An expert in the health risks of human exposure to radiation will speak at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) about airport whole-body scanners on May 4.

Hosted by the UWM Department of Physics, Dr. John Moulder of the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) will address the considerable public concern about possible health effects posed by the backscatter X-ray and millimeter-wave radar whole-body scanners that are used at many airports.

The free event begins at 8 p.m. in the Physics building, 1900 E. Kenwood Blvd., room 137.

As the summer travel season begins, Dr. Moulder will discuss the research showing that these scanners pose only negligible radiation risks if used as intended. However, he will also outline the difficulty in proving their safety...

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TARGET has a new employee - a 3D body scanner - charged with making sure clothes fit better.

The national retailer is spending $1 million on the technology that will measure the dimensions of 20,000 men and women as part of a national survey to update their designs.

Perth shoppers will be able step into the scanner from May 25 to 29 in the company's Whitfords store.

Target managing director Dene Rogers said customers were frustrated and confused by inconsistent sizing. It was the main reason clothes were returned.

"By taking 60 seconds to come and be scanned consumers will not only find out their exact measurements, they'll be helping Target find out what size Australians really are today so that we can make clothes that really fit," Mr Rogers said.

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TSA has been introducing full-body scanners to perform a virtual strip search of air travelers. Although technically travelers have the right to opt out, the TSA discourages this behavior with aggressive and invasive pat-down searches. Initially, TSA denied punitive pat-down searches. Then they acknowledged testing a “more aggressive pat-down technique.” TSA began a more widespread implementation of this tactic at the beginning of November, and TSA agents have reportedly been quite open about that fact that the “enhanced” pat-down searches are specifically aimed to be so offensive as to coerce passengers into the scanners. In a blog post otherwise bluntly supportive of full-body scanning (the title, “Shut Up And Get In The Scanner,” gives a good idea of the tone of the writing), one former TSA screener writes:

It is a terror tactic by TSA to get you to walk through the more thorough body scanner.  I can’t defend TSA on this one.  I have talked to the TSA officers and it is no more effective than the old pat down procedure.  They tested it out with trainers and each other.  It is purely a terror tactic by TSA.

Other bloggers (with sharper tongues and stronger stomachs than I) have exhaustively documented the steaming mass of epic fail that is the TSA’s new policy. The aim of this post is to explain how full-body scanners work – and fail.

There are two kinds of full-body scanners: those based on backscatter X-ray technology and those based on millimeter wave technology.

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Was it just me? Was I the only one who noticed a tiny announcement in February that Airport Scanners were coming to Australia, the land where terrorists haven’t landed (yet), and … wait for it… there would be no (NO!) — opt — out– clause. Did I hear that correctly?

And the crowd roared (about the cricket), nobody said a word about the scanners, and the ten libertarians left who can bear to watch the ABC were too busy trying to save the nation from nastier threats. Australia is getting millimeter wave scanners at International Airports, and if you don’t want to be scanned, you need to leave the country… by boat. (Either that or swim with the crocs across the Timor Sea.)

With no opt out clause, what happens when the first person facing deportation refuses to be scanned? Well that’s all right then, we’ll just book them on a cruise to Kandahar? Civil Liberties Australia was one of the few to speak up. Maybe those scanners are safe? Maybe? But at least one man with a pacemaker says Australia is off his holiday list now. Can someone find the peer reviewed research showing there are no long term effects on the unborn?

There’s also the catch that if any terrorist has a computer with an internet connection, they probably know how to get guns past the scanners.

Then a nice man named Tony wrote to me asking if I liked his graphic (below), and I did. Do admire the powerful communication tool here (it’s worth a look). The only thing it lacked was to tell us non-US folk that the TSA stood for the Transportation Security Administration.

Once upon a time it took months to get to Australia, the ships had no GPS, sometimes not even an engine, and the in-non-flight food gave you scurvy. People died, no one had travel insurance, and before WWII even a blister could kill you.

Brace yourself, how things have changed. Travel in the satellite era is so dangerous now, it takes 62,000 employees to make it safe (just in the USA). Of those, nearly 4,000 are based in the Washington DC headquarters of the TSA. The average salary of those desk-based public servants in the regulating class is … $104,000. That’s average?

Here in Australia our airport scanning scheme is supposed to cost $28 million.

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Hate the full-body scans, pat-downs and slow going at TSA airport security screening checkpoints? For $100, you can now bypass the hassle.

The Transportation Security Administration is rolling out expedited screening at big airports called "Precheck." It has special lanes for background-checked travelers, who can keep their shoes, belt and jacket on, leave laptops and liquids in carry-on bags and walk through a metal detector rather than a full-body scan. The process, now at two airlines and nine airports, is much like how screenings worked before the Sept. 11 attacks.

To qualify, frequent fliers must meet undisclosed TSA criteria and get invited in by the airlines. There is also a backdoor in. Approved travelers who are in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's "Global Entry" program can transfer into Precheck using their Global Entry number.

