TSA backscatter radiation safety tests were rigged

Tuesday, May 17, 2011 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: airport scanners, radiation, health news

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(NaturalNews) It can now be revealed by NaturalNews that the TSA faked its safety data on its X-ray airport scanners in order to deceive the public about the safety of such devices.

As evidenced by recent events in Washington, we now live in an age where the federal government simply fakes whatever documents, news or evidence it wants people to believe, then releases that information as if it were fact. This is the modus operandi of the Department of Homeland Security, which must fabricate false terror alerts to keep itself in business -- and now the TSA division has taken the fabrication of false evidence to a whole new level with its naked body scanners (see below).

Even physics professors question the TSA's obvious cover-up

The evidence of the TSA's fakery is now obvious thanks to the revelations of a letter signed by five professors from the University of California, San Francisco and Arizona State University. You can view the full text of the letter at: http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/apr...

The letter reveals:

• To this day, there has been no credible scientific testing of the TSA's naked body scanners. The claimed "safety" of the technology by the TSA is based on rigged tests.

• The testing that did take place was done on a custom combination of spare parts rigged by the manufacturer of the machines (Rapidscan) and didn't even use the actual machines installed in airports. In other words, the testing was rigged.

• The names of the researchers who conducted the radiation tests at Rapidscan have been kept secret! This means the researchers are not available for scientific questioning of any kind, and there has been no opportunity to even ask whether they are qualified to conduct such tests. (Are they even scientists?)

TSA operates in complete secrecy

None of the Rapidscan tests have been available to be subjected to peer review. They are quite literally secret tests using secret techniques engineered by secret researchers. We the People apparently have no right to see the data, nor the methodology, nor even the names of the researchers who supposedly carried out these safety tests.

• The final testing report produced from this fabricated testing scenario has been so heavily redacted that "there is no way to repeat any of these measurements," say the professors. In other words, the testing violates the very first tenant of scientific experimentation which is that all experiments must be repeatable in order to be verified as accurate.

As the professors state in their letter:

The document is heavily redacted with red stamps over the words and figures. In every case the electric current used which correlates one to one with X-ray dose has been specifically redacted. Thus there is no way to repeat any of these measurements. While the report purports to present the results of objective testing, in fact the JHU APL personnel, who are unnamed anywhere in the document either as experimenters or as authors, were not provided with a machine by Rapiscan. Instead they were invited to the manufacturing site to observe a mock-up of components (spare parts) that were said to be similar to those that are parts of the Rapiscan system. The tests were performed by the manufacturer using the manufacturer's questionable test procedures.

You got that? Where is the outrage from the "scientific" community on all this? This quack science TSA testing is so atrociously and inexcusably bad that if this fabricated evidence were presented at any sort of scientific meeting, they would be laughed off the stage and publicly vilified in the media. And yet, somehow, when the TSA engaged in this sort of quack science, virtually the entire scientific community says nothing. Only a small group of especially courageous scientists has stood up to this obvious quackery, and even these professors are of course being blasted in the press and called un-American for merely questioning the obviously flimsy evidence being laughably fronted by the TSA.

I mean, seriously: Can you imagine the total outcry if an herbal product company claimed that its products cured cancer, and it did all the testing itself, and all the names of the researchers were kept secret, and the methodology was a secret, and the whole document was 50% redacted to protect "proprietary information?" They would actually be arrested by the federal government for running a criminal scam! So why can the TSA get away with the exact same scandalous junk science distortions and virtually no one in the mainstream media asks a single question?

The complete fabrication of safety in the name of false science

It's amazing what America has come to these days, folks. The federal government isn't merely counterfeiting money every day (or stealing from your retirement accounts to keep itself afloat, which just started happening yesterday), but the feds are also fabricating scientific evidence to keep pushing their utterly fabricated "war on terror." The feds in Washington aren't really fighting a war on terror... they ARE the terror! When the feds reach down your pants and feel your junk; when they force you to be fried with high-powered X-rays at the airport; and when they threaten anyone who stands up to their Nazi-like marching orders, they have become the very terrorist organization they claim to be fighting.

• The dose rates of X-rays being emitted by the Rapidscan machines are actually quite high -- comparable to that of CT scans, say the professors. Yes, the dose duration is significantly lower than a CT scan, but the dose intensity is much higher than what you might think. And as anyone who knows a bit about physics and biology will tell you, the real danger from radiation is a high-intensity, short-duration exposure. That's exactly what the TSA's backscatter machines produce.

