The New Order Is Chaos

I saw a wonderful cartoon this week, which had two kids (one of whom is holding a needle close to a balloon) approaching a balding middle-aged man reading one of the financial newspapers, with the caption "Watch him jump". Replace the adolescents with today's politicians (actually scratch that, most politicians are still adolescent at least as far as their mental growth is concerned) and the balloon as burst; you have the perfect picture of what happened in the markets.

Anyone looking for the "new normal" doesn't have to look too far from the events that drove this week's trading so far. In summary, academics and economists (reportedly there is a difference between the two) have been searching for a "new normal" for the world economy as it attempts to recover from the crisis of 2007.

What they are missing is that the "new normal" isn't going to be defined by the relative economic growth of various countries or the dynamics of inflation; what will define it (as is increasingly becoming clear) is the return of absolute, gut-wrenching volatility that makes investing a permanent state of siege. In that environment, investor behavior is reactive rather than proactive and surprises abound on both the up and down directions.

Welcome to a new world where the definition of order is a state of continued chaos.

What caused this meltdown?

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CIA sees no legal bar to joining U.S. interrogations

POLITICO

There is no legal bar to the Central Intelligence Agency interrogating terrorism suspects inside the U.S., but the spy agency chooses not to because doing so could entagle CIA personnel in court proceedings, a senior Obama administration official said Tuesday.

During a conference call the White House organized  to discuss the newly-established CIA-FBI High-Value Interrogation Group, an official said CIA personnel provide advice for interrogation of suspects on U.S. soil but generally stay "outside the room." The official, who cannot be named under the ground rules set for the call, seemed eager to rebut the conventional wisdom that the CIA cannot legally engage in any operational activities in the U.S.

"There is no legal prohibition against CIA personnel participating in a questioning scenario in the United States," the official said. "However, our practice so far and historically has been to leave the questioning to the FBI interrogators and for the CIA to provide subject matter experts outside the room if you will."

"So we do that as a matter of prudence for reasons, for example, having to do with, if there's an eventual criminal prosecution whether CIA personnel would be unnecessarily involved in the process by having been unnecessarily involved in the questioning. It is not however a legal prohibition. It is considered a wise way of doing business, if you will," the official said.

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Gulf oil spill effects to reach Arctic and Europe, expert says

CNN

Washington -- The damaging effects of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will be felt all the way to Europe and the Arctic, a top scientist told a congressional panel Friday.

"This is not just a regional issue for the wildlife," said Carl Safina, the president of the Blue Ocean Institute. Safina, who recently returned from the Gulf Coast region, presented several photographs, including one of an oil-covered bird.

"There will be a nest empty in Newfoundland," Safina said, noting common migratory patterns. Safina warned that multiple forms of marine life in the Atlantic Ocean "come into the Gulf to breed."

Safina's briefing to representatives of the House Energy and Commerce Committee was scheduled as part of an ongoing effort to draw on a broad range of expertise for cleanup efforts.

"We have to use science to find solutions," said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts. Markey has been strongly critical of the current cleanup effort, calling it ineffective.

Meanwhile, another congressman, concerned about people who are working to clean up the spill, has asked the White House to set up temporary health care centers along the Gulf Coast to serve volunteers and workers.

Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Louisiana, envisions such clinics as providing "medical checkups to people who have come in contact with the oil and assist in monitoring the health effects of the oil leak on south Louisianians."

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FDIC: 'Problem' Banks at 775

WASHINGTON—A total of 775 banks, or one-tenth of all U.S. banks, were on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s list of "problem" institutions in the first quarter, as bad loans in the commercial real-estate market weighed on bank balance sheets.

Poor loan performance in other sectors also continued to hurt banks, with the total number of loans at least three months past due climbing for the 16th consecutive quarter, FDIC officials said in a briefing on Thursday.

"The banking system still has many problems to work through, and we cannot ignore the possibility of more financial market volatility," FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said.

There were 702 on the FDIC's "problem" bank list at the end of 2009 and 252 at the end of 2008.

