John Wiener has an interesting piece in The Nation today about the health risks posed by the TSA's privacy-shredding body scanners, and he exposes the truth behind the claim that they're FDA-approved.
But the ProPublica investigation showed these reassurances to be misleading at best and in some ways dishonest. The FDA never evaluated the safety of the scanners now being installed at American airports. They were prevented from doing so, Grabell reports, because of a Catch-22: “the scanners do not have a medical purpose, so the FDA cannot subject them to the rigorous evaluation it applies to medical devices.”
We've reached a sad point in our nation's history when you have to choose between being groped or exposed to a radiating machine just to get on an airplane.
With travel season soon to heat up again, one hopes to see a rebirth of the outrage showcased last winter - and legitimate changes made that would keep us safe while respecting the Constitution.
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