• The radiation detection device used by Rapidscan to measure the output of the machines -- an ion chamber -- is incapable of accurately measuring the high-intensity burst of radiation produced by the TSA's naked body scanners, say the professors.

• At the same time, the radiation field measurement device used by the TSA -- a Fluke 451 instrument -- is incapable of measuring the high dose rates emitted by backscatter machines. The measurement devices, in effect, "max out" and cannot measure the full intensity of the exposure. Thus, the TSA's claims of "low radiation" are actually fraudulent. By the way, the device mentioned by the TSA really is an F 451. Does that ring a bell in terms of fiction novels? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451)

• The amount of electrical current applied to the X-ray tubes has been redacted by the TSA (working with John Hopkins). This makes it impossible for third-party scientists to accurately calculate the actual radiation exposure, and it hints at yet more evidence of a total TSA cover-up. As explained by the professors:

...the X-ray dose is proportional to the current through the X-ray tube. Not having access to the current used in the JHU test, or in the field application of the scanner means that the measurements at JHU are irrelevant to the dose at the airport. There is also no data on the pixel size and overscanning ratio, which also bear directly on the dose delivered to subjects. The statement in the HHS letter that the fluence is not a relevant quantity ignores fundamental physics.

There shall be no independent testing whatsoever

The TSA adamantly refuses to allow independent testing of the radiation levels being emitted by the machines. The agency is using the cover story that "terrorists might be able to circumvent the technology" if anyone is allowed to actually test the machine.

Hilarious! This is the very definition of quack science. You have to trust our in-house fabricated experiments, and we won't tell you how we even arrived at our test results, and we won't release the names of the scientists who even ran the tests, but we can't tell you more because of the terrorists.

Notably, this is after Osama Bin Laden has already been killed, and he was the whole reason the TSA started up in the first place. The terror mastermind is dead, in other words, and still the TSA can't trust university physics professors to conduct credible science on its naked body scanners.

Actual radiation emitted by the machines is far higher than what the TSA claims

John Sedat, a professor emeritus in biochemistry and biophysics at UCSF and the primary author of the letter says, "..the best guess of the dose is much, much higher than certainly what the public thinks." This indicates the public has been deeply misled by the actual amount of radiation emitted by the machines.

• Peter Rez, the physics professor from Arizona State, says that the high-quality images described by the TSA could not be produced with the low levels of radiation being claimed by the TSA. The images, in other words, don't match up with the TSA's cover story. Rez estimates the actual radiation exposure is 45 times higher than what we've previously been told.

• The TSA machines are capable of firing even higher levels of radiation into a "region of interest" (such as your anus or scrotum, in which the TSA seems to be taking great interest these days), thereby exposing that region to even higher levels of radiation than the rest of your body.

Mechanical failure and software bugs

The backscatter scanning devices uses a high-powered X-ray beam that is quickly moved back and forth across your body by reflecting the beam off a moving wheel. If that wheel fails for any reason and stops moving, the traveler could be pierced with a deadly X-ray beam that focuses extremely high levels of radiation on a small group of cells, mutating their DNA.

This means the backscatter devices are mechanical systems, and all mechanical systems eventually fail (just like airplanes). The TSA has done absolutely nothing to address the reliability of these mechanical wheels nor to allow independent testing of the reliability of these wheels.

• The TSA refuses to allow independent scientists to review its software code that controls the radiation beam. Thus, the software and its capabilities also remain a complete secret. What if there's a software bug that causes 10,000 times the usual radiation exposure for some unlucky traveler? Suppose the pervert TSA agent zooms in on some 9-year-old child's junk to capture a picture for his own private collection... does that result in yet more radiation? (Fact: One TSA agent has already been arrested for distributing child pornography.) (http://www.tsagoons.com/2011/04/23/tsa-agent...)

See more at www.TSAgoons.com (warning: graphic language and imagery on that site.)

What science? We don't need no stinkin' science!

As we're all now learning, the TSA completely bypassed the normal procedure for independent testing of equipment to be used on the public. As explained by the professors:

The independent testing of the safety of these specific scanners has not been rigorous nor has it been held to the standards usually associated with new devices before approval for utilization in the public sector. Usually the exact technology, as installed, is sent to a university, national laboratory or other outside facility that has the expertise to test, for an extended period of time to enable an in-depth study -- usually by several independent groups.

