Janet Napolitano,Body Scanners Safe- Critics:Big Sis Caught Lying

AIT machines are safe, efficient, and protect passenger privacy. They have been independently evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, who have all affirmed their safety. And the weapons and other dangerous and prohibited items we've found during AIT screenings have illustrated their security value time and again.

Pat-downs have long been one of the many security measures used by the U.S. and countries across the world to make air travel as secure as possible. They're conducted by same-gender officers, and all passengers have the right to request private screening and have a traveling companion present during the screening process.

As for Johns Hopkins University declaring the scanners safe, tell it to Dr Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at the Johns Hopkins school of medicine. Love told AFP two days ago that “statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays”.

“…we have a situation at the airports where people are so eager to fly that they will risk their lives in this manner,” he added.

So, unless you count skin cancer as safe, Napolitano is lying to you.

David Brenner, professor of radiation biophysics at Columbia University and co-author of a report on radiation scanning systems (PDF here), tells me that the risks associated with these low-level radiation scanners are extremely small.

"As far as we know there are no risks associated with the millimeter wave scanners, so my own view is that if you have a choice, you'd want to use the millimeter wave scanners, not the X-ray scanners," he said. "But that being said, the risks, if they exist, are very small. The issue is that small risk multiplied by a very large number of people gives you some population concerns."

What she does not explain is that the new pat down procedure, which now allows TSA agents to forcefully feel around breasts and genitalia, is currently conducted in full view of queuing passengers and has been described by many, including New York Times reporter Joe Sharkey, as a deliberate form of humiliation to discourage others from refusing the full body scans.