http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-11-15-column15_ST1_N.htm
OK Janet, let's have your grand-daughters aged 13 or 15 take a flight with a regular airline instead of the elite private jets and wait in line to be patted down, discreetly, of course. Not just one trip, but dozens or hundreds.
See, the problem is not just an abridgement and intrusion by government on our 4th Amendment rights, the problem is certain people are simply exempted because they work for the government.
How about Napolitano stand for a full body scan on just one day, and have the radiation go over her again and again all at once, say 100 times. Think she'll do it to show it's safe. Of course she would, for show, but it will be a fake machine.
Net the Truth Online
Napolitano: Scanners are safe, pat-downs discreet
...As part of our layered approach, we have expedited the deployment of new Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) units to help detect concealed metallic and non-metallic threats on passengers. These machines are now in use at airports nationwide, and the vast majority of travelers say they prefer this technology to alternative screening measures.
AIT machines are safe, efficient, and protect passenger privacy. They have been independently evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, who have all affirmed their safety. And the weapons and other dangerous and prohibited items we've found during AIT screenings have illustrated their security value time and again.
Rigorous privacy safeguards are also in place to protect the traveling public. All images generated by imaging technology are viewed in a walled-off location not visible to the public. The officer assisting the passenger never sees the image, and the officer viewing the image never interacts with the passenger. The imaging technology that we use cannot store, export, print or transmit images.
If an anomaly is detected during screening with AIT, if an alarm occurs after a passenger goes through a walk-through metal detector, or if a passenger opts out of either of these screening methods, we use pat-downs to help detect hidden and dangerous items like the one we saw in the failed terrorist attack last Christmas Day.
Pat-downs have long been one of the many security measures used by the U.S. and countries across the world to make air travel as secure as possible. They're conducted by same-gender officers, and all passengers have the right to request private screening and have a traveling companion present during the screening process.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-11-15-column15_ST1_N.htm
'Naked' scanners at US airports may be dangerous: scientists
By Karin Zeitvogel (AFP) – 2 days ago
WASHINGTON — Some US scientists warned Friday that the full-body, graphic-image X-ray scanners now being used to screen passengers and airline crews at airports around the country may be unsafe.
"They say the risk is minimal, but statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays," Dr Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at Johns Hopkins University school of medicine, told AFP.
"No exposure to X-ray is considered beneficial. We know X-rays are hazardous but we have a situation at the airports where people are so eager to fly that they will risk their lives in this manner," he said.
The possible health dangers posed by the scanners add to passengers' and airline crews' concerns about the devices, which have been dubbed "naked" scanners because of the graphic image they give of a person's body, genitalia and all.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) began rolling out full-body scanners at US airports in 2007, but stepped up deployment of the devices this year when stimulus funding made it possible to buy another 450 of the advanced imaging technology scanners.
Some 315 "naked" scanners are currently in use at 65 US airports, according to the TSA.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h08khPyFPinX_4vNYd1JZwn8hV4Q?docId=CNG.442824fa7c08853af96322d7315a6f02.461
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