FDIC officials said they expected the number of failed banks to peak this year after climbing steadily over the past three years. Regulators have shut 72 banks so far this year, more than double the number closed by this time last year. Ms. Bair said regulators were preparing for a steady pace of additional closures through the end of the year. A total of 237 banks have failed since the beginning of 2008.

The failures continue to strain the FDIC's fund to protect consumer deposits, although officials signaled they were confident they had enough cash on hand to deal with the expected spate of failures, without having to assess new fees on the banking industry. The agency's deposit insurance fund stood at negative-$20.7 billion at the end of the first quarter, a slight improvement from the end of 2009.

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White House Covers Up Menacing Oil "Blob"

In an exclusive for Oilprice.com, the Wayne Madsen Report (WMR) has learned from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sources that U.S. Navy submarines deployed to the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast have detected what amounts to a frozen oil blob from the oil geyser at the destroyed Deep Horizon off-shore oil rig south of Louisiana. The Navy submarines have trained video cameras on the moving blob, which remains frozen at depths of between 3,000 to 4,000 feet. Because the oil blob is heavier than water, it remains frozen at current depths.

FEMA and Corps of Engineers employees are upset that the White House and the Pentagon remain tight-lipped and in cover-up mode about the images of the massive and fast-moving frozen coagulated oil blob that is being imaged by Navy submarines that are tracking its movement. The sources point out that BP and the White House conspired to withhold videos from BP-contracted submersibles that showed the oil geyser that was spewing oil from the chasm underneath the datum of the Deep Horizon at rates far exceeding originally reported amounts. We have learned that it was largely WMR's scoop on the existence of the BP videos that forced the company and its White House patrons to finally agree to the release of the video footage.

The White House is officially stating that it does not know where the officially reported 10 miles long by 3 miles wide "plume" is actually located or in what direction it is heading. However, WMR's sources claim the White House is getting real-time reports from Navy submarines as to the blob's location.

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Stocks, Commodities Extend Weeklong Tumble

May 20 (Bloomberg) -- A weeklong selloff in stocks deepened as reports in the U.S. raised doubts about the strength of the economic recovery as leaders in Europe struggled to contain the region’s debt crisis. Commodities tumbled, the euro weakened and Treasuries soared.

The losses pushed the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index down 2.7 percent to 1,084.48 at 11:21 a.m. in New York, a move below the 200-day moving average level that some traders say could trigger more declines. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index plunged 2.8 percent and the S&P GSCI Index of commodities tumbled to the lowest since October. The euro pared losses to remain above the lowest in four years against the dollar. Ten-year Treasury yields sank to the lowest of the year, down 13 basis points at 3.24 percent.

U.S. jobless claims unexpectedly increased to 471,000 last week and the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators fell 0.1 percent. European finance officials meet in Brussels a day before the German parliament votes on the country’s share of a $1 trillion bailout to backstop the euro in the wake of a worsening sovereign debt crisis.

“Put your helmets on if you are long risk here,” Nicolas Lenoir, chief market strategist at ICAP Futures LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey, said in a note to clients before markets opened today. “A lot of stops have been triggered when the S&P future crossed 1,100 and anybody still long will probably have to bail out and head for cover.”

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NKorea warns of war if punished for ship sinking

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea said Thursday that South Korea fabricated evidence implicating the North in a torpedo attack in order to pick on the North and any attempt at retaliating for the warship's sinking would be answered with "all-out war."

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak vowed "stern action" for the attack after a multinational investigation issued its long-awaited results Thursday, concluding the North fired a torpedo that sank the Cheonan navy ship March 26 near the Koreas' tense sea border.

"If the (South Korean) enemies try to deal any retaliation or punishment, or if they try sanctions or a strike on us .... we will answer to this with all-out war," Col. Pak In Ho of North Korea's navy told broadcaster APTN in an exclusive interview in Pyongyang.

An international civilian-military investigation team said evidence overwhelmingly proves a North Korean submarine fired a homing torpedo that caused a massive underwater blast that tore the Cheonan apart. Fifty-eight sailors were rescued from the frigid Yellow Sea, but 46 perished in the South's worst military disaster since the Korean War.

