AOL & Huffington Post Need To Hire Better Editors

As I do my best to empower people through my blog, some people prefer instead to spread lies and throw tomatoes at me from the back row in order to further their own agenda. After my recent debacle with the TSA at Dallas-Fort Worth airport, the travel editor from the Huffington Post, Kate Auletta, decided to post a slanderous article about me full of "digs" and lies that I want to clear up. Once again, I'm sticking up for myself.

An excerpt of the character-bashing article was posted on The Huffington Post and linked to in its entirety on AOL Travel. I've posted it below, followed by the list of reasons Ms. Auletta is WAY off in her "reporting":

Susie Castillo's TSA Rant: 'I Didn't Want To Be Radiated On'

by Kate Auletta

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Why Everyone Should "opt out" of the Airport Body Scanners: Part 2

"Those that would give up their liberty for security deserve neither and lose both.”
- Benjamin Franklin 

Dear Friends,

click to enlargeIt bothers me incredibly deeply when I think of what's happening to this country. It's so sad that we've been conditioned to accept the TSA's unconstitutional "security" measures as justifiable and necessary. Most of us stand in line and allow them to take x-ray images of us, and/or stick their hands down our pants, all in the name of staying safe from terrorists. These techniques are unconstitutional and shouldn't be happening in the United States.

As I continue to research the airport body scanners, and learn more about radiation and its effect on our bodies, I'm sickened by my findings. Not only are these machines not safe, but the TSA's claims to the contrary are deceitful at best. Shame on the TSA and our leaders for not doing the necessary research before deploying hundreds of these machines for everyday use. No one has conducted a long-term clinical study on these machines and their low-dosage risks, so how can they tell us with certainty they're safe? The truth is they can't! Yet they do!

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Why Everyone Should "opt out" of the Airport Body Scanners: Part 1

"How many times in the past have the "experts" told us technologies were perfectly safe and then later we found out they were dangerous? X-Rays were once used in shoe stores to see if new shoes would fit the bone structure of your feet. High-voltage power lines are perfectly safe, we're told -- but then why do children who live closer to those lines have higher rates of cancer?

Dentists still claim that mercury fillings are perfectly safe for your health -- a preposterous notion -- and cell phone companies continue to insist that cell phone radiation isn't hazardous to your health at all. Time and time again, the public has been lied to by the authorities during the roll-out of some new technology. Why should we believe that full-body scanners are safe when they've never been proven safe?" - Natural News

Hello Friends,

(click to enlarge)Since the new whole-body backscatter X-ray machines were implemented at airports around the country last October, I've been hearing many contradictory things about them. Some say the level of radiation emitted by them is low and therefore perfectly safe, while other reports claim that the scanners cannot be trusted because there have been no long-term clinical studies on the health effects of their radiation on travelers. 

However, there's lots of information out there on radiation. If you do some research on the subject, you'll find that the effects of radiation are cumulative in the body. The more you expose yourself to it, the more your cells are mutated, and thus the higher your risk of developing various forms of cancer among other potential health issues.

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My TSA Pat Down Experience

Updated on Wednesday, May 4, 2011 at 11:33PM by SusieCastillo.net

“Those that would give up their liberty for security deserve neither and lose both.”
- Benjamin Franklin

Dear friends,

I was very hesitant to post this because I’m not one to stir up controversy. In fact, I do my best to live a very positive and healthy life. However, in the situation I’m about to describe, I felt truly violated and believe I should let my voice be heard. Ultimately, I hope others will do the same. Mahatma Gandhi famously said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” So, that’s what I’m doing by sharing this experience:

On my flight back to Los Angeles last week after hosting the red carpet premiere for “Fast Five” in Rio De Janeiro, I connected in Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) where I had the misfortune of being selected to go through one of those full body scanners that emits radiation. Now, if you don’t fly very often, you might not worry about it. But I’m a frequent flyer and don’t wish to be irradiated more than I already am on flights (we get a pretty large dose of radiation while flying due to our proximity to the sun; the longer your flight, the more your radiation exposure) and in life in general (we’re exposed to radiation all day every day; it’s called “background radiation”). So I will always “opt out” of going through these body scanners, especially since the long-term effects of radiation are quite well documented: it mutates our cells, often in irreversible ways, and causes cancer. I’m all set with that!

Anyway, after “opting out,” I proceeded to follow a very nice older female TSA employee to the “pat down” area. It was an inconvenience, but I thought, “No biggie. I just went through this at LAX for the first time and it wasn’t too bad, so let’s just get it over with.”

Well, this pat down was completely different.

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