I had a really spirited discussion with my dentist (well as spirited as I could be while having my teeth cleaned) recently about the NoS. Her comment: "I wouldn't go near those things. Our x-ray machines are calibrated every 6 months and I know the exact amount of radiation given off every time we use it."

It's not the dosage I get from one scan that concerns me. I'm sure it's low enough to not make me turn green or sprout a third eye. What concerns me is the cumulative effect of being scanned 100, 200, 300+ times a year over many years. I fly about 150 flights a year. Over a 5 year period, I could get scanned 1,500 times. That much extra x-ray radiation can't be good.

I have a family member who worked in regulatory compliance for a major company that made CT scanners. His stories about their products scare the living hell out of me.

All I can tell you is that TSA trains officers to be aware of the unique needs of passengers with disabilities. I don't know how my airport compares to others; however, I believe it probably rates pretty high in treating passengers with disabilities with dignity and respect because we process a lot of wounded warriors on a regular basis. The TSOs at my airport are accustomed to the various types of situations and sensitivities required to address them.

Did the two TSA screeners at Detroit personally apologize to Tom Sawyer yet? Or did they determine that no further training was required?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40291856/ns/travel-news/

On Nov. 7, Sawyer said he went through the security scanner at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. “Evidently the scanner picked up on my urostomy bag, because I was chosen for a pat-down procedure.”
Due to his medical condition, Sawyer asked to be screened in private. “One officer looked at another, rolled his eyes and said that they really didn’t have any place to take me,” said Sawyer. “After I said again that I’d like privacy, they took me to an office.”
Sawyer wears pants two sizes too large in order to accommodate the medical equipment he wears. He’d taken off his belt to go through the scanner and once in the office with security personnel, his pants fell down around his ankles. “I had to ask twice if it was OK to pull up my shorts,” said Sawyer, “And every time I tried to tell them about my medical condition, they said they didn’t need to know about that.”

Before starting the enhanced pat-down procedure, a security officer did tell him what they were going to do and how they were going to it, but Sawyer said it wasn’t until they asked him to remove his sweatshirt and saw his urostomy bag that they asked any questions about his medical condition.
“One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants.”
The security officer finished the pat-down, tested the gloves for any trace of explosives and then, Sawyer said, “He told me I could go. They never apologized. They never offered to help. They acted like they hadn’t seen what happened. But I know they saw it because I had a wet mark.”
Humiliated, upset and wet, Sawyer said he had to walk through the airport soaked in urine, board his plane and wait until after takeoff before he could clean up.


“I am totally appalled by the fact that agents that are performing these pat-downs have so little concern for people with medical conditions,” said Sawyer.
Vote: What do you think about "opt out" day?
Sawyer completed his trip and had no problems with the security procedures at the Orlando International Airport on his journey back home. He said he plans to file a formal complaint with the TSA.
When he does, said TSA spokesperson Dwayne Baird, “We will review the matter and take appropriate action if necessary.” In the meantime, Baird encourages anyone with a medical condition to read the TSA’s website section on assistive devices and mobility aids.
The website says that travelers with disabilities and medical conditions have “the option of requesting a private screening” and that security officers “will not ask nor require you to remove your prosthetic device, cast, or support brace.”


Perhaps the TSA federal security director in Detroit is just a bit too busy for Mr. Sawyer to come by the office and the two screeners apologize to him in person.

Please don't expect credence in what you espouse here when so many TSA screeners do exactly the opposite. You remind me of gsotso suggesting to file complainants when the reality is your exalted management ignores them.

Really quite sad Bart, you could be so more productive if only you would realize how little the TSA is going to change even with your input.

So which is it? NO risk, or a REMOTE risk?

Bolding mine: Me :) and although I have yet to go thru a NoS ;), I have had an enhanced patdown where I tell the TSO that I cannot raise my right arm higher than my waist-which has been met with "that's ok, just raise it as high as you can" (which in my case is about 30 but no higher than 45 degrees)

I have a particle physics background and I won't tell you what to do. But I would definitely opt out all the time if flying that much.

Here is the thing ...

Your doctor is paid (and usually cares) about you being healthy and if he does bad things to you, its malpractice time.

The TSA and their contractors, however, have total legal liability immunity and it's clear given what they are on a power trip and are doing very bad things to 100s of millions of completely innocent people. They sneer and snicker at the misery they are inflicting on people on purpose and they enjoy it.

The motivational factors between your doctor and the TSA are very different. Your doctor has motivations that are generally sincere/honest and usually to your benefit (not always), but the situation with the TSA? The motivations there are much much different.