Since the 1950-53 war on the Korean peninsula ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty, the Koreas remain locked in a state of war and divided by the world's most heavily armed border.

The truce prevents Seoul from waging a unilateral military attack.

However, South Korea and the U.S., which has 28,500 troops on the peninsula, could hold joint military exercises in a show of force, said Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-based analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank.

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House votes to expand national DNA arrest database

Millions of Americans arrested for but not convicted of crimes will likely have their DNA forcibly extracted and added to a national database, according to a bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday.

By a 357 to 32 vote, the House approved legislation that will pay state governments to require DNA samples, which could mean drawing blood with a needle, from adults "arrested for" certain serious crimes. Not one Democrat voted against the database measure, which would hand out about $75 million to states that agree to make such testing mandatory.

"We should allow law enforcement to use all the technology available to them...to reduce expensive and unjust false convictions, bring closure to victims by solving cold cases, better identify criminals, and keep those who commit violent crime from walking the streets," said Rep. Harry Teague, the New Mexico Democrat who sponsored the bill.

But civil libertarians say DNA samples should be required only from people who have been convicted of crimes, and argue that if there is probable cause to believe that someone is involved in a crime, a judge can sign a warrant allowing a blood sample or cheek swab to be forcibly extracted.

"It's wrong to treat someone as guilty before they're convicted," says Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute. "It inverts the concept of innocent until proven guilty."

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Iranian teams train on S-300 interceptors at Russian bases

While joining the US in backing a softened UN Security Council sanctions package against Iran, Tuesday, May 18, Moscow is reported by debkafile's military sources as surreptitiously training Iranian Revolutionary Guards crews at Russian bases to operate the advanced S-300 interceptor-missile systems, which are capable of fending off a potential US or Israel attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

UN sources disclose that the new sanctions motion - in its present diluted form - does not expressly forbid the consignment of this weapon to Iran.

Moscow is withholding them from Tehran for now, keeping the promise prime minister Vladimir Putin gave President Barack Obama. But if and when the weapons are delivered, Iran will have trained crews ready to operate them.

In their push to develop military ties with Iran and its allies, the Russians earlier this month also agreed to sell Syria MiG-29 fighter jets, Pantsyr short-range air defense systems and armored vehicles in a major arms transaction.

Washington and Jerusalem have known about the presence of IRGC S-300 missile crews at Russian training bases since early May. But when Israeli president Shimon Peres raised the issue during his talks with President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow on May 9, he was told sharply that neither Israel nor any other government is entitled to tell Russia to whom it may give military assistance. 

And when US diplomats in New York and Moscow were instructed to ask their opposite numbers whether the training program augured the shipment of the interceptors to Iran, notwithstanding Putin's promise, they were greeted with deafening silence.

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Bill for Afghan War Could Run Into the Trillions

The U.S. Senate is moving forward with a $59 billion spending bill, of which $33.5 billion would be allocated for the war in Afghanistan.

However, some experts in Washington are raising concerns that the war may be unwinnable and that the money being spent on military operations in Afghanistan could be better spent.

“We’re making all of the same mistakes the Soviets made during their time in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, and they left in defeat having accomplished none of their purposes,” Michael Intriligator, a senior fellow at the Milken Institute, said Monday at a half-day conference hosted by the New America Foundation and Economists for Peace and Security.

“I think we’re repeating that, and it’s a history we’re condemned to repeat,” he said.

Intriligator also argued that the real, long-term cost of the war in Afghanistan may completely overshadow the current spending bill.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda Bilmes estimated that the long-term costs – taking into account the costs of taking care of wounded soldiers and rebuilding the military – of the war in Iraq will ultimately be $3 trillion.

Intriligator suggested that a similar calculation for the costs of the war in Afghanistan would indicate a long-term cost of $1.5-$2 trillion.

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Conspiracy of Banks Rigging States Came With Crash

(Bloomberg) -- A telephone call between a financial adviser in Beverly Hills and a trader in New York was all it took to fleece taxpayers on a water-and-sewer financing deal in West Virginia. The secret conversation was part of a conspiracy stretching across the U.S. by Wall Street banks in the $2.8 trillion municipal bond market.

The call came less than two hours before bids were due for contracts to manage $90 million raised with the sale of West Virginia bonds. On one end of the line was Steven Goldberg, a trader with Financial Security Assurance Holdings Ltd. On the other was Zevi Wolmark, of advisory firm CDR Financial Products Inc. Goldberg arranged to pay a kickback to CDR to land the deal, according to government records filed in connection with a U.S. Justice Department indictment of CDR and Wolmark.

West Virginia was just one stop in a nationwide conspiracy in which financial advisers to municipalities colluded with Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Wachovia Corp. and 11 other banks.

They rigged bids on auctions for so-called guaranteed investment contracts, known as GICs, according to a Justice Department list that was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on March 24 and then put under seal. Those contracts hold tens of billions of taxpayer money.

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Griffin & Gage Pair Up, Energize 9/11 Truth in Canada — Media Scrambles

AE 911Truth

Canada came, saw, and in the end agreed — 9/11 needs to be re–investigated. It began in Ottawa on April 30 at Carleton University. The critics remained silent until shortly before the show at which Richard Gage, AIA, was scheduled to present 9/11: Blueprint for Truth.  But, one hour before the event, CBC News released their shot across the bow, changing what would have been a “below-the-radar” event into one with considerably more attention.

The crowd was eager with anticipation, particularly with this blast from CBC, although some were uncertain about what really caused the World Trade Center building destructions prior to the event.  A show of hands indicated that out of 196 attendees, 41 were unsure how the towers came down, and only one person believed that it was linked to Al-Qaeda. The remaining believed that controlled demolition brought the Twin Towers down.

Mr. Gage received a standing ovation as he was introduced by ground-zero-eye-witness David Long, from Truth Action Ottawa, the organizers of the event. I thought his presentation was considerably more dynamic and updated than what I had seen on the DVD. I can relate the experience of watching the live presentation of 9/11: Blueprint for Truth to listening to one’s favorite musician, and then going to see that person in concert. They usually end up blowing you away. What I actually think has happened is that Mr. Gage has honed his presentation to near perfection, after nearly 100 live presentations since the making of the DVD. The final showing of hands following his presentation showed that, out of 41 who were originally unsure, only four remained unsure. And the one original person believing in the official account of events no longer believed that way.

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Rand Paul: 'We have come to take our government back'

WASHINGTON – Party-switching Sen. Arlen Specter fell to a younger and far less experienced rival in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, and political novice Rand Paul rode support from tea party activists to a Republican rout in Kentucky on Tuesday, the latest jolts to the political establishment in a tumultuous midterm election season.

In another race with national significance, Democrat Mark Critz won a special House election to fill out the term of the late Democratic Rep. John Murtha in southwestern Pennsylvania. The two political parties spent roughly $1 million apiece hoping to sway the outcome there, and highlighted the contest as a possible bellwether for the fall when all 435 House seats will be on the ballot.

On the busiest night of the primary season to date, Arkansas Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln was forced into a potentially debilitating June runoff election against Lt. Gov. Bill Halter in her bid for nomination to a third term. Rep. John Boozman won the Republican line on the ballot outright.

Taken together, the evening's results were indisputably unkind to the political establishments of both parties — with more contested primaries yet to come, particularly among Republicans.

But any attempt to read into the results a probable trend for the fall campaign was hazardous — particularly given Critz's victory over Republican Tim Burns to succeed Democrat Murtha in Congress.

Specter, seeking his sixth term and first as a Democrat, fell to two-term Rep. Joe Sestak, who spent three decades in the Navy before entering politics. Sestak was winning 54 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Specter. He told cheering supporters his triumph marked a "win for the people over the establishment, over the status quo, even over Washington, D.C."

