backscatter

TSA Ends Rapiscan Contract But Keeps Backscatter Scanners

Yes, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has severed it contact with Rapiscan as a supplier of Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) passenger screening scanners … but the removal of the remaining 174 Rapiscan Secure 1000 scanners has nothing to do with them being ‘backscatter‘ technology scanners, nor the potential health risks posed by backscatter technology,  nor…

Is TSA Removing Backscatter Scanners? Nope

This morning ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize winning non-profit news organization, wrote about the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) quietly swapping certain Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) scanners from airports around the country, replacing them with other AIT scanners, implying that this is being done for health reasons.   ProPublica journalist Michael Grabell writes, “The TSA is not…

TSA Technologies, Security Theater & Oversight Failures

For years I have actively avoided using the term “Security Theater” when discussing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).   Over the years I have torn the TSA apart as well as defended them, as the agency has good and bad, while most people just focus on the bad.   Today however, looking at technologies the TSA is…

Why You Can’t Smuggle ‘Anything’ Through TSA Scanners

Earlier this week Jonathan Corbett, creator of the TSA Out Of Our Pants blog, posted a video entitled How To Get Anything Through TSA Nude Body Scanners. In Mr. Corbett’s video he show images from Rapiscan Secure 1000 Backscatter scanners and then describes how items placed along the side of a person would appear dark,…