There is a real and substantial risk to pregnant women in those scanners. Babies undergo very fast (stressed) cellular replication. Small alterations in bio-chemical processes, DNA mutagenesis or anything minor like this can cascade down the line much faster than in an adult and have huge long-term effects on a baby.

For the TSA to be telling people the machines are "safe" for children and pregnant women is utter insanity and it tells you exactly how much you can't trust ANYTHING they say because what they are saying is directly conflicted with the laws of physics and biochemistry.

I'm an aerospace engineer with a more macro understanding of physics and certainly not at the particle level. I understand the basics of why these machines are dangerous and how clear and present the danger is concerning these machines. Voluntarily subjecting one's self to ionizing radiation in any form beyond what's naturally occuring is reckless and the U.S. government's action of duping, soft-pedaling, and coericing its citizens to submit to ionizing radiation is somewhere between negligent and criminal.

FYI, I hadn't noticed the difference in penetration between clothed areas and the skull until you pointed it out.

Thanks for boiling down the basic issue to a common level of understanding. This is so basic that I'm surprised it hasn't been published by an independent review body. Perhaps that's the point: the particle physics are SO basic that it's not worth the time of experts, except as a patriotic duty, to publish such as paper. I can fully comprehend why the TSA would want to suppress this type of discussion.

That's a given. It's just not worth it. Besides, I have no shame. The pat-downs are more humiliating for the guy doing it than me. :D

Is there a link available for that? I would love to share it with people who think these machines are no big deal.

The U.S. created the so called "SAFETY ACT" to exempt manufacturers from liability related to harm their technologies cause to the public. They wanted this because they have these "driveby x-rays machines" in vans and crap now, they basically can drive beside your car on the road and x-ray your car/children/etc/etc ... sick crap honestly.

According to various sources and the rapescan website, their primary scanning device was approved for liability immunity (insurance capped) in 2006.

I hate to link to this site but it has the most simple explanation.
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=204181.0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backsca...ay#cite_ref-66

So, you know ... want to kill lots of civilians? Build something that kills them, claim it's for 'security purposes', bribe some politicians, apply for listing under the 'SAFETY ACT', get approved, proceed to inflict said damages against the population with immunity from prosecution or liability.

(Deleted - Duplicate)

From the only known real leaked image it is clear that your face gets BLASTED by these machines, you can clearly see the skull and full absorption in the cheeks/etc. of all radiation.

You can also see leg bone reflection indicating absorption occurring along the legs, but the face / eyes / etc gets the worst of it.

Bart, not everyone considers themselves 'disabled' and I fear that the TSA does not recognize or train their staff that not every issue is visible.

This is similar to SATTSO claiming that we can now use a 1 gallon bag at the checkpoint. It doesn't matter if SATTSO truly believes that or if he posted that in good faith or if he was mistaken. What matters is what people experience at the checkpoint.

As we read over and over and over again, many TSOs do not know how to deal with medical issues. They try and force people to remove permitted medical devices, they deal with wounds in an unhygenic fashion, they mock or demean people for being different....

Just ask the OP of this thread for some of his experiences with TSOs for example.

I suspect that we actually hear a very small number of complaints about the actual situation at TSA checkpoints when it comes to anyone who is 'different' or outside the norm. I really don't see how anyone can defend the TSA track record when it comes to dealing with these sorts of issues.

If the TSA is doing the training, then the outcome has been a failure.

And every experience is going to be different, every single time, no exceptions.

Airports are different, TSO's are different, the guy in front of you is different, as is the loud-mouth behind you. TSO's are not robots, each of us was raised differently than every other TSO, we have different experiences, different opinions, different lives. If you are looking for the exact same experience every single time then go sit in a dark room somewhere, that will be as close as you ever get.

Some experience's are going to be good, some bad, and every single one of them subjective. The number of factors that make a good experience into a bad one cannot be counted, and are sometimes as subtle as who passed gas. Its one of the reasons that TSA takes every complaint and every compliment with a grain of salt, just as does every other service related organization on the planet.

As an example only, that 6y/o that got patted down a few weeks, ago. When you see the video you see a horror, I see a TSO doing her job, my grandmother see's a friendly young woman helping out a child go visit family, and my wife wonders where the kid's parents got her shoes. Its all subjective. We see what we wish to see or what we have been trained to see (by our job, our experiences, our lives in general). Your opinion of what happened is no more or less valid than mine, and to be honest no more accurate. And that is the bottom line.@:-)