TSA

[wbm.livejournal.com]

Hey there. This is a comics opinion of my own creation.



I've never flown. With what's happening in airports these days, I never will. Among my personal issues is a near-total mistrust of authority, & that's under normal circumstances. This developing TSA sitch isn't normal, but what if it becomes the accepted standard?

As many before me have, I try to ascertain where religious practices originate. One tradition's no pork/shellfish makes sense in a pre-refrigeration culture. With another tradition's three rinses of water over the body on the right & 3 on the left, it, too, makes sense when one realizes that a single rinse barely washes anything away; as a one-time floor cleaner, the first layer of water is applied to dissolve/absorb dirt & other substances; subsequent water applications then wash away the dirt-laden water.

So, with these new rules, where will our up-&-coming TSA agents come from? The standards set for the applications process for police, clergy, seniors care & daycare are acceptable if one assumes everyone is & remains reasonable & well-adjusted. And yet this is the tragic, human flaw that abusers find their way through in order to make contact with unassuming new victims.

Unless something changes, & quickly, this is going to become a worst-case scenario without ever seeing another bomb.

We are terrorizing ourselves with penetrating eyes & groping hand condoms.

Comments

[wbm.livejournal.com]

I agree (mostly). If one uses this chart (http://www.radiationanswers.org/radiation-blog/Airport_xray_scanners.html), persons are safe in terms of radiation exposure (which is why this is a piss-poor argument against the scanners).

But, if the numbers in the chart are accurate, then the math is wrong. One cross-country airline flight (4 mrem) is 400x that of one backscatter x-ray scan (0.01 mrem), not 40x. So they are even safer than you claim.

[light-over-me.livejournal.com]

That article states that backscatter scans have a radiation dose of 0.01 mrem, but it doesn't cite where it got that number (I'm presuming from the manufacture itself). Radiology Researchers at Columbia University and University of California have suggested that the radiation levels are much higher, up to 20X higher, than what has been reported.

In fact, they argue that amount of radiation is much higher because the doses were calculated as if they were distributed throughout the whole entire body (as in chest X- rays, cosmic rays during air travel, etc). They argue that comparing them to existing scanners is misleading because the radiation technology in the new scanners is directly concentrated on the skin surface. So, while they are not hazardous to internal organs, they may pose a threat for skin cancer(s).

http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2010/05/17/concern.pdf (http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2010/05/17/concern.pdf)

[wbm.livejournal.com]

Interesting. They certainly know better than we laypeople. Judging from this document, it's something that needs looking into. But it still should not be the entirety of the argument against their use.

Good call!

[wbm.livejournal.com]

It very well could be that the health-issue critics aren't against the scanners on principle.

It becomes the responsibility of critics of civil rights abuses to step back from the temptation to rely on this argument.