TSA's X-Ray Nude Body Scanners Output 50% More Radiation Than Admitted to by TSA

So apparently the TSA says: &quot;Each full body scan produces less than 10 microrem of emission, the equivalent to the exposure each person receives in about 2 minutes of airplane flight at altitude.&quot;<p>And the author says the dose is really 14.76 microrem, but doesn&#x27;t dispute the equivalence to flight time. So really it&#x27;s equivalent to <i>3</i> minutes of flight, not just 2.<p>50% of trivial is still trivial.<p>Oh, and the author says that the margin of error on these measurements is large. So perhaps the TSA didn&#x27;t lie at all, they just measured 10 microrem. Even if the margin of error is 1000% the result is still trivial.<p>So... basically this is non-news about a technology which isn&#x27;t even in use anymore. The TSA now uses millimeter wave technology as the author is aware (&quot;these backscatter x-rays are decommissioned and sitting in a warehouse&quot;).<p>There are a lot of good reasons to be concerned about the TSA&#x27;s use of imaging technology. This is not one of them.

I don&#x27;t want to get too down on the TSA corporation since their public facing staff have always been polite and pleasant enough to interact with. I always opt out, so I have to get searched, but they are polite about it.<p>That said, I don&#x27;t like it that TSA staff don&#x27;t wear radiation badges, at least I haven&#x27;t noticed any. One lady working for TSA, at the backscatter device, was very pregnant and I wondered about the radiation hazard for her, if any.

I opt out every time, but I&#x27;d hate to be one of the TSA employees standing next to these machines day-in and day-out for hours on end.

I&#x27;ve always opted out, but they (on purpose?) make you wait and get nervous about your belongings. Sometimes I&#x27;ve waited 15 minutes for the pad down guy to show up and my stuff was unattended all this time.

The bigger problem are the TSA agents operating the scanners. They are constantly getting exposed to these machines during their workshift. I think that&#x27;s the biggest upcoming &quot;disaster&quot; surrounding these lame ineffective scanners.

150% of &quot;not worth mentioning&quot; is still not worth mentioning.

I travel a lot and I haven&#x27;t seen these machines in a while. I thought they were all phased out in favor of the radio-wave types.<p>Regardless, I always opt out too.

The &quot;body scanners&quot; do not use X-rays. They use millimeter waves, which are totally different. Most importantly, millimeter waves are non-ionizing and therefore safe, unlike X-rays.

Unworthy of hacker news:<p>- Inflammatory headline irrelevant to content (&quot;Nude&quot; Body Scanners)<p>- 50% more than an insignificant amount of radiation is still insignificant, and likely difficult to measure precisely. The idea that the TSA would &quot;lie&quot; about this is silly.<p>- I&#x27;m not a fan of the TSA, however inflammatory articles are not what I look for on HN.

Opt out. Just opt out, every single time.<p>I&#x27;ve flown every month this year, sometimes multiple times. I opt out every single time.<p>More irritating is the randomness of metal detectors vs. scanners. It&#x27;s the luck of the draw.