In today's show we look at a variety of news and issues of the day, with a special focus on a new safety report on airport body scanners which was released by the EU last week. This development now opens the door to the roll out of these carcinogenic machines across Europe and potentially into Australia, which has already authorised the use of the less toxic (and less effective) millimeter wave scanners in our international airports.

We present some of the key health concerns over x-ray scanners raised by experts in the past few years and then take a look at the EU report to see if it addresses any of these concerns. Perhaps unsurprisingly for those who have followed this topic for a while, the major concerns highlighted in the past have been largely ignored.

In the second hour I am joined by aircraft engineer John Bursill to reflect on the latest developments in Australian politics, the body scanner question, the Aghanistan war and more.

I hope you enjoy the show, and please get back to us if you have any thoughts or questions!

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Federal investigators “identified vulnerabilities in the screening process” at domestic airports using so-called “full body scanners,” according to a classified internal Department of Homeland Security report.

DHS has spent nearly $90 million replacing traditional magnetometers with controversial X-ray body scanning machines that are intended to detect items that could be missed by a metal detector.

Exactly how bad the body scanners are is not being divulged publicly, but the Inspector General report made eight separate recommendations on how to improve screening.

The news comes as authorities are examining an underwear bomb, allegedly seized by the CIA in Yemen as it allegedly thwarted an Al-Qaida plot to destroy a U.S.-bound airplane, according to The Associated Press. Authorities are now looking to determine if the bomb could have passed through airport screeners without being detected.

Meanwhile, an unclassified version of the Inspector General report, unearthed Friday by the Electronic Information Privacy Center, may give credence to a recent YouTube video allegedly showing a 27-year-old Florida man sneaking a metallic object through two different Transportation Security Administration body scanners at American airports.

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• Trials had been halted over fears of harmful radiation
• New study reveals risk to passengers is 'close to zero'

Controversial 'naked' body scanners could be introduced at all UK airports after top scientists declared them safe.

Manchester Airport has been trialling the device - known as back scatter scanner - since 2009, but the European Commission halted new trials last year amid concerns there was a risk to passengers' health from high levels of radiation.

But an EU study has decided that the risk from the scanners, which use X-rays to scan through clothing to produce images of passengers, is 'close to zero' and no greater than other factors.

A report said the radiation from a single passenger scan is 'equivalent' to the natural background radiation received within an hour on the ground or during ten minutes on a flight.

It added that the doses per scan were 'well below the public dose limit', although the long-terms effects, such as cancer risks, could not be dismissed entirely.

The European Commission is now expected to approve the technology and the scanners could be rolled out to other UK and European airports.

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A scientific study on the effects of terahertz radiation (used in some body scanner imaging systems).

ABSTRACT

We consider the influence of a terahertz field on the breathing dynamics of double-stranded DNA. We model the spontaneous formation of spatially localized openings of a damped and driven DNA chain, and find that linear instabilities lead to dynamic dimerization, while true local strand separations require a threshold amplitude mechanism. Based on our results we argue that a specific terahertz radiation exposure may significantly affect the natural dynamics of DNA, and thereby influence intricate molecular processes involved in gene expression and DNA replication.

Subjects:  Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph); Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph)
Journal reference:  Physics Letters A, Volume 374, Issue 10, 2010

Download PDF | Other Formats

FULL-BODY scanners being introduced at Australia's eight international airports could be triggered by sweaty armpits and a passenger's posture, a counter-terrorism unit has warned.

In German trials of the body-scanning technology, false alarms were recorded and sweaty armpits were among the culprits, slowing down departure lanes, according to Tasmania's Department of Police and Emergency Management.

"There are already long delays at airports, so this issue needs to be addressed," the unit says in a submission to a Senate committee inquiring into the millimetre-wave body scanners.

Germany ditched the scanners after too many false alarms but they are in use in some parts of Europe and the US.

The Australian Airline Pilots Association has raised similar concerns about the potential for false positives and has said it wants screening with the machines to be voluntary.

A spokeswoman for Infrastructure and Transport Minister Anthony Albanese defended the technology.

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An expert in the health risks of human exposure to radiation will speak at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) about airport whole-body scanners on May 4.

Hosted by the UWM Department of Physics, Dr. John Moulder of the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) will address the considerable public concern about possible health effects posed by the backscatter X-ray and millimeter-wave radar whole-body scanners that are used at many airports.

