This just seems like such a wasted opportunity. The feds could have created a subscription-only website of the inappropriate scans (no faces, of course) and chopped hundreds of billions of dollars off the budget deficit without raising taxes. Oh, well. I guess it's too late now.

I would write, "Call me maybe?" with my phone number on my butt cheek to see if they would laugh at it. You can take the girl out of Somerville, but you can't take the Somerville out of the girl.

Every single one of these things is an expensive boondoggle. It has been shown time and time again that to defeat such a scanner is simple.

Also, whoever wrote "electromagnetic waves instead of X-rays" has no grasp of what they are talking about, as, last time i checked, x-ray are electromagnetic radiation(waves)!

Finally, I worry about the TSA employees (they are not agents, not officers, they are employees) who have to stand next to these things and don't even get an x-ray dosimeter!

I have no problem with the scan...I feel bad for the poor slugger who has to view my body! LOL

The "new" scanners at Logan do not use back-scattered x-rays as a probe, but millimeter-waves (30GHz to 300GHz frequency), which are by far much safer to use for everybody involved.

By the way, the x-ray scanners were banned in Europe since one year ago, not because of the "revealing" pictures they produced (a problem which can easily be solved), but because of health and safety concerns.

I would add, regarding these x-ray scanners, that the FDA and the TSA have repeatedly stated that the x-ray doses during exposure at a full-body scanner is such as to present a “minuscule” risk. However “minuscule” is not “non-existent,” when large percentage of the flying public is exposed to more x-rays. It just depends how one considers the problem: the risk for a single trip through the scanner, the risk of multi-trips for pilots and flight attendants, and finally the risk to the general public.
To illustrate the problem, let’s assume that a given activity involves a very small cancer risk, say one in a million (but these are not necessarily numbers for airport scanners, just to illustrate what a population risk mean). Now suppose that only 10 people are exposed to that small risk: chances are none of them would ever get cancer as the result of that activity. If we now consider one billion people each exposed to that same risk of one in a million: chances are now that some of them (we wouldn’t know which of them) would get cancer as a result of that activity. So even though the individual risk is very small, the impact on a large population may not be small ((currently, in the US, about 700 million people go through airport security each year, and the number is expected to grow to one billion over the next decade).

The people who complain about the added security and the scanning machines should remember one thing that happened.....SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

Scanning machines have not contributed to any increase in security, but they surely have increased the bank accounts of many people, starting with Micheal Chertoff. And History has shown that the TSA is totally incompetent, employing rude and incompetent bottom-of- the-barrel people (but TSA is damn expensive). Some added security!

@ Steevo. I agree but our world and our lives has changed because of 9/11. I do not like all the changes but it is part of our life now..

Freedom, Security, Convenience: pick two.

I would rather go through a body scanner than be blown to bits in midair. If you don't like the security measures taken to get on a plane, then don't fly.

Mike I agree with you 100%

Well said, Donald Mei!

A comment has been deleted from this post for violating Patch's Terms of Use: http://www.patch.com/terms

Donald the safety of our children is what matters. Sorry if you're inconvienced.

Anyone wearing a burka does not have to be scanned. How safe does that make you feel?

There is no security. A committed, determined insurgent - and I learned this the hard way 45 years ago - will at least partially succeed about 50% of the time. The only way to possibly prevent even a majority of potential attacks is to treat absolutely everyone as potential threats, 100% of the time. Maybe that sounds a little paranoid - but are you paranoid if there really are people out to get you? Even when caught, they have succeeded, because the whole point is to cause exactly the fear we now endure. That's why they call it terrorism. The only sure-fire option is to go 100% proactive. Unfortunately, that would probably cause World War Three.

You're absolutely right, Dave.

The best thing I think I ever saw is some guy getting so mad at the Homeland Security that he just took off all his clothes when he went through the line. The guy just stripped, put all his clothes in the little bin and walked naked through the scanner. Of course, he was arrested but every one was laughing out of control. Go Massport.

I have a problem with random scanning. Scanning an American 8 year old of an American family is a waste. Also when the old lady's number comes up. There is a particular demographic to watch out for and leaving race out of it, it's men. Israel has one of the safest airports anywhere and they use profiling among other things successfully.

Everyone acts like profiling is a bad thing but say you are a woman walking towards an elevator in a parking garage and it is filled with big, scary, tattooed, male bikers. You might just walk a little slower and catch the next one. You just profiled and it possibly could save your life someday. What about one but there is just something about the way he looks that gives you a bad feeling. You are profiling again. Profiling is used successfully by criminal psychologists, practiced by all of us with a sense of self preservation, and a perfectly healthy behavior. It's a safety mechanism we are born with.

It can be used wrongly and that should always have it's consequences, but randomly searching by "lottery" numbers does nothing. Shoe bomber got on the plane, Underwear bomber iirc got on the plane. This last guy who WAS ON THE NO FLY LIST got on the plane. This random searching so as to not hurt anyone's feelings doesn't work at all. A professionally trained profiler can tell within a few minutes whether you are hiding something and almost all the people they catch are young male men. Many of which get passed over by our lottery system. But profiling is the most effective method we just don't want to do it b/c we don't want to hurt people's feelings. Instead we all pass through the "Naked Picture" machine (which doesn't work either) Make everyone suffer so that some people don't have to.

I say, we can't do anything about it.... So why complain about it!

just opt out of flying. There are other means of transportation. Train, car, bus, boat.

to Mplo, would you rather be slightly inconvenienced and breathing, or dead? Seems to me the choices are pretty clear. I long for the day when people stop their whining about airports. Go live in Tel Aviv, then tell me how bad you really have it here! Jesus

Again, no one should feel secure when they are not screening EVERYONE at ALL US airports uniformly. And if they ever were to implement that, it would be more than a "slight" inconvenience.

Melissa, What airports are they not screening everyone at? I have not heard this.

Melissa, you HAVE travel choices. If you don't like the screenings at the airport, then I suggest you take a train, or drive. After 911, we live in a different world now, so you're going to need to adapt, and stop complaining. Jesus!

Melissa, That does not answer my question. You stated all airports are not screening everyone. I asked which airports are not screening everyone. Because you were patted down in one airport and not in the other does not mean they are not screening everyone. You still went throgh the metal detector in both airports correct?

@Mike.. Do they have trains and busses that go across the Atlantic to Europe? I must have missed somthin?

Mike, agreed noticed, and Polaroid taken :)

Lol, Donald Mei.....I have been subjected to TWO police checkpoints...twice I was told I needed to comply with a search. Twice I had to recite what the Supreme Court said about 'reasonable & warantless ' searches. I am THE last guy to comply with anything. Nice try, cupcake! I submitted to NOTHING, and walked away with my rights STILL intact! And your welcome! You've been served, sir!

Most of your TSA workers are politially put in in which many are Perves. They love that job cause they get to see what you own. Wear lead undies.

Why..Why..Why everytime Evil Hits us we all have to suffer and change our lives. Never fails. To travel we have to have strange people look into our bodies who never had any background checks. Why because we are they prey for the Government. The easy way out. Country runs out of money? Lets grab the Geezers paychecks their gonna die anyway. City,Feds,State all the same. They all have licences to steal from we the Americans. Not me Ive had enough X Rays from medical reasons Im not standing in front of no machine so some perve can look at my MoJo for anyone. Boycott the airlines. Train ..Bus..Taxi..Hitchike..Automobile Freighter...

Hey, if someone wants to look at my body so I can travel on a plane without being blown to bits, more power to 'em.

I love what a first-world mentality we have, thinking airport screenings are oppression and loss of freedom.

I think the TSA should just search Diana....then maybe they will find my hot apple pie :(

Again, Donald.....quite simply, don't fly! Then your problem is solved. Now quit your whining!

Donald, Reynolds Wrap called....they said your tin foil hat is ready to be picked up :)

One can't always just NOT fly. In an emergency, in order to get there in a timely manner, one often HAS to. It's not really a choice. I just love when someone says there's a choice....just don't fly. They obviously have never faced an emergency where one absolutely has to fly. Donald is right. I'm familiar with Logan Airport and there are dozens of other ways someone can get nearly anything through security.

Like always, it’s all about money, and these controversial x-ray scanners are apparently here to stay! Back in Oct, 2012, TSA signed a $245 million contract with American Sciences & Engineering (AS&E), although, at present, the TSA has about 250 mothballed such machines, which cost the government $40 million. It now intends to have these machines installed in federal government buildings in order to justify their being purchased. At the same time, these x-ray scanners being removed from major airports are being moved to smaller airports all over the country.

The fact remain that the probability of dying in a terrorist attack is the same as the probability of getting cancer when passing through the x-ray scanner just one time.