The U.S. government, however, no longer feels it needs to engage in any "scientific" testing whatsoever. Why bother? The government can simply fabricate whatever results it wants and then release those to the mainstream media which will dutifully reprint the government's lies as if they were facts. The truth is no longer relevant to the government's tyrannical agenda. As long as no one questions the lies, it hardly matters how unreasonable or bizarre those lies become. Government can always play the terrorism card and force people to shut up and stop asking questions, you see. "How dare you question our integrity. We're the government! We're protecting YOU from terrorism!"

Sure they are. By feeling up my anus? Seriously? If it wasn't actually true, it would be hilarious.

What is the TSA hiding?

NaturalNews asks the obvious question: Why won't the TSA subject its backscatter scanning machines to independent testing? Why won't it allow five different university physics departments to conduct five independent tests -- using documented equipment and methodologies -- and thereby assure the public, with credibility, that its machines are perfectly safe?

I can tell you why: Because the TSA is lying. The agency has fabricated its test results. It has conspired to deceive and mislead the American public over the safety of these machines, and it has done so through an agenda of government secrecy and scientific fraud. The TSA, lacking any credibility whatsoever, has resorted to routine lying about its machines, its procedures and its intentions. When 6-month-old babies have their rear-ends searched by TSA agents wearing evil grins (http://scottystarnes.files.wordpress.com/201...), you know it's all gone too far.

The TSA refuses to allow independent testing of its machines because it knows what NaturalNews readers already know: That if the machines were honestly and accurately tested, they would show far higher levels of radiation exposure than what we've been told. It would show that the TSA's body scanners significantly increase the risk of cancer to a population that is already over-irradiated with medical imaging tests such as CT scans and chest X-rays.

The TSA, like virtually every other department of the federal government, is now actively engaged in the routine falsification of the scientific data concerning a device that is exposing millions of Americans to an increased risk of cancer. And as long as the federal government claims to have "supreme power" while refusing to answer to the People, we're only going to get more of this tyranny in the months ahead.

The TSA has become the terrorist organization

This is not merely unacceptable; this is a CRIME against the American people. These TSA body scanners are, effectively, Weapons of Mass Destruction that are unleashing ionizing radiation upon an unsuspecting public.

And they are doing it right in your face; telling you it's all perfectly safe while, behind the scenes, they had to engineer a specially-rigged unit just to run their rigged tests using measurement devices that can't even record the high levels of radiation actually being emitted.

The public backlash against these devices is so strong and so loud that news crews have to interview dozens of people on camera just to find one person to actually say something positive about the TSA's pat-down and ionizing scanners. That's the report from Alex Jones, who has also been covering TSA tyranny in great detail. The popularity of his www.Infowars.com website is exploding in the wake of the government's increasingly bold lies and disinfo campaigns that frankly are backfiring on them. A lot of people are easily fooled, but just as many aren't. Probably 95% of all travelers are absolutely opposed to everything the TSA forces them to go through at the airport.

That's why Texas is about to pass a law that would criminalize TSA agents who reach down your pants and molest you or your children. But the TSA has put out a preemptive statement on its blog that claims none of this matters. "States cannot regulate the federal government," the TSA claims. And it actually quotes the U.S. Constitution as the source of its power! (What about the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution? How convenient that they forgot all about that part, eh?)

The passage of this law could lead to a fascinating showdown in Texas. What we need is a group of Texas Rangers to march into the airport in Dallas and arrest the TSA agents, handcuff them, and march them off to jail. Then let's see the feds try to invade Texas to free their criminal TSA agents. That should be amusing. I've spent some time in Texas, talking with the locals, and I can guarantee you that a bunch of tyrant feds trying to invade Texas are going to be absolutely shocked at the intensity of the public resistance they will meet.

The growing TSA resistance movement

By the way, with the TSA's molestation of children and outright lying about the safety of its machines, the federal government is vastly overestimating the stupidity of the general public. People are taking notes of the encroaching tyranny, and while they may pretend to voluntarily walk through the TSA's security checkpoints right now, there will come a day when the American people simply refuse to be herded like cattle anymore. I predict a widespread backlash against the TSA, reflected through state legislative efforts and public protests that will demand an end to the TSA which has now come to mean "Touch Some Ass!"

The hilarious ending to all this, by the way, is that the backscatter machines are also dosing all the TSA workers with regular bursts of ionizing radiation, meaning that the very people working for the tyrannical TSA are, themselves, victims of its deception.

Somehow, that seems incredibly fitting.

Sources for this story include:
http://www.propublica.org/article/scientists...
http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/apr...
http://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org...