io9 
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San Francisco, 2:32 PM
Sun Nov 8
11 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/14/09
10/14/09
10/15/09
10/14/09
10/14/09
Would you allow the minimum wage airport security guard take essentially naked photos of your middle school or highschool teenage daughter? or son for that matter?
10/14/09
10/14/09
A woman or man I don't know gets to see my schlong and I don't get a nice dinner or even a phone number.
And for all I know, it might be a sweaty 300 pound weirdo alone in another room touching his or her self.
Yeah.
Gross. Creepy and not cool.
-Erik
10/14/09
Casually, nonchalantly and without comment or fuss.
The spectacle would be awesome and it'd be a passive resistance measure along the likes of Gandhi. Err, if he wore tighty-whities and flew often.
10/14/09
I'm ugly whether I'm clothed or not; if someone's getting off by looking at me through the scanner, they need all the help they can get.
-Kle.
10/14/09
*massive sigh*
10/14/09
10/14/09
Just so the absurdity can kick over to 11, when TSA officials will be doing full, elbow-deep, finger-flexing (and snapping!) preventative checks.
(and yes, I'll be hitching it from that point onward)
10/14/09
10/14/09
alright, science incoming: This is either backscatter X-Ray or millimeter wave imaging, if it's millimeter wave (which are basically radio waves) it's absolutely harmless. If it's backscatter X-Ray it's still harmless. These are not the X-Ray machines used to scan luggage, those are dual-energy (low and high) X-Ray systems, they either absorb, scatter or let the X-Rays pass through, a computer combines the two patterns to create an image. backscatter X-ray works in a very different way, the energy level is very specific, the dose is low and most of the radiation is not absorbed, it is scattered, hence the name, because your body is mostly made out of stuff with low atomic numbers which scatter X-Rays and do not absorb them. the side effect: very high resolution images of organic materials (read: your body)
only ABSORBED radiation is harmful, in a typical backscatter X-Ray scan you get about 0.005-0.010 mrem, up to 25 mrem per year is considered safe or the equivalent of 2500-5000 of these scans (per year). You get more exposure from background radiation in two days than you get from over a hundred of these scans ..
10/14/09
10/13/09
10/13/09
I'm a girl though, I get EXTREMELY DEFENSIVE when someone wants to see me naked for "security purposes" or feel my bra at the airport to make sure it's an underwire and not a weapon.
10/13/09
10/13/09
10/13/09
10/13/09