The free event begins at 8 p.m. in the Physics building, 1900 E. Kenwood Blvd., room 137.

As the summer travel season begins, Dr. Moulder will discuss the research showing that these scanners pose only negligible radiation risks if used as intended. However, he will also outline the difficulty in proving their safety using publicly accessible data that shields information on the machinery’s specifications and methods of measurement.

He makes the argument that more openness is needed, as is independent review and regulation. Publicly accessible, and preferably peer-reviewed, evidence is needed that the units (not just the prototypes) meet widely accepted safety standards.

Moulder is professor and director of radiation biology at MCW, and holds two advanced degrees from Yale University. There will be time for discussion and questions after the presentation.

TARGET has a new employee - a 3D body scanner - charged with making sure clothes fit better.

The national retailer is spending $1 million on the technology that will measure the dimensions of 20,000 men and women as part of a national survey to update their designs.

Perth shoppers will be able step into the scanner from May 25 to 29 in the company's Whitfords store.

Target managing director Dene Rogers said customers were frustrated and confused by inconsistent sizing. It was the main reason clothes were returned.

"By taking 60 seconds to come and be scanned consumers will not only find out their exact measurements, they'll be helping Target find out what size Australians really are today so that we can make clothes that really fit," Mr Rogers said.

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TSA has been introducing full-body scanners to perform a virtual strip search of air travelers. Although technically travelers have the right to opt out, the TSA discourages this behavior with aggressive and invasive pat-down searches. Initially, TSA denied punitive pat-down searches. Then they acknowledged testing a “more aggressive pat-down technique.” TSA began a more widespread implementation of this tactic at the beginning of November, and TSA agents have reportedly been quite open about that fact that the “enhanced” pat-down searches are specifically aimed to be so offensive as to coerce passengers into the scanners. In a blog post otherwise bluntly supportive of full-body scanning (the title, “Shut Up And Get In The Scanner,” gives a good idea of the tone of the writing), one former TSA screener writes:

It is a terror tactic by TSA to get you to walk through the more thorough body scanner.  I can’t defend TSA on this one.  I have talked to the TSA officers and it is no more effective than the old pat down procedure.  They tested it out with trainers and each other.  It is purely a terror tactic by TSA.

Other bloggers (with sharper tongues and stronger stomachs than I) have exhaustively documented the steaming mass of epic fail that is the TSA’s new policy. The aim of this post is to explain how full-body scanners work – and fail.

There are two kinds of full-body scanners: those based on backscatter X-ray technology and those based on millimeter wave technology.

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Was it just me? Was I the only one who noticed a tiny announcement in February that Airport Scanners were coming to Australia, the land where terrorists haven’t landed (yet), and … wait for it… there would be no (NO!) — opt — out– clause. Did I hear that correctly?

And the crowd roared (about the cricket), nobody said a word about the scanners, and the ten libertarians left who can bear to watch the ABC were too busy trying to save the nation from nastier threats. Australia is getting millimeter wave scanners at International Airports, and if you don’t want to be scanned, you need to leave the country… by boat. (Either that or swim with the crocs across the Timor Sea.)

With no opt out clause, what happens when the first person facing deportation refuses to be scanned? Well that’s all right then, we’ll just book them on a cruise to Kandahar? Civil Liberties Australia was one of the few to speak up. Maybe those scanners are safe? Maybe? But at least one man with a pacemaker says Australia is off his holiday list now. Can someone find the peer reviewed research showing there are no long term effects on the unborn?

There’s also the catch that if any terrorist has a computer with an internet connection, they probably know how to get guns past the scanners.

Then a nice man named Tony wrote to me asking if I liked his graphic (below), and I did. Do admire the powerful communication tool here (it’s worth a look). The only thing it lacked was to tell us non-US folk that the TSA stood for the Transportation Security Administration.

Once upon a time it took months to get to Australia, the ships had no GPS, sometimes not even an engine, and the in-non-flight food gave you scurvy. People died, no one had travel insurance, and before WWII even a blister could kill you.

Brace yourself, how things have changed. Travel in the satellite era is so dangerous now, it takes 62,000 employees to make it safe (just in the USA). Of those, nearly 4,000 are based in the Washington DC headquarters of the TSA. The average salary of those desk-based public servants in the regulating class is … $104,000. That’s average?

Here in Australia our airport scanning scheme is supposed to cost $28 million.

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