Implications of Backscatter Millimetre Wave Imaging

After a 2009 Christmas day failed terrorist attempt to blow up a commercial jet flight over the US, the response under the Homeland Security Act and Patriot Act was to implement measures and install imaging devices that can be seen as an invasion of privacy, violation of civil rights, violation of child porn laws and a risk to health. The technology consists of a scanner that that can image people through their clothes in such a manner that the body underneath reflects the waves that are then recorded and processed by computers. The waves will also backscatter from metal, plastic, medical prostheses such as pacemakers, arterial stents or bombs like those made from plastique.

These scanners were rushed into service at the Vancouver Airport (YVR) in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics, giving security a host test population of millions from Feb. 12^th to Mar. 1^st. They well be continued in use at Vancouver and every other major city in an increasing profile around the world. The state is not subject to the laws they make for the masses who travel by air or who go to airports for other reasons, like work. Thus they can violate the conditions above and as a sideline, satisfy the sexual cravings of airport security against the will of those scanned. This electronic strip search is a type of rape, or at least a prelude to rape. Some news articles suggest that these devices are of interest to perverts. But lets look at the deeper issues; issues of privacy, civil rights and health.

So called soft X-rays or millimeter waves may not be harmful if one is subjected to them once a year; but what of return flights or repeated air travel. Further, soft X-Rays are often used in a confined way such in hospital situations and reproductive organs are usually shielded against even this radiation. X-Ray visits are often used with jurisprudence to lower radiation risk. At the airport scanner, the entire body is scanned from all sides by a rotating, head to toe scanner. The soft X-Ray or millimeter wave penetrates a few centimeters of tissue from skin, into muscle, fat, bone and body systems close to the surface. These layers undergo ionization where plenty of free radicals are created in the process. Some of the radiation is back-scattered in a process familiar to nuclear physicists. It is why the images tend to be of poor quality as opposed to professional model photography. But the quality is high enough to detect foreign objects like keys, pacemakers, metal plates, plastic bottles, belt buckles, garters and other metallic and non metallic objects on a person and under the clothing.

Once through the scanner, the damage has been done, which some think can lead to cancers like skin melanomas and leukemia. It is unknown what the Rem or Rontgen dosage is that a person receives from one of these machines, but there is good knowledge of what is an acceptable dosage for a person to “safely” receive on an annual basis externally and/or internally. Nuclear medicine from experience sets the standard at 5,000 millirems (5 Rem) per year for the entire body. No two organ systems are the same for radiation susceptibility. Some like intestines are more easily harmed than skeletal articulating muscles. Organs like eyes are very delicate and almost entirely within the range of such scanners. As the scanners penetrate up to three centimeters into soft tissue, organs like fingers, noses, toes, penises and testicles have radiation go right through them with little backscatter. Examining images that are available to public viewing from media shows that detail breaks down at precisely these points. What we get by way of an image is more useful by way of detecting contraband like hidden devices, flasks of alcohol, colostomy bags, baggies of marijuana, smuggled drinks, cigarette cases, metal plates and such. This means that radiation passes right through the finer points of the body, but does ionizing damage all the way through in the process; hence the possibility of temporary or permanent sterilization of males due to complete passage of ionizing radiation through their testicles. Even if full recovery is made from sterilization, the chance for mutations in future generations is increased numerically by number of exposures to the device. Frequent flying males have a greater chance of complete sterilization or if they recover, greater chances of contributing to mutations in future generations. But the very nature of the scanners means that contraband cannot be detected if it has been swallowed or absorbed like a suppository. It is interesting to note that security personnel who use these devices must remain at least 50 feet away as they will be running these devices on jet passengers thousands of times a day. Given the radiation intensity inverse distance square relation, we can gain a sense of proximity hazard to such radiological instruments. The closer one is to the radiation source, the greater the exposure to ionizing radiation, hence the required standing off by security when the machine is fired up on passenger after passenger.

What you may feel after being scanned is a feeling of unease and slight nausea. You may also feel tired as if you just had a through work out. It may persist for some time; in some cases for a few days. There may difficulty in falling to sleep and odd pains. There might even be a temporary loss of appetite. As people are embarrassed about such things and may attribute them to jet lag, nervousness or something else, they keep quiet. Thus ignorance persists over the population base. The effects will differ from person to person depending on several complex factors we will not delve into here. To simplify, if this is the case, you have a light case of radiation poisoning. If not treated, you will have lowered immunity for about a year and be susceptible to getting ill easily. But, you can take immediate measures to counteract these tenancies. To counteract this immediately, you need antioxidants to mop up free radicals such as strong green tea for drinking periodically and 400 IU vitamin E. To restore appetite, you will need medical marijuana. For longer term protection against massive DNA damage, you will need to procure and eat lotus seeds and other herbs that will counteract the long term effects of ionizing radiation. If you are a frequent flier, you will need to make these items part of you daily diet.

