances of PreCheck lanes using AIT instead of WTMD are probably aberrations, one-offs that don't represent a change to the PreCheck standard.

Brighton Line

Yes the AIT doesn't work for non-average size humans from my experience. I much like the new ones that aren't enclosed and you keep your arms out to the side between two panels instead of being enclosed in a tube with something spinning around you.

I am a perp, um traveler that can't use WTMD that the AIT thinks I'm hiding something under my residing hair. I'm 6' 7" so I assume my head is not read correctly and I always get that yellow box on my head. I am usually just waved through but have had occasional TSO ask to pat down my head. I then ask them to reglove before they give me the scalp massage and have results of compliance to then getting selected for the full monte including crotch grab.

I've also had problems assuming the position where a TSO says I can't touch the ceiling of the AIT, so I lower my arms a bit then I'm told I don't have my arms up high enough and yup off to the full monte.

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Boggie Dog

The TSA's MMW "Whole Body Imager" always alerts on my left neck and shoulder area. No tats, scars except a smallpox vaccination mark on my upper arm, no broken bones, no nothing. I still consider this type of screening to be an electronic strip search just that the image is machine read rather than being displayed to a screen for a human to drool over. There's still a raw image that could be stored for "quality assurance" purposes or some other nonsense excuse. One thing I've learned is that TSA is very reluctant with being truthful with the public.

guflyer

I agree that they are safer than backscatter scanners. However, I have had trouble finding anything indicating that they are safe. I have based my concerns on the safety of MMW scanners on this Scientific American article: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com...r-really-safe/ I would love for someone to rebut it and show me something why this is wrong and the scanners are safe, as this would save a lot of time from my opting out.

Thank you so much for your reassurance about WTMDs not going away from Precheck at anytime soon. I felt much better after reading your response.

WillCAD

I'm 6'-3" and don't touch the top of the scanner, nor have I ever gotten an alarm on the top of my head. I think we can safely conclude that the upper height limit on the scanner is somewhere between my 6'-3" and your 6'-7". I'm curious now. I wonder if any other FTers who fall into that height range could narrow it down some?

You haven't found anything that indicates they're safe. What have you found that indicates definitively that they're unsafe?

This is just my opinion as a lay person, not a medical professional or physicist, but whenever I read an article about the supposed dangers of microwave radiation, I see constant repetition of the phrase "we don't know" or some variation of that. The article you linked uses variations of that phrase three times, including the title.

We don't know that it's unsafe. But why does anyone even suspect that it's unsafe?

Merely not knowing something for sure is not sufficient justification, in my opinion, for treating it like an actual possibility. Sure, we don't know that microwaves don't pose greater health risks. Why? Because medical professionals have been studying their effect on the human body for thirty years and have yet to prove that they have health risks. Sure, they haven't disproven it, either, but if you study something for thirty years on the premise that it's making people sick, there are more than enough data available to prove that assumption. If it's not proven, in this one instance, to me that means it's disproven. Those doing the studies keep looking for evidence... and keep finding none. After a while, you just have to acknowledge that maybe they're not finding any evidence that MMW is harmful because there isn't any, because MMW is not actually harmful, at least not in any significant way.

I can't find any concrete evidence that the moon isn't made of green cheese. Sure, there are rocks in the Smithsonian that are purported to have been brought back by the Apollo astronauts, but they only visited six locations on the surface and never went more than a few km away from their landing site. Sure, lots of automated probes have landed over the last sixty years, and none of them encountered anything green or cheese-like. Maybe only the back side is made of green cheese. Or maybe just the core. We just don't know! But is there any indication that the moon IS made of green cheese? Nope. And we have been looking for six decades. So I don't think it is.

I'm perfectly confident that the MMW exposure I've gotten from AIT scanners over the years has done me no more harm than the EM exposure I get every time I step through a WTMD, get within a meter of a cell phone, or get within a few dozen meters of an electrical transmission tower or the third rail of a subway. Or the lifetime of exposure to that pesky magnetic field that keeps making my compass turn north.

The x-ray AIT scared the heck out of me. The MMW doesn't even make me nervous. I'm more nervous about getting a false alarm that triggers a whole-body rubdown with repeated genital contact, known to TSA as a "pat-down".

SPN Lifer

When one writes about disproving that the the moon is made of green cheese, whether as a strawman or hyperbole, it significantly reduces the strength of the overall argument.

WillCAD

I don't think so. I used it as an example of something that has no basis in reality, but since we can't prove it has no basis in reality, there are always those who will say, "We don't know!"

N830MH

Me, too. I saw that too. I saw the news. I am very aware of that. I am sure you can go through self screening without assistance. Make sure you take it out empty pocket. Like coins, cellphone, wallet and else. Please put it in your carryon bags.

Boggie Dog

If we are moving to self screening why don’t I just ask myself if I have any prohibited items and if answering no then just move on ?

TWA884

TWA884

FriendlySkies

Interesting -- quite a footprint, so certainly not something I would expect to see at airports with tiny checkpoints or just a few flights per day. Obv. not a fan of there being no WTMD..