Well...the scanner manufacturers have to make money somehow...since TSA is disenchanted with the scanners. The devices could be showing up on Gov't Surplus auction sites any time now.
Maybe the scanners should work for both entering and exiting buildings...that way you could see who was stealing paperclips.
My instincts tell me this is just a bad idea. Back in the '60s, there was a shoe store chain called Brown's Boots, that had x-ray machines installed so people could get their feet x-rayed (not sure how this would help you buy a pair of shoes, but there you go). The machines were removed when it was discovered that x-rays were not necessarily good for you.
Scanners at building entrances is a similar idea.
Airport body scanners: they are seen by travelers as an invasion of privacy and a potential health hazard. And travelers in the United States cheered when the U.S. Transportation Security Administration announced the body scanners, produced by Rapiscan Systems, would be removed from U.S. airports and replaced by scanners that use low-energy radio waves and produce less revealing images. But if you work for the United States government, you might not have seen the last of the controversial machines.
That’s because TSA is now stuck with more than 200 fully-functioning, expensive body scanners ($140,000 each). So TSA will just swallow the loss of $40 million for purchasing a poor product, right? Not so fast. “We are working with other government agencies to find homes for them,” TSA spokesman David Castelveter told Federal Times. “There is an interest clearly by [the Department of Defense] and the State Department to use them — and other [federal] agencies as well.”
It doesn’t seem as if TSA thought this through. TSA is removing the scanner from airports because they expose passengers to radiation and take nearly nude images of them. Moving the scanners to office buildings, where the same people would use the scanner each day and therefore be exposed more regularly to radiation than an occasional passenger and coworkers could see your body scan image, doesn’t make sense.
It’s admirable that the government is making efforts not to waste the machines. But sometimes in government, as in business, it’s best to cut your losses.
Photo: Flickr/niiicedave
[Via The Atlantic, Federal Times]
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