# Body Scan or Pat Down? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 23, 2010, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-scan-or-pat-down/561624 "2010-11-23T03:26:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-scan-or-pat-down/561624/81 "2010-11-24T00:38:46Z")
Body scan, it is faster. ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-scan-or-pat-down/561624/82 "2010-11-24T01:59:50Z")
Pat-down. The x-ray body scanners have not been proven safe, and are likely unsafe. The manufacturer used an intentionally optimistic dose calculation in order to make them appear safe, and the FDA for some inexplicable reason let them get away with it. In essence - the machines deliver a radiation dose that would be safe if it were deposited over your entire body. The safety calculations performed by the manufacturer, and often cited by the media, assume that it is. But that is not what happens in reality. Because of the type of radiation being used, the x-ray beam does not penetrate much more than a few mm below your skin. Because all of the energy is absorbed in a much smaller amount of tissue, the dose is much higher and likely unsafe. This is from a letter sent by a UCSF biochemist (and other UCSF faculty) to President Obama: > [@http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ucsf-jph-letter.pdf](#): > > The physics of these X-rays is very telling: the X-rays are Compton-Scattering off outer molecule bonding electrons and thus inelastic (likely breaking bonds). > > Unlike other scanners, these new devices operate at relatively low beam energies (28keV). The majority of their energy is delivered to the skin and the underlying tissue. Thus, while the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high. > > The X-ray dose from these devices has often been compared in the media to the cosmic ray exposure inherent to airplane travel or that of a chest X-ray. However, this comparison is very misleading: both the air travel cosmic ray exposure and chest X- rays have much higher X-ray energies and the health consequences are appropriately understood in terms of the whole body volume dose. In contrast, these new airport scanners are largely depositing their energy into the skin and immediately adjacent tissue, and since this is such a small fraction of body weight/vol, possibly by one to two orders of magnitude, the real dose to the skin is now high. > > In addition, it appears that real independent safety data do not exist. A search, ultimately finding top FDA radiation physics staff, suggests that the relevant radiation quantity, the Flux [photons per unit area and time (because this is a scanning device)] has not been characterized. Instead an indirect test (Air Kerma) was made that emphasized the whole body exposure value, and thus it appears that the danger is low when compared to cosmic rays during airplane travel and a chest X-ray dose. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-scan-or-pat-down/561624/83 "2010-11-24T02:11:25Z")
I travel in a wheelchair, I have no choice but a wand and a pat down. I would prefer a wand and an explosive sniffing dog, to be perfectly honest. I do not like being touched as I am in more than enough pain from the damned traveling already. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-scan-or-pat-down/561624/84 "2010-11-24T02:23:41Z")
Option C. Even before this, I was never going to visit the US until the TSA was dust. ---
**Author:** ![Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-scan-or-pat-down/561624/85 "2010-11-24T02:33:38Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > Pat-down. > > The x-ray body scanners have not been proven safe, and are likely unsafe. The manufacturer used an intentionally optimistic dose calculation in order to make them appear safe, and the FDA for some inexplicable reason let them get away with it. > > In essence - the machines deliver a radiation dose that would be safe if it were deposited over your entire body. The safety calculations performed by the manufacturer, and often cited by the media, assume that it is. But that is not what happens in reality. > > Because of the type of radiation being used, the x-ray beam does not penetrate much more than a few mm below your skin. Because all of the energy is absorbed in a much smaller amount of tissue, the dose is much higher and likely unsafe. > > This is from a letter sent by a UCSF biochemist (and other UCSF faculty) to President Obama: Huh. That is interesting and hopefully they can make improvements. I only fly a few times a year so I personally can’t get worked up about my presumed exposure. I can see why frequent travelers would be concerned, though. I’m sticking with my scanner vote ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-scan-or-pat-down/561624/86 "2010-11-24T02:55:19Z")
The body scanners don’t faze me - negligible amounts of radiation, don’t care about someone looking at a naked-ish B&W image of me. I don’t really care about _anyone_ seeing me fully naked as long as I’m not being viewed en masse as a sexual object, I’d be a nudist if my BF wasn’t my opposite in these matters. I don’t like being touched, will always do what I can to avoid being manhandled. Although I’m about 100% more comfortable being touched by women than men, so being thoroughly searched by a female TSA agent probably wouldn’t be so bad. Thinking about it, I’m feeling really bad for the security people at airports with the new regulations and equipment. ETA: I fly very rarely, so this has no impact on my life. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-scan-or-pat-down/561624/87 "2010-11-24T07:16:32Z")
> [@Mtgman](#): > > There are precious few things in this world that are mine and mine alone. My mind and my body are pretty much it. I choose how I share them with people, and under what circumstances. It’s a personal autonomy thing. I get to choose who gets to see me naked and the intimacy involved with such activity. I won’t willingly give up control of that choice for something as paltry as illusory security. > > Enjoy, > Steven Very well said, and kudos for not rising to the bait of a cheap shot. ---
**Author:** ![velvetjones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5f9b8f/32.png) [@velvetjones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velvetjones)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-scan-or-pat-down/561624/88 "2010-11-24T12:20:34Z")
WRT the digital images getting leaked and being googleable…they don’t take your ID before you get scanned so there’s no way to connect the image to you personally. I don’t really understand why that’s a concern. I’ve looked at a handful of the images on line and they don’t hold my interest enough to make me want to look at a bunch of them. Blurry image of my naked form that some TSA worker looks at for 10 seconds? Not a problem. With the hundreds of people waiting in line behind me it’s doubtful that they’ll even really notice what my nipples look like and definitely no ones standing there shouting “hey guys, take a look at this one!”. Think about what it would be like to be a TSA worker, many of them probably don’t like the new system any better than we do. I would be really uncomfortable patting someone down. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-scan-or-pat-down/561624/89 "2010-11-24T21:41:06Z")
> [@velvetjones](#): > > WRT the digital images getting leaked and being googleable…they don’t take your ID before you get scanned so there’s no way to connect the image to you personally. I don’t really understand why that’s a concern. I’ve looked at a handful of the images on line and they don’t hold my interest enough to make me want to look at a bunch of them. Data Fusion, the connecting of all the data points stored in various data stores to create a model of a person or demographic, is one of the fastest growth areas in information theory/information technology. What began a long time ago with things like credit bureaus, which aggregated your credit history from various creditors, has grown massively since then. It’s now possible to get tons of info about a person, their court records, vital statistics, credit history, outstanding loans, etc. With facebook and other social networking it’s becoming possible to tie these all together with individuals. You can put a face to the name/number today whereas fifty years ago it was nearly impossible. Let me give you a little heads up about a new service from Google called “[Google Goggles](http://www.google.com/mobile/goggles/#text).” This is exactly the kind of information synthesis that I’m talking about. You can take a picture of a real-world thing, and it analyzes it, and finds it in cyberspace. It doesn’t do real well with abstracts, like faces or animals, yet, but it’s clearly getting better. In fact, I like it so much that I got an Android phone so I can use it. I like being able to take a picture of a computer I’m working on and have it pull up the specs. A car I’m not familiar with? If I get a good shot, I have a decent chance of pulling make and model from goggles. There was a good overview a couple years ago in [Scientific American](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=data-fusion) and privacy is one of the things discussed. Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-scan-or-pat-down/561624/90 "2010-11-24T22:29:56Z")
> [@velvetjones](#): > > Here is an article with more [photos](http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/11/airport_body_scan_protesters_p.php) that also happens to pretty much sum up my feelings on the subject. Agree as well. BTW - 50% of the images presented there are photo-illustrations (not actual scanner images) and show more intimate detail than the real deal. For my part I have no problem at all going through the scanner. Quick and easy; on with your day. That said, I recently had my inner thighs and groin area briefly touched during a “pat-down” and did not require therapy to get over it. Still, I think I’d prefer the body scan, just because it’s less obtrusive. ---
**Author:** ![velvetjones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5f9b8f/32.png) [@velvetjones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velvetjones)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-scan-or-pat-down/561624/91 "2010-11-25T13:59:36Z")
Ok, I understand data fusion are you saying they’ll be able to match up my blurry scanner image to, say, my drivers license picture? That seems a bit far fetched but not impossible. I checked in and printed my boarding pass at home, dropped my bags at the curb and the TSA agent only did a visual verification of my identity based on my boarding pass and my drivers license. I find it hard to understand how they can link my identity to my scan unless they’re able to match up the images and matching up the images seems a bit far fetched at this point. Not impossible but not very probable either. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-scan-or-pat-down/561624/92 "2010-11-27T23:12:38Z")
Back here folks, as a follow up to my earlier post, on my return trip the checkpoint still had just old-school metal detector units so no issue there. As to the comments on radiation exposure, there are actually two different modes of full-body scanner: x-ray backscatter and millimeter-band radio wave. The potential issues would depend on which is used (when I stood in one at SJU I noticed no conspicuous sign of which type it was). ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-scan-or-pat-down/561624/93 "2010-11-27T23:29:28Z")
Pat down. I might as well enjoy myself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-scan-or-pat-down/561624.md?page=4)