From left to right: George Packer, Dalia Mogahed, Tariq Ramadan, Joan Wallach Scott, and Jacob Weisberg

Last night's panel discussion at Cooper Union was a sold-out success! Thanks to everyone who joined us last night. We thought it was a riveting discussion, and many thanks to panelists Dalia Mogahed, George Packer, Joan Wallach Scott, and Jacob Weisberg.

If you were able to join us (either in-person or watched it stream from the PEN website), please let us know what you thought of the event in comments. If you weren't able to join us, we'll have video of the event early next week.

We think last night's discussion proved that when people gather and engage in thoughtful discussion and even respectful disagreement, it can only benefit us all. That's why "global debate" rather than "ideological exclusion" of scholars like Professor Ramadan is so important. (If you agree, send a letter to the Secretary of State Clinton asking her to retire the practice of ideological exclusion for good).

Professor Ramadan heads to Washington, D.C., Monday to meet with members of Congress and speak at Georgetown.

In all the controversy over the deployment of full-body scanners in U.S. airports, the health effects of the millimeter wave and backscatter machines has been a muted part of the debate. The backscatter X-ray machines deliver a very small amount of radiation. The millimeter wave machines use radio waves that (as in the case of cell phones) are not believed to pose any risk. Even so, concerns have been raised about the health effects, and at the ACLU we have often been asked questions about those effects by people who regard government claims with a lot of skepticism or who just worry that, as so often in the past, there are risks scientists don't yet understand.

What about real X-ray machines? The current body scanners cannot see below the skin, and we have previously pointed out the possibility of explosives being hidden in body cavities, in the context of asking just how far the United States is prepared to go in pursuing privacy-violating security measures. Of course, regular X-rays, like those used when you break your arm, can see below the skin — but because the radiation doses they deliver are significant, those would be a nonstarter in the airline security context.

Or would they? We were surprised to learn that some agency of the U.S. government is purchasing genuine, "through-body X-Ray" machines for African countries for the purposes of airport security — the kind that can see through flesh, and which deliver real doses of radiation.

The U.S.-supplied scanners have apparently been deployed at one airport in Ghana and four in Nigeria. According to the X-ray machine supplier OD Security, the machines will be used to "scan selected passengers who have been identified as posing a possible security risk."

The scanners, the company says, offer

a much more effective, cheaper and less disruptive security procedure than mass screening and relying on the inferior image quality of microwave and Backscatter scanners. The Soter will detect any metallic or non-metallic objects, such as narcotics, explosives, precious stones, plastic weapons or other contraband, hidden under clothes or in natural cavities within the human body. Other than the conventional intrusive strip searches there is no other way of detecting these items carried internally.

Well there's no doubt that a real X-ray machine can see things that won't be picked up by other scanning technologies. All kinds of things, in fact. But what about all that radiation? OD Security calls its devices "low dose" X-rays. But what do they mean by "low"? A fact sheet at the web site RadiologyInfo.org (PDF) at least, uses "low dose" to refer to any X-ray other than a super-high-dose procedure such as a CT scan. Low dose X-rays are "those that involve only films taken by a technologist" — in short, what everyone thinks of as a regular medical X-ray.

Throughout the 20th century, the experts' definition of a "safe" dose of radiation was constantly revised downward, until finally it was concluded that there is "no safe dose." RadiologyInfo.org also recommends "if you have had frequent X-ray exams," that it "is a good idea to keep a record of your X-ray history for yourself" so that the "potential risk from radiation" can be balanced against the "likelihood of benefit" from an X-ray. Perhaps travelers in these African countries will need to include their trips through security in those records. Pity the local traveler whose name is on a watch list and gets X-rayed every time. . .

This story, assuming it's accurate, leaves several questions begging to be answered:

• Is Homeland Security considering the use of "through-body X-ray" machines domestically?
• How much radiation do these human-targeted airport X-ray machines deliver?
• Who are they being used on in Nigeria and Ghana? Everyone selected for secondary screening, or only those for whom a body cavity search is deemed justified? Is the United States monitoring their use or did it set any conditions on their use?
• In the medical context, technicians are trained to use the minimal radiation dose required for a particular image. Are airport X-ray operators similarly trained, or are they just blasting passengers away with radiation to minimize the chances of missing contraband?
• Are the X-rays, which can reveal an enormous amount of intimate information about passengers' bodies, being viewed in a separate room, or will passengers' every internal and external bodily quirk, condition, and deformity be exposed to agents standing right there?
• Is the U.S. government encouraging the use of these machines in other countries? Any countries in other areas of the world, such as Europe, Asia, and Latin America?

