Germany : U.S. Airport Full Body Scanners Too Unreliable to Use, "Security Theater"

The German government halted the full roll out of American body imaging scanners in the nation's airports today after the Interior Minister said the devices sound too many false alarms -- including at times mistaking underarm sweat for dangerous chemicals.

The determination came after a months-long test of a pair of L-3 Communications ProVision ATD human imaging scanners -- the same type of scanners already in use in dozens of airports across the U.S.

Over 800,000 Germans voluntarily tested the scanners at an airport in Hamburg from September 2010 to July 2011, during which time airport security reported so many "unnecessary alarms" that Friedrich said the technology, "despite the high detection performance," has not yet matured and is "not yet suitable" for general practical use. Local press reports put the false alarm rate high as 49 percent and said sweaty armpits had been the culprit multiple times.

So you still want the nudie scan that will expose you to radiation? You know all for your safety..

As for the actual radiation dose, he said the typical backscatter machines deliver about 0.1 microsevert of radiation. The average chest X-ray, by comparison, delivers 100 microseverts of radiation, and a chest computed tomography or CT scan delivers 10,000 microseverts.

According to the Transportation Security Administration website, the radiation dose from a single scan on a backscatter machine is the equivalent of two minutes of flying on an airplane.

The new full body scanners "are not effective at detecting explosives hidden within the body and raise privacy and health concerns," it says.

Actually, a US government commission came to the same conclusion in a report released last Wednesday:



http://www.latimes.com/news/natio...0657.story

Since the backscatter radiation does not penetrate the body, no one expected they would see explosives planted inside the body.

The new full body scanners "are not effective at detecting explosives hidden within the body