There is a home grown way to estimate the amount of radiation you have absorbed by the rapid onset of radiological based symptoms. This can serve as a kind of rough gauge of what you need to do and how long. 5 Rem of radiation is considered to not cause symptomatic response and that is what is considered a total safe does for a year. At 20 to 50 Rem, there is a fall off of white blood cells and lessened immunity that can lead to easily getting sick and frequent illness, but there are few immediate symptoms. Above 50 Rem gives one mild radiation sickness that is described above. If you have the symptoms described above, then you have received ionizing radiation to the tune of 50 to 100 Rem, up to 20 times the annual allowance. This is an important benchmark, so take note, even keeping a journal if you are a frequent flier. At 100 to 200 Rem, there are symptoms that increase with dosage with a 10 percent chance of fatality in 30 days after exposure at the high end of dosage. Dosages up to 300 Rem cause moderate symptoms with hair loss, vomiting and diarrhea at the high end with a 35 percent chance of death in 30 days. Up to 400 Rem, these symptoms become severe and include bleeding from the mouth and bowels and a 50 percent chance of death after 30 days. Anything beyond this is usually considered fatal either shortly after or s couple of months depending on doses above 400 Rem. These statistics have come to us via atom bomb experiments, nuclear war and nuclear medicine.

The fact that the state has deemed it necessary to expose the public to unknown quantities of radiation and placed the traveller at risk due to an alleged threat of terror, tells us plenty of what they think of us and how we can be coldly and callously treated for profitable ends. Those who get sick, for instance, may rush to their doctor to receive ineffective treatments at a considerable cost. Further, repeated exposure will sterilize you, so that you will not be able to have children and neither will you be able to have sex if you are a male as radiological poisoning kills sex. The scanner in question has more impact on male fertility than female fertility due to the anatomy of the male sexual organs that are exposed completely to incursions of this radiation. It would not be surprising to learn that male fertility drops to zero at least temporarily.

The involuntary submission to the invasive use of scanning machines is both a violation of privacy and civil rights as they exist in many countries, the UN Charter of rights and even under sections of the Geneva Convention. There are specific laws dealing with privacy centered on technological issues. Since the attack of Sept. 11^Th, 2001, civil rights have by law been suspended as a counter against terrorism that can come from any direction. Under the Bush (Junior) administration in October of the same year, the US constitution was virtually torn up after generating the mass hysteria and paranoia of terror. Since then, the US and many other countries have drifted inexorably into the condition of police state fascism. It is thus required for people to absorb unknown levels of radiation for the sake of the war of terror and the peace of mind of the rulers. But it does not end there.

There is a reason why people like privacy and it goes deep into the history of life. It is primordial and instinctual to want privacy when involved in certain acts that place individuals in situations of vulnerability to predation. Such situation are activities like sex and elimination, where animals have to seek shelter while they are vulnerable to predation. Thus, most animals like to hide when performing such actions. As far as sex is concerned, we make each other desire sheltering away because of so called moral attitudes against uncontrolled sex and so called deviations like same sex activity, despite the scientific evidence that such things run the gamut of species, at least in higher animals. Privacy has extended itself in civilization to include the privacy of one's home, of thoughts and associations. All of this arose due to prejudices. Included in this as a result are civil rights concerning privacy of the person.

There exists plenty of speculation that has some foundation in historical truth about eugenics and population control. Indeed, China has been involved in a two parent, two child program for decades. Recently, Israel enacted a law against immigrants having any children on pain of expulsion from the country. In the US, implants were placed in the arms of black women to render them infertile. In past, whole peoples have been driven to extinction, or at least have had populations severely curtailed in eugenics programs such as against the First Nations in the “Trail of Tears”. Some modern conspiracy theorists give us a scenario described in the video “Endgame” by Alex Jones where the world rulers would like to eliminate up to 93 percent of the world's population to bring it down to 500 million people in total for all time. There is even a monument erected to proclaim this ultimate goal. This means that either 93 percent have to die, murdered off or be rendered sterile in order to lower the population down to desired levels by attrition as no children can come from a sterile male population. As it is, pollution has already sharply reduced MALE FERTILITY across all species around the planet.

The setting up of these backscatter scanning devices started at airports, but will soon spread from there because of the fear of terror that is ever kept to the fore in the media. It started at airports because of a recent terror situation. It could have been as easily large venues like sports events or on cruise ships. For now, people who have visited events like the 2010 Winter Olympics are scanned not only by the backscatter scanners, but also by METAL DETECTING wands, video cameras and the ever watchful eyes of security, police and military. It is a foregone conclusion that such devices will become common place, even on heavily used rapid transit in major cities, especially if they have suffered a terrorist attack.

The answer to this runs deeper than what we are allowed to see on the media circus level of popular consumption in an anti terrorist fervor. The answer lies in the fact that war is profitable, even a war on terror. It also lies in the fact that damage caused by such machines will also stimulate the medical industry. Both these conditions are symptomatic of a capitalist world order in a state of decay, seeking answers to keeping their system going. As long as the compliant masses continue to war against one another, then that is as long we will have to endure such activity. When the toilers of the world become aware of just what is going on, they will no longer tolerate such abuse. They may well awaken and erupt into a revolutionary movement that will sweep away the corrupt capitalist order and agenda. Those of us who are already aware and know what to do, must WIN trust and point the way to a new society and a new world; a world with a planned economy run by the dictatorship of the proletariat.

References:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMMXO_GmWw0

2. http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ehs/radmanual/radman_sec_6.htm

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_poisoning

5. http://infowars.net/articles/october2007/241007Endgame.htm

6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics