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www.mast-victims.org forum / General discussion / Airport Scanners
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Henrik
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# Posted: 29 Dec 2012 14:37
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Hi all,

While travelling back home from the UK this xmas I almost went through the full-body scanner at Birmingham Airport.
There are many lines but, as far as I could see, only one scanner.
Waiting in line for security I realized that I had been directed into the scanner line and was preparing mentally for a fight with the security drones. The airport has a "no Fry no Fly" policy so having to abandon my flight and find an alternative route home was a possible scenario.

But watching the passengers ahead of me being "processed" I saw a pattern: first you go through a metal-detector and if that goes off, then they force you through the scanner.
It takes time to instruct people how to stand inside the scanner so I guess that's why its not the default.

Of course the security drones are trained to insist that the scanners are safe and probably quote the HPA, but looking into the latest HPA/AGNIR report reveals that they haven't looked into it at all.

From page 63 in the report (link):

2.4.6.1 Full-body scanners (millimetre wave scanners)
"Both ionising and non-ionising radiations are utilised in imaging devices that are used to enhance the security screening of public places – in particular, airports. Millimetre wave body scanners operate in the extremely high frequency (EHF) region (30–300 GHz), just below the sub-millimetre range, which is known as the terahertz range. At these frequencies, the absorption of electromagnetic fields by the human body is very superficial and mainly confined to the skin area. Little information is available about technical specifications of these scanners and the levels of exposure. However, the manufacturers claim that the signals created by the scanners are thousands of times less powerful than those from other commercial RF devices such as mobile phones, wireless handsets and other standard household devices."

Ok! Wonderful! Let's just take the manufacturers word for it and carry on.
And why are they comparing terahertz radiation to mobiles etc.? Its a completely different frequency range. No words to describe this level of incompetence. I hope its by choice.

So, no studies examined. Not even the paper that proposes a theoretical model for how terahertz radiation can damage DNA:
"How Terahertz Waves Tear Apart DNA"

According to HPA: nothing to worry about. Never mind putting millions of travellers at risk. Industry says its all good.

So advice to anyone travelling from UK where there are scanners: make absolutely sure there are no metal objects on your person when you go though security.

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