[ RadSafe ] RadSafe Digest, Vol 239, Issue 1

[Peterson, Ken]

Mike,

I take exception to point (1).  Air travel is not a privilege; if you
can pay the fare and don't have a bombmaking background - you have every
right to fly - and not be hassled in the process.  I fly 75K miles per
year, and I resent tax dollars wasted in creating bigger bureaucracies
and money pits like the TSA who give authority over me to those who
don't deserve or earn it.  

I believe frisking 80 year old ladies before they get on the Burbank to
Phoenix flight is stupid and futile.  I am tired of countless delays,
removing shoes, packing my nail clippers, arriving at the airport two
hours before a flight to stand in endless security lines.  I welcome
these scanners if they are unobtrusive and one can briskly walk through
them without delay.  

While I think international flights are another matter, for domestic
travel, arming the pilots and armoring the cockpit door is all the
security we need.  Once the goal of using the plane as a guided missile
is thwarted, and the only possible result is killing 100 passengers and
a dozen people on the ground instead of killing thousands and destroying
visible landmarks - the risk to reward ratio goes way down, and the
terrorists will look elsewhere for targets. 

Ken Peterson
**********************

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 13:47:51 -0800
From: "Brennan, Mike  (DOH)" <Mike.Brennan at DOH.WA.GOV>
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Airport Body Scanners
To: <radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>
Message-ID:
	<37C41083D3480E4BBB478317773B845D036BD282 at dohmxtum31.doh.wa.lcl>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi, Franz.

There are several issues that should be kept in mind:

(1)  Air travel is a privilege, not a right.  Part of getting that
privilege is helping secure the safety of others who travel with you, by
cooperating with reasonable security measures ("reasonable" being
subject to change with changing circumstances).  Given that there is an
undeniable threat to safety from people who wish to destroy airplanes
and kill people, it is incumbent upon any who wish to fly to help thwart
them.  This includes things like positively identifying yourself.  It
includes having your luggage checked to make sure that no one knowingly
or unknowingly brings explosives onto the plane.  It includes, should
you be asked, to stand in front of a scanner that can detect things that
can get past current systems.  If you can't agree to these things in
exchange for flying in an airplane with other people; walk.

(2)  People should get over themselves.  Anyone who is ogle-worthy in
the image on one of these scanners will be ogle-worthy while fully
dressed, and will be looked at with more appreciation by others in the
terminal than by the poor schmuck watching the screens.  These machines
make people no more, and no less, naked under their clothes than they
were before.  

(3)  People REALLY should get over themselves (I know I said it once,
but it deserves repeating).  Yes, clothes serve several useful purposes
in a variety of situations, but so what?  That doesn't make them holy.
Indeed, if you read Genesis, the sin wasn't nakedness, but feeling
compelled to do something about it when it wasn't necessary (I recognize
that this is not the most popular interpretation, just the most
reasonable one).  

As members of the rad community, I believe that our message should be
clear:  The risk from these scanners is non-existent, especially when
compared to the risk posed by people smuggling things onto airplanes.
The conditions that make this so will likely pertain for some time, so
live with it.   

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