Ultimately, the biggest question raised by this story is whether the U.S. security agencies behind this program have considered the health effects on African travelers of these machines. If true, this situation just might evoke inevitable comparisons to the fictional plot of the John LeCarré novel and movie The Constant Gardener, in which an evil pharmaceutical company conducts drug tests on African children, or to the real-life Pfizer Trovan case. When Westerners deploy devices with questionable health effects in Africa that they won't or don't deploy at home, it doesn't look good.

This week, as the ACLU welcomes our clients Professors Adam Habib and Tariq Ramadan to the United States — scholars who, until recently, were barred from entering the country because of their criticism of U.S. policy and who will be speaking to audiences in New York today and tomorrow — we also celebrating the news of another almost-excluded scholar being granted permission to enter the country.

Dr. Edward Horgan is a well-known Irish activist who served as an Irish Defense Force officer for 22 years. He has also worked as the International Secretary of the Irish Peace and Neutrality Alliance, was a United Nations peacekeeper and an international election monitor in countries like Ghana, Armenia, Zimbabwe, East Timor and Ukraine. Dr. Horgan also happens to be an outspoken critic of the U.S. practice of extraordinary rendition, and cofounded an organization called Shannon Watch, which has documented the use of Shannon Airport in western Ireland as a stopover for U.S. rendition flights.

Dr. Horgan was set to speak at an important conference taking place this week at Duke University called "Weaving a Net of Accountability: Taking on extraordinary rendition at the state and regional level." Organized by a coalition of human rights groups, including North Carolina Stop Torture Now, the conference will convene legal experts (including the ACLU's very own Steven Watt), human rights activists, journalists, religious leaders, academics and health care professionals to explore how to push for accountability for extraordinary rendition in North Carolina locally and regionally in an effort to push for accountability on the federal level.

On March 15, a North Carolina News & Observer op-ed reported that the U.S. government revoked Dr. Horgan's 10-year, multiple-entry visa without explanation, even though he had visited the United States just last year to see family and to attend the presidential inauguration. Like Professors Habib and Ramadan, it seemed that Dr. Horgan was being targeted because of his ideas; specifically, his strong criticism of torture, rendition, and arbitrary detention.

Several congressional offices in North Carolina and Massachusetts joined private groups and citizens across the country in protesting Dr. Horgan's exclusion. In North Carolina, Reps. David Price and Mel Watt and Sen. Kay Hagan were helpful in making inquiries with the State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Dublin. The balance appeared to tip, though, only when the Irish media began covering the story and when letters to the editor from Irish citizens started pouring in. In short, Dr. Horgan's exclusion, like the ideological exclusion of Professors Habib and Ramadan, started to look like a potential PR disaster for the United States:

Today, just one day before his scheduled departure for the United States, Dr. Horgan finally learned that he would be granted a new U.S. visa after all. He's packing his bags and heading for Shannon Airport — not to protest this time, but to board a plane bound for the U.S.

If you're in Durham, North Carolina, this week, the "Weaving a Net of Accountability" conference — with the participation of Dr. Horgan and ACLU attorney Steven Watt — is taking place on Thursday, April 8, through Saturday, April 10, on the campus of Duke University.

Today the Nevada Supreme Court heard arguments in Personhood Nevada v. Bristol, a case reviewing the legality of a proposed ballot initiative aimed at interfering with private health care decisions. In January, a lower court judge declared the "Personhood Nevada" petition — an initiative that seeks to ban a range of reproductive health services in the state — invalid, vague and misleading. The lower court also prevented the initiative from being placed on the next election ballot. Proponents of the initiative appealed that ruling, bringing us to today's hearing before a full panel of the Nevada Supreme Court.

Not surprisingly, listening to proponents' arguments to the Court was like reading the initiative itself — confusing. In response to questions from the judges asking for a clear explanation of the single or primary "purpose" of the initiative, proponents' attorney kept referring to the "operative eight words" of the initiative: "the term 'person' applies to every 'human being,'" but never clearly explained how, under this initiative, incorporating the phrase "human being" would expand the meaning of "person," or how adding those eight words to the Nevada Constitution would actually change Nevada law. Arguing on behalf of the three plaintiffs who brought the challenge — an individual woman, a pharmacist and an obstetrician-gynecologist — Lee Rowland from the ACLU of Nevada asked the Nevada Supreme Court to affirm the lower court's ruling that the initiative is misleading and fails to give voters a clear explanation of its purpose, the changes it proposes, and its intended consequences.

We are hopeful that, like the lower court, the Nevada Supreme Court will issue a decision that protects voters from being left in the dark at the ballot box. This case has been moving at a quick pace and we expect a decision from the Court soon. We'll keep you posted.