Facts on the two types of airport Whole Body Imaging

Rafi Sala, an Israeli airport security expert who helped design security at Ben Gurion International Airport: “I don”t know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747. … That’s why we haven’t put them in our airport.”

Peek-a-Boo, I C U – Living Lake Country, By Al Neuhauser Nov. 25, 2010 “……….There are two types of Whole Body Imaging (WBI) technologies in place. They are backscatter and millimeter-wave. The first uses low-level X-rays to image the body. This passes through clothing and into you, but a portion reflects off of your skin, or “backscatters”, technically called “Compton scattering.” This radiation does penetrate, but a small amount reflects and is detected by a bank of detectors. The data are computer processed to create a whole-body image. Frontal and rear images are usually obtained simultaneously. The resulting two-part image is of the subject’s skin surface, all of it, in excruciating fine detail. The processing software blanks out facial features.

It must be acknowledged that this is X-ray radiation, which is ionizing radiation. That is, it penetrates atoms and cells and can modify or damage them. Hence, it is designated by the government–EPA?, CDC?, CPSC? I’m not sure who–as a non-threshold carcinogen. This means no level is low enough to be 100% safe. Even though the amount of radiation is small–comparable to what we are subjected to in everyday life–this energy is focused on the skin and adds to the normal background radiation from the Sun and other sources. Cell damage from ionizing radiation is permanent, so the risk, again very slight, is cumulative. Therefore, despite assurances from the TSA and others, radiation from airport backscatter body scanners is not totally innocuous. There is a very tiny added risk of genetic damage. Again, the question is, is it worth it?The other technology is millimeter wave. This method utilizes Extra-High Frequency (EHF) radiation in the range of 30 GHz– think microwave on steroids–to create an image. EHF radiation will penetrate clothing but reflects off of skin which it does not significantly penetrate. Thus, there is no risk of genetic damage but it can burn. At the levels employed by the airport scanners, this is highly unlikely unless you fall asleep in one. Unfortunately, this safer technology is the less common. I’m not sure why, but it might the state of development or perhaps the cost…………

The health risk from backscatter scans is minimal. There is a very small possibility of genetic damage, no more than might be experienced in some other activities. However, it is an additional exposure exacerbated by the focused nature of the radiation. So, there is an undeniable very slight risk, especially with repeated exposure as the effect is cumulative. There is no known risk from millimeter-wave scanning, unless you believe that cell phones cause brain cancer……….

Finally, I leave you with a quote from Rafi Sala, an Israeli airport security expert who helped design security at Ben Gurion International Airport: “I don”t know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747. … That’s why we haven’t put them in our airport.”

El-Al, Israel’s airline, relies on sophisticated profiling techniques. They haven’t had a terrorist incident since 1970, and that one failed.

Peek-a-Boo, I C U – Living Lake Country

1.This Month

PETITION

Free Julian Assange, before it’s too late. Sign to STOP the USA Extradition

United Nations: demasking the Torture of Julian Assange. Rico Brouwer and Nils Melzer

Three Mile Island (& Fukushima) Lies & Cover-Ups w/ Gundersen & Wasserman

Energy efficiency – theme for July 2019

Energy efficiency represents the single largest potential contributor to global emissions reduction, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA 2017). It should be a key part of the global energy strategy, for several reasons:

It could reduce global electric demand by more than 20 per cent, based on current rates in the U.S. power sector, while maintaining high levels of services such as heating and lighting.
It avoids the need for increased energy, capacity and grid services, making it the least expensive way to decarbonise at scale.
It can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by billions of tonnes.

A dramatic example of the power of energy efficiency is lighting. In 2017 the United States passed the milestone of 1 billion LED and CFL lights installed, avoiding 142 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide emissions, at a cost of about $7 per ton of avoided carbon dioxide. In contrast, the cumulative installed capacity of rooftop solar reached 8,000 MW in 2017, saving 8 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide, at a cost of $360 per ton. Lighting efficiency thus yielded almost 18 times the avoided carbon dioxide, at about 2 per cent the cost per ton of rooftop solar.

Google provides another example of the power of energy efficiency. Its data centers now use 50 per cent less energy than the average data center, according to the company. Google also developed an improved chip, the TPU, which performs 83 times better than standard CPUs. The new chip allowed Google to reduce power consumption at its data centers by a factor of 30—far exceeding the effect on Google’s carbon footprint of all of the company’s renewable energy purchases. ” – John Woolard, Eco Business, 10 June 2019

nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope