My 10 year old son and I will be traveling via air to visit my family in St. Paul for Thanksgiving next week. I do not want him blasted by radiation and nor do I want him to be aggressively groped by a TSA agent. We shouldn’t be treated as guilty until proven innocent. There needs to be a better way. Apparently, I’m not alone in my concerns about this. Complaints about the body scans and new pat-downs are on the rise.
Beyond the civil liberties/Big Brother issues, this is also a matter of public health.
Because radiation harm is an accumulative process, and I don’t want my son to have more of it in his system starting at such a young age, we’ll be opting-out of the body-scan in favor of the newly “aggressive-ized” pat down procedures. sigh.
UPDATE: …..oh heck. In doing research for this blog, I’m now leaning toward thinking that the amount of radiation emitted by these body scanners is quite low. In fact, it seems that it’s far, far, far, lower than the amount of radiation people expose themselves to by flying in a plane at high altitudes. However, this is a matter that is worthy of public discussion so I’m going ahead and posting this blog.
*** REVISED UPDATE *** Just discovered this document. Seems the radiation levels are actually quite high because they’re focused solely on the skin and surface tissues. The plot thickens.
…There’s also the question if this is an unconstitutional violation of privacy and (literally) unwarranted searches and seizures.
What do others think?
[for those that prefer to “watch” rather than read.]
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