Interested in x-rays anyone? Then, coming soon to an airport near you, just take a short or long flight and you'll get your fill. The latest in invasive anti-terrorism technology, backscatter, is apparently headed to our airports for screening purposes. The equipment is capable of taking, ahem!, rather graphic x-rays of the human body.
According to this AP article in today's Enterprise, there's a plan in place to blur the appropriate anatomical areas, and the x-ray will only be seen by one person off-site, and any x-ray will be deleted as soon as the person walks away from the screening site. I'm just skeptical enough (paranoid, maybe) to wonder if that will really happen. Of course, I'm also not sure what use keeping such pictures would be to anyone, unless there actually happened to be contraband or weapons viewed on aforesaid x-rays.
What I do know is that our government has gone one step further into invading our privacy, and I don't like it! Privacy issue aside, however, if this technology goes into everyday usage and someone is a frequent flyer, what are the health implications of such ubiquitous use of x-rays? Not a word in the entire article about the health aspects of such exposure to x-rays on a regular basis! To me, that's downright scary!!
In it's initial usage, the TSA is looking at the technology as "secondary screening", so not everyone would pass under its rays. And they are planning to give people the option of the traditional 'pat-down' instead. However, my guess is that, unless someone puts the kibosh on it, it might not be too long before this equipment shifts to the primary screening.
I think I'm going to just start driving everywhere! Oh, wait! Rats! Four days travel for a 2 1/2 day meeting? Plus the ecological, economical, and sheer exhaustion effect of such driving for one person's travel? *sigh* Looks like I'm not giving up flying anytime soon. But I'm definitely NOT going to be happy about it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment