The team at Los Alamos did their calculations for submillimetre or terahertz waves, whose photons Body Scanners
Body Scanners – Another Global Business
are slightly more energetic than those of millimetre waves. Their results are probabilistic rather than
deterministic, they say. This explains why some experiments show that terahertz waves can
damage DNA while other, practically identical studies show nothing.
While terahertz full-body scanners are not yet widely used, the work does show that the effects of
electromagnetic waves on DNA are not fully understood.
What about privacy concerns?
The US Transportation Security Administration admits that the scanners have the ability to store
and print images. But it says this capability is used only when the machines are tested and is
switched off at all other times. Critics point out that it isn't clear how difficult it is to reactivate this
capability or how the TSA prevents employees from recording the images with another device such
as a cellphone camera.
Earlier this week, hundreds of images taken by a body scanner used by marshals at a courthouse in
Florida appeared on the internet. The TSA says it would be impossible for a similar leak to occur
from airport scanners. It's fair to say the public is yet to be reassured. ( Source: New Scientist, 18th
November 2010).
Our rights:
We think it’s evident that –as we’ve stated at the beginning – the interest behind this decision
responds to purely commercial concerns of Corporations and corrupt Governments that seek to
enrich themselves at the expense of citizens’ health, their goal is to create huge profits for the
Corporations and intermediaries involved, including corrupt politicians, without giving a second
thought to the possibility of health damage.
There are more possibilities of you dieing due to being exposed to scanner radiation than of a
terrorist attack if we don’t use them. Metal and explosives detectors continue to be as effective as
ever and they set the limit to the intrusion that we citizens must allow to any Government.
We must say enough to treating us like cattle. We are free citizens – even if one would struggle to
believe it as we are herded through ever increasingly denigrating procedures at airports – and
musn’t carry on accepting the erosion of our rights and exposure to health damaging agents. When
a doctor recommends an x-ray it’s up to you to go through it, it’s your decision as you have a right
to decide about your health. No-one is above this right, not even Governments. Not only the
Government is not above this right but it’s the one that must protect it.
There’s a lot more published information on this subject that we cannot include because of the
limited space. Please, do your own research, get information, check on the internet, in libraries. We
are a group of citizens without any political affiliation or interest, we are just workers and we are
very concerned about the totalitarian and abusive direction that Governments are taking, including
and especially the Spanish one.
SAY NO TO BODY SCANNERS !
4
Here are the facts that expose the real motives behind the decision to use body
scanners at the airports. All the information has been gathered from official,
governmental, Corporate and news agencies sources. This information reveals
that the interest behind this decision responds to purely commercial interests
of Corporations and corrupt Governments that seek to enrich themselves at the
expense of citizens’ health from whom they obtain the funds to roll out this
outrageous business plan in an unprecedented exercise of cynicism and greed.
Chronology of a most profitable deceit.
-2005 –The United States Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff ordered the
government's first batch of the scanners -– five from California-based Rapiscan Systems (owned by
OSI Systems Inc.). (Source: The Washington Post).
- 20th November 2008 – The European Commission Shelves Body Scanners for the time being on
grounds of possible health issues and privacy concerns. (Source: Europolitics)
-21st January 2009 – Michael Chertoff leaves office as US Secretary of Homeland Security.
- 2nd February 2009 –Chertoff Group LLC is registered in the State of Delaware. Founding
members: Michael Chertoff and Chad Sweet, who served as Chertoff’s Chief of Staff during his
tenure as Secretary of Homeland Security. Mr. Sweet worked in the CIA until the early 1990s, when
he began a career in investment banking. He initially worked at Morgan Stanley and was later
recruited by Goldman Sachs. According to their website, the Chertoff Group assists clients with
addressing threats related to terrorism, cyber security, fraud, border protection and supply chain
security. The firm services include biometrics and identity management programs, information
assurance, fraud prevention and investigations, border protection solutions, security engineering
and infrastructure protection, crisis management, business continuity programs, and RFID-based
supply chain protection. Within the security industry, the Chertoff Group will also provide mergers
and acquisition advice, target identification and qualification, and due diligence support. Rapiscan,
the manufacturers of the body scanners are listed as their clients. (Source: Public Intelligence).
-29th April 2009 – The following people joined Chertoff Group, General Michael V. Hayden, former
director of both the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, Charles E. Allen,
Larry Castro, Jay M. Cohen, Nathaniel T.G. Fogg, Jeffrey W. Runge, Paul A. Schreider, former
members of the Defence Department, Homeland Security, CIA and FEMA. ( Source: Public
Intelligence).
- Summer 2009 – TSA purchased 150 machines from Rapiscan with $25 million in American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds. ( Fuente: Washington Post)
- 9th November2009 – Spanish firm Amper and Chertoff Group sign an agreement , Chertoff will get
a 0,6% of Amper’s capital in exchange for help opening the US, South American and European
markets. Amper Homeland Security develops, integrates and implements Security and Management
Systems in their broadest context. Amper’s Homeland Security business unit is the leader in Spain
in C4ISR Systems for Emergency centres, Border Control, etc. and Critical Communications and
Crypto systems. Among their principal customers both in Spain and abroad we find: The Spanish
Ministry of the Interior, the Spanish Police Corps, City Councils, Large Companies and Foreign
Security Corps and Forces.
On signing the agreement Amper´s shares increased by 11% . Market analysts gave the thumbs up
to this agreement that opens the doors of the international security market to the group of which
Telefónica is a stock-holder. ( Source: Diario Expansión, Amper).
- 25th December 2009 – A young man is detained on a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit when he
tried to set off an explossive device hidden in his underwear. Witnesses confirmed that a man
dressed in a smart suit was seen accompanying the young man through security control and
escorting him to the plane.
-31st December 2009 – The TSA has 40 scanners, has already ordered 150 more and is planning to
buy a further 300 during the course of next year. (Source: Fox news).
-1st January 2010 – Ex-Homeland Security chief head said to abuse public trust by touting body
scanners. Since the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, former Homeland
Security secretary Michael Chertoff has given dozens of media interviews touting the need for the
federal government to buy more full-body scanners for airports. ( Source: The Washington Post).
2nd January 2010 – The number of sales of body scanners is expected to skyrocket at least in part
because of the Christmas Day incident. The Transportation Security Administration this week said it
will order 300 more machines. ( Fuente: Washington Post).
-7th January 2010 – The United States is strengthening airline security measures and taking other
corrective actions in the aftermath of a thwarted terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound flight on
Christmas Day, President Obama announced at the White House January 7. “There is no foolproof
solution,” Obama said. “As we develop new screening technologies and procedures, our
adversaries will seek new ways to evade them, as was shown by the Christmas attack.” ( Source:
State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs, America.gov)
- 8th January 2010 – Gilles de Kerchove, the EU counter-terrorism coordinator, said he believed
scanners should be used across the EU. Britain, the Netherlands, France and Italy have announced
plans to install the scanners at airports since the failed Christmas Day bombing of a flight from
Amsterdam to Detroit, but there is no EU-wide obligation to use the scanners.The European
Parliament opposes their enforced introduction because of concern over health, privacy and cost.
(Source: Reuters).
-23rd January 2010 – Federal agents tell ABCNews.com they are attempting to identify a man who
passengers said helped Abdulmutallab change planes for Detroit when he landed in Amsterdam
from Lagos, Nigeria. (Source: ABC News).
- 30th June 2010- Tim Carney notes that a company called Rapiscan got a $165 million contract for
the new body image scanners four days after the underwear-bomber incident this past Christmas.
Not surprisingly, Rapiscan is politically connected, observes Carney. As for the company’s other
political connections, it also appears that none other than George Soros, the billionaire funder of
the country’s liberal political infrastructure, owns 11,300 shares of OSI Systems Inc., the company
that owns Rapiscan.( Source: The Washington Examiner).
- 6th November 2010 – President Barack Obama visits India and announces 10 billion dollars in trade
deals with India that he said will create 50,000 US jobs ( Source: The Daily Mail News).
- 12th November 2010 – OSI Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIS), a vertically-integrated provider of
specialized electronic products for critical applications in the Security and Healthcare industries,
today announced that Deepak Chopra, Chairman and CEO, was selected to accompany US
President, Barack Obama, to Mumbai and attended the US India Business Entrepreneurship
meeting, which was held by the US India Business Council (US IBC). The goal of the meeting was to
promote further trade between US and India. ( Source: OSI Systems, The New York Times).
-17th November 2010 – The site detailing George Soros’s OSIS investments now shows that Soros
owns zero shares of the company.( Source: The Blaze)
-18th November 2010 – The Ministry of Industry , Government of Spain announces the First Talks for
Airport Security. They start on this date and will last until tomorrow. They have been organized by
AESA ( Air Safety Government Agency) with the collaboration of AENA and Army and Security
Forces of the State and sponsored by Indra, Cotelsa, Telefónica, DHL , Tecosa, Axis, Ombuds y
Target Tecnología. ( Source: Communication Office, Ministry of Industry).
...to be continued, here and in your home country ( unless we all say ENOUGH!)
¿AND WHAT ABOUT US?
Our health:
What are the health concerns surrounding them?
There are two main types of full-body scanner. One uses X-rays while the other uses lower-energy
millimetre wavelengths. X-rays are hazardous because their photons have enough energy to ionise
atoms and break chemical bonds. That can cause damage to DNA that subsequently leads to
cancer. The machines are deemed safe because the total dose that someone receives during a scan
is tiny.
However, earlier this year, a group of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, raised
a number of concerns over X-ray scanners. They said the X-rays they use are low energy to ensure
they bounce only off skin rather than passing through the body, to produce an image focused on
objects concealed beneath clothes. This means that the entire dose that the person being scanned
receives is concentrated on the skin rather than spread throughout their body. That could mean the
skin receives a dose that is one or two orders of magnitude more than expected.
To many observers, the response of the US Food and Drug Administration failed to properly
address these concerns.
Are there health concerns surrounding millimetre-wave scanners?
In theory, these ought to be safer than X-rays because millimetre photons do not have enough
energy to break chemical bonds. Last year, however, researchers at Los Alamos National
Laboratory in New Mexico suggested that these low energy photons could damage DNA in an
entirely novel way. They say that while these photons cannot break DNA, they can shake it. This
shaking may be so strong that it unzips the two strands in DNA, interfering with the genetic
machinery that keeps cells working and healthy.