TSA pulls naked body scanners out of key airports

TSA pulls naked body scanners out of key airports; still refuses to submit to third-party safety testing



(NaturalNews) After months of complaints, negative feedback, bad press and no small amount of controversy, the Transportation Security Administration has announced it will begin removing its naked body scanners out of key airports around the country.

Janet
Napolitano, head of the Department of Homeland Security - which
oversees the TSA - made the decision in recent days to pull the scanners
from New York City's LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International
airports.

The question is why. Why did it take so long? And
what's the reason for the move? Understand that the machines are not
being retired (at great taxpayer expense); they have simply been moved
to other, less busy, airports where, presumably "far fewer passengers
will be exposed to radiation," reported the non-profit investigative
media organization ProPublica, which added that the dangerous
machines were already removed from Boston's busy Logan International
Airport earlier this month.

The Chicago Sun Times is reporting that the backscatter machines are going away from Chicago's O'Hare Airport as well.

Oh, they're not dangerous - Move is 'strategic'

The
TSA's "official" excuse is that the machines were causing unacceptable
delays at the two NYC airports and that removing them is an effort to
speed up the lines.

Since when has the TSA given two hoots about
customer service? This is the agency that allows its staff to grope
kids, grandmothers and busty women, while allowing the criminals it
hires to rob passengers blind before heading home to download child
pornography.

No, some other reason that the agency feels is threatening - or potentially threatening - has forced this decision. Could it be that critics like us have been right all along - that the revealing backscatter x-ray machines actually do cause harm?

The agency says no, that's not the reason. But when was the last time a federal agency admitted a mistake?

"They're not all being replaced," TSA spokesman David Castelveter told ProPublica.
"It's being done strategically. We are replacing some of the older
equipment and taking them to smaller airports. That will be done over a
period of time."

"Older equipment?" The backscatter machines, which only came online beginning in 2009, are supposed to be state-of-the-art.

"Strategically?" Wouldn't you like to know what this term is supposed to mean? Like, what's the strategy?

This
sounds an awful lot like the TSA's way of reducing a known health
threat while allowing itself an "out" by saying, in essence, "Hey, we
never said they were dangerous...in fact, we're still using them."

Why do they have to be backscatter machines?

Granted, the agency does still utilize them in 25 of the nation's busiest airports (though the agency won't confirm which ones, according to ProPublica).

And,
in late September, the TSA awarded three U.S. companies contracts that
could potentially be worth as much as $245 million to develop the next
generation of scanners; one design by American Science & Engineering uses backscatter technology.

But
there are other, safer machines out there that are more than capable of
screening passengers. One type utilizes millimeter-wave scanning
technology, which emits less radiation and is far less invasive while
still incredibly effective at finding objects on passengers.

Some scientists can't figure out why the TSA won't use this viable alternative.

"Why
would we want to put ourselves in this uncertain situation where
potentially we're going to have some cancer cases?" David Brenner,
director of Columbia University's Center for Radiological Research, told ProPublica last year. "It makes me think, really, why we don't use millimeter waves when we don't have so much uncertainty."

We agree.

One
final note: If they're so safe, why doesn't the TSA allow some
independent, non-affiliated third party test the safety of the
backscatter x-ray machines?Source:-
http://www.naturalnews.com/037741_TSA_naked_body_scanners_airports.html