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Obama’s Gulf of Tonkin

The claim by the US government that the Times Square would-be bomber, Faisal Shahzad, was “trained” and “directed” by the Pakistani Taliban is looking more bogus by the moment. The latest: one of at least three people arrested in connection with the alleged “plot,” Mohammad Shafiq Rahman, hadn’t seen Shahzad in years, and even admitted to his employer that he knew the accused. One Larry Adlerstein, who had hired Rahman to do some computer work for his art business, told reporters:

“Just a few days ago he had a conversation with Rahman about the attempted bombing in New York City [in the course of which] his employee made a surprising admission. ‘As a matter of fact’ [said Rahman] ]I know this guy accused of trying to bomb Times Square. I haven’t seen him in 8 or 9 years but I know him.’

“Adlerstein says Rahman described the suspected bomber, Faisal Shahzad as ‘an undirected person….no political positions, just a drifter.’”

Rahman has been arrested on trumped-up immigration charges, but ask yourself: if you were part of a terrorist plot, and had assisted someone already in custody, would you admit to knowing the accused? This is just plain ordinary common sense: but that’s not what inspires our intrepid G-men.

In an attempt to follow the money trail, and find – or invent – a foreign link, US investigators have spread their net far and wide, apparently including any individuals who ever had significant financial dealings with Shahzad over a ten year period. This has led, so far, to arrests – all on immigration charges – in Brookline, and Watertown, both in Massachusetts, and one in Maine.

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9/11: WTC Workers Suffer Long-Lasting Sensory Loss

New research from the Monell Center and collaborating institutions reports that workers exposed to the complex mixture of toxic airborne chemicals following the 9/11 disaster had a decreased ability to detect odors and irritants two years after the exposure.

"The nose performs many sensory functions that are critical for human health and safety," said lead author Pamela Dalton, PhD, MPH, an environmental psychologist at Monell. "The sensory system that detects irritants is the first line of defense to protect the lungs against airborne toxic chemicals. The loss of the ability of the nose to respond to a strong irritant means that the reflexes that protect the lungs from toxic exposures will not be triggered."

Individuals involved in rescue, recovery, demolition and clean-up at the World Trade Center (WTC) were exposed to a complex mixture of smoke, dust, fumes, and gases. In the study, reported online in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, Dalton and collaborators studied 102 individuals who worked or volunteered at the WTC site on 9/11 and during the days and weeks afterward to determine whether this exposure affected their ability to detect odors and irritants.

Forty-four percent of the workers reported being in lower Manhattan on 9/11 and 97 percent worked on the site during the week after the buildings' collapse.

Two years after the exposure, the WTC workers had decreased sensitivity to odors and irritants as compared to similar workers with no WTC exposure. Twenty-two percent of the WTC workers had a diminished ability to detect odors and nearly 75 percent had an impaired ability to detect irritants.

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Dow Theorist Richard Russell: Sell Everything Liquid, You Won't Recognize America By The End Of The Year!

WHOA! 

Richard Russell, the famous writer of the Dow Theory Letters, has a chilling line in today's note:

Do your friends a favor. Tell them to "batten down the hatches" because there's a HARD RAIN coming. Tell them to get out of debt and sell anything they can sell (and don't need) in order to get liquid. Tell them that Richard Russell says that by the end of this year they won't recognize the country. They'll retort, "How the dickens does Russell know -- who told him?" Tell them the stock market told him.

That's pretty intense!

Update: By popular demand, here's more on what he sees in the market. The gist is that the markets recent gyrations are telling him that the economy is in trouble:

And I ask myself, "Am I seeing things? The April 26 high for the Dow
was 11205.03. The Dow is selling as write at 10557 down 648 points
from its April high. If business is even better than expected, then
why is the Dow down over 600 points? And why, if there were 674 new
highs on the NYSE on April 26, were there only 20 new highs on Friday,
May 14? And if my PTI was 6133 on April 26, why is it down 17 points
since its April high?

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/dow-theorist-richard-russell-sell-everything-liquid-you-wont-recognize-america-by-the-end-of-the-year-2010-5#ixzz0oJ14sXlb

US outflanked in bid to bring new sanctions against Iran

The Independent

Iran appeared to draw back yesterday from confrontation over its nuclear programme by agreeing to ship uranium abroad for enrichment, a move described by Western governments as being in the right direction but not enough to avert the threat of harsh UN sanctions. 