"It's a completely different experience than what you're used to," said Matt Stegmeir, a platinum-level Delta Air Lines frequent flier who was invited into Precheck when it opened at his home airport, Minneapolis-St. Paul. Besides zipping through security screening quickly and easily, Mr. Stegmeir noticed another difference: TSA agents at the Precheck lane are usually smiling.

"It's really a jarring contrast. It reminds you just how much of a hassle the security procedures in place really are," he said.

Global Entry has been extremely popular with frequent international travelers. Approved travelers get to use a kiosk to enter the country rather than waiting in often-long lines to get their passports stamped and go through Customs inspection.

Consider that in January at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, the average wait in line was 35 minutes between 4 and 5 p.m., and the longest wait was 137 minutes. The wait at Terminal 1 at New York's Kennedy International Airport averaged 44 minutes in January for people arriving between 10 and 11 a.m. Enrolling requires a $100 application fee for a background check, plus a brief interview with a Customs officer.

For domestic travel, Global Entry pays off because it gets you into Precheck. Once TSA announced in the fall that enrollment in Global Entry and CBP's other "trusted travel" programs (Nexus for frequent travel across the Canadian border and Sentri for frequent travel across the Mexican border) would get you into Precheck, applications for Global Entry took off.

In February, for example, 26,602 people applied, more than triple the number of applications in February 2011, according to CBP. And February applications were up 42% from January as more and more travelers catch on.

"We want as many people as possible in the program," said John Wagner, CBP's executive director of admissibility and passenger programs.

TSA says it also wants as many people as possible in Precheck, which is still in pilot-testing phase. Both agencies say the programs can enhance screening of people they know nothing about if they can move low-risk people who submit to background checks out of the main queues.

"We can reduce the size of the haystack when we are looking for that one-in-a-billion terrorist," said TSA Administrator John Pistole.

Mr. Pistole, an FBI veteran who took over TSA in 2010, said that by studying frequent-flier histories as well as conducting background checks, he's confident the U.S. now has the technology and the intelligence information to make less-rigorous, faster screening work. TSA has been trying to move to more "risk-based" security—something critics have suggested for many years.

Once in Precheck, TSA still checks names against terrorism watch lists before every flight, just as it does for other travelers. If a passenger is cleared for Precheck screening, a code is embedded in a traveler's boarding pass.

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In today's show we bring you an interview from the Rule of Law radio show with Hereward Fenton, who discusses the health, privacy and civil liberties issues of body scanners with Deborah Stevens.

Hereward talks about the introduction of body scanners in Australian airports which are due to go operational in July 2012 and introduces the the new website WeWillNotBeScanned.org - "Promoting Lawful Rebellion against Full Body Scanners".

From We Will Not Be Scanned:

"Naked body scanners are an affront to human dignity with the sole purpose of training human beings to supplicate before the supreme authority of the state. We pledge to resist this attack on democracy and human rights using all legal means available."

We oppose the introduction of full body...

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The engineer who reported on serious flaws in body scanner technology now reports that journalists are being warned not to cover the story.

I’ve been on the phone all day for the last 2 days with reporters and journalists of all kinds, including the big bad MSM, and one South Florida reporter told me that he had been “strongly cautioned” by the TSA not to cover my viral YouTube video showing TSA nude body scanners to be completely worthless. Absolutely unbelievable:

Update: The name of the TSA spokeswoman who attempted to intimidate this journalist is Sari Koshetz.

Update 2: Second journalist comes forward in comments on this post: SmarterTravel March 8, 2012 at 3:34 pm | #11 Reply | Quote | Edit We were also “strongly cautioned” not to cover the story. We...

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The Transportation Security Administration has tacitly admitted that the critical flaws brought to light in a viral You Tube video yesterday which exposed how airport body scanners could easily be beaten are accurate, rendering the entire $1 billion dollar program virtually worthless.

Engineer Jon Corbett of the popular blog TSA Out of Our Pants! posted a video yesterday that demonstrates how the TSA’s radiation firing body scanners can easily be bypassed. The clip has already received over 700,000 views.

The video shows Corbett carrying a metal case through the scanner, away from his body in his side pocket. Corbett explains that because metallic objects appear as black on the image the scanners produce, the machines do not pick up such objects if they are...

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This video is here to demonstrate that the TSA’s insistence that the nude body scanner program is effective and necessary is nothing but a fraud, just like their claims that the program is safe (radiation what?) and non-invasive (nude pictures who?). The scanners are now effectively worthless, as anyone can beat them with virtually no effort. The TSA has been provided this video in advance of it being made public to give them an opportunity to turn off the scanners and revert to the metal detectors. I personally believe they now have no choice but to turn them off.

Please share this video with your family, friends, and most importantly, elected officials in federal government. Make sure they understand that your vote is contingent on them fixing the abuse...

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