The added radiation from the back-scatter machines is not as cancer-causing as actually flying in a plane. See http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/risk.htm quoting a physicist friend: "An exposure of 1 rem increases the probability of cancer death by 0.04-0.08%. So if there are two scans per person per year in the US, there ought to be 600,000,000 x 0.00001 x 0.0008 = 4.8 extra cancer deaths per year." I disapprove of most of the security theater the TSA does, but I flew the day before US Thanksgiving (and a couple of days after that), last Wednesday,and on Christmas Day, and in total only saw a few people sent through the back-scatter machines (at BOS, MCO, and RDU) and only one being groped. The rest of us went through the old-style machines. The TSA people seemed tired but polite throughout. I know there have been excesses (and incompetence all over the place) but I think a lot of the TSA people are trying to be reasonable. On Christmas morning a woman in front of me in line was pulled aside because her carry-on bag had included something that she admitted was a weapon (I don't know what to call it - it was short & pointy) but said that she carried it for sentimental reasons because it had been a gift from her martial arts instructor. The guy was trying to talk her into giving it up instead of ordering her to do so, I think.
See http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/risk.htm
quoting a physicist friend:
"An exposure of 1 rem increases the probability of cancer death by 0.04-0.08%. So if there are two scans per person per year in the US, there ought to be 600,000,000 x 0.00001 x 0.0008 = 4.8 extra cancer deaths per year."
I disapprove of most of the security theater the TSA does, but I flew the day before US Thanksgiving (and a couple of days after that), last Wednesday,and on Christmas Day, and in total only saw a few people sent through the back-scatter machines (at BOS, MCO, and RDU) and only one being groped. The rest of us went through the old-style machines. The TSA people seemed tired but polite throughout. I know there have been excesses (and incompetence all over the place) but I think a lot of the TSA people are trying to be reasonable. On Christmas morning a woman in front of me in line was pulled aside because her carry-on bag had included something that she admitted was a weapon (I don't know what to call it - it was short & pointy) but said that she carried it for sentimental reasons because it had been a gift from her martial arts instructor. The guy was trying to talk her into giving it up instead of ordering her to do so, I think.
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My experience was that (a) the TSA people were kind of embarrassed and almost apologetic about what they had to do to us but (b) they did it anyway.
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