Under the agreement, brokered by Brazil and Turkey, Iran agrees to send 1200kg of low-enriched uranium to Turkey for storage and will have the right after a year, to receive back 120kg of fuel enriched by Russia and China into rods for a Tehran-based medical research reactor.

If the deal is honoured, it would theoretically inhibit any Iranian plan to develop nuclear weapons. But the announcement risked undermining efforts by the US and its allies to bring China and Russia on board for a fourth round of punitive UN measures against Iran over the nuclear impasse. Moscow and Beijing have been reluctant partners in the debate over isolating Iran, a major trading partner to both.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Brazil's president Luiz Inacio Luis da Silva, were in Tehran for the final hours of talks on the deal. Afterwards Mr Erdogan said: "My expectation is that after this declaration there will not be a need for sanctions."

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Afghan prosecutor issues arrest warrant for US army officer over police killing

London Guardian

An Afghan prosecutor has issued an arrest warrant for an American special forces commander over allegations that a police chief was murdered by a US-trained militia.

Brigadier General Ghulam Ranjbar, the chief military prosecutor in Kabul, has accused the US of creating an outlaw militia which allegedly shot dead Matiullah Qateh, the chief of police in the city of Kandahar.

The militia, which Ranjbar claimed is armed and trained by US special forces, also allegedly killed Kandahar's head of criminal investigations and two other officers, when they attempted to free one of their members from a courthouse.

"We lost one this country's best law enforcement officers for the [attempted] release of a mercenary," said Ranjbar, interviewed for a film to be shown on Channel 4 News tomorrow.

He accused American officials of refusing to hand over evidence or to permit his investigators to interview the special forces commander, known to Afghans only as "John or Johnny", who he alleges sanctioned the raid.

The arrest warrant, which has been circulated to border posts and airports, is an embarrassment for the US military, which is facing growing criticism for links to militias controlled by warlords. In Kandahar, the militias have been accused of murder, rape and extortion.

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Chilcot Iraq inquiry starts five-day visit to US to take evidence from Americans

Members of the Iraq inquiry have started a five-day visit to the US to take evidence from American officials and military figures, it was revealed today.

The meetings are taking place in private and Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry chairman, has not revealed the names of those meeting his team.

But the inquiry has disclosed that it has taken evidence from various senior French officials and politicians, including Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister at the time of the war.

The team met De Villepin and other French witnesses during a one-day visit to Paris on Tuesday 4 May.

The inquiry said today that Chilcot and his colleagues had arrived in the US. They will be visiting Washington and Boston and they will not formally release the names of the people they are meeting until after the visit is over, when names will be disclosed if those involved agree.

The American and French meetings are not being treated as formal evidence-gathering sessions and the inquiry will not be producing transcripts of what was said.

The inquiry has finished its first round of public hearings but it is due to start another round in the summer. Details of dates and witnesses will be released soon.

Getting Naked with Strangers May Be More Dangerous Than Suspected

In a post about body scanners last month, I noted that the health effects of these machines has been a "muted part of the debate." The issue just got less muted. NPR is reporting that a group of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, has raised concerns over the health effects of backscatter X-ray body scanners, which is one of the two types being deployed (the other being millimeter wave). The scientists' concerns over backscatter are disputed by the TSA and others, and we at the ACLU do not pretend to be scientists. But, the scientists' brief letter (PDF), which they sent on April 6 to President Obama's science advisor John P. Holdren, is worth looking at.

The scientists' concerns are:

• The majority of the energy directed by these scanners "is delivered to the skin and the underlying tissue. Thus, while the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high." For that reason it is "misleading," the scientists say, to compare these scanners' radiation dose to those of airplane travel or a chest X-ray.
• The fact that "real independent safety data do not exist" — particularly what the scientists describe as the "key data": the volume of photons delivered per skin area and time.
• A certain proportion of individuals (5 percent, or one in 20 people) are particularly susceptible to genetic damage from X-rays.
• "Because this device can scan a human in a few seconds, the X-ray beam is very intense," the scientists write, and warn that a hardware glitch with one of these scanners could shower a traveler with "an intense radiation dose to a single spot on the skin."

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