• Media Enquiries

    07505 448925(24hr)

As Body Scanners are introduced, more and more issues arise

Body scan Our position on body scanners has been made clear on this site several times. They're an intrusive and unnecessary over-reaction to a threat (the Christmas Bomber) which could and should have been picked up using the intelligence available at the time – competent use of existing resources, not throwing money at new ones to be run by the same people whose incompetence led to the problem in the first place.

Still, I thought the following bullet points might be of interest:

  • Hundreds of people in the USA have complained about them. The complaints range from concern about genitals being seen to the use of the devices on children, to anger over passengers not being told they could request a pat-down search instead [which doesn't even apply here in the UK], to potential health worries from the scans (which are debated here).
  • It's interesting that in the USA, Airport Directors make a virtue of the fact that you can opt for another form of search. Shouldn't we have the same choice here?
  • Authoritative confirmation has been obtained that they can store images.
  • Even putting aside the cost of the scanners themselves (which here in the UK has been put at £80,000-£100,000 each and is the subject of a Congressional budget request of $1 billion) the cost to the USA in additional staffing costs is an eye-watering additional $2.4 billion. The cost to the UK is not yet known.
  • All this expense, and yet the scanners had not been field-tested before their introduction.
  • Federal authorities in the USA are now suggesting that, in the long term, everyone will have to go through the scanners – no selection of some individuals, no other option.
  • Religious objections continue.
  • An interesting legislative suggestion by an American politician would mean that scanners are not used as the first line of security, instead only once a concern has arisen via another part of the system.
  • Scanners have caused long delays at airports. Totally unforeseeable…!
  • There are other more productive security steps going undone as a result of this focus on body scanners, like improving security at small airports.
  • In a world in which thousands of places are now demanding scanners… the EU still can't sell any. The proverbial in the brewery…
  • There are apparently four main types of scanners. We in Europe have the most revealing.
  • Beside the other points made about the fact that the scanners don't work, consider the prospect of bombs implanted under the skin of suicide bombers. In that last link and also in this one you'll see that MI5 has said there are credible fears that that is already being planned (it has been speculated about for some time). Easily done and renders all this false-sense-of-security-generating scanning equipment entirely useless.It's far from just theoretical, too – as the recent assassination attempt on a Saudi Arabian prince involved hiding explosives in a body cavity.
  • Pakistan's Parliamentary delegation to the USA ended their trip in a protest against the scanners.
  • The EU's position on body scanners is to be announced in June – i note that in 2008 the Parliament said that scanners were degrading and rejected them, so any change in their position will have to be explained. This is a big decision and Big Brother Watch will be watching.
  • Final word to the good people at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC):

“They are uniquely intrusive as they allow the government to photograph air travelers stripped naked regardless of suspicion” Marc Rotenberg, EPIC Executive Director

By Alex Deane

Note that I've used the American spelling for Centre as, well, that's
how EPIC spell it. It's not a typo :)

Related posts elsewhere: The Lift ("legal issues in the fight against terrorism"), an extended, good Washington Post piece and a brilliant article in The Age by the IPA's Chris Berg: New airport security measures are overkill, since the risk of terrorism is already so tiny.

Posted on March 18, 2010 by Alex Deane Posted in Body Scanners
  • LeChiffre

    Compulsory body cavity searches will be next, if you wish to fly.

  • [email protected]

    Disgusting.

  • Bernie Jons

    I am with you all the way on this…but.
    Let us pause a minute and consider what you would do if (God forbid) you were a terrorist.
    They have targeted aircraft, and everyone has made security a nightmare for us.
    Their objective is acheived.
    I would guess that this line of attack is a distraction for something else.
    Someone should be considering what will be next.
    Rail travel…Channel tunnel? Even a small device on a High Speed Train?
    We need to be one step ahead.
    All this scanning will catch no one.
    They have moved on.

  • blastproof

    The terrorists are winning.

  • http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home 1984

    Dear Alex Deane,
    I have left a number of comments about airport scanners on your site, but I have an extremely serious and personal issue that I would like to discuss with you in relation to scanners and privacy. I have repeatedly ( 13 times ) contacted the Department for Transport, and specifically Transport Technology and Standards. I have received some very serious lies from them – and I mean LIES. Other agencies I have been in contact with, including Manchester and Heathrow airports, and the European Commisssion, have also given me a mass of contradiction and obfuscation. I have tried about six times to contact you by e-mail, and have written to you, but I have had no reply at all.
    Please could you let me know if there is a problem with your e-mail address and London address. I will be happy to supply you with ALL the evidence that I have now accumulated that clearly show there is conspiracy of silence and lies surrounding these scanners.
    Please get back to me, either on here or by my e-mail address.
    You will be very surprised at what I have uncovered.

  • zorro

    If anyone thinks that Mutallab planned this without any real assistance or got through Schiphol security without any shenanigans they need to wake up and smell the coffee….
    circuitous travel route….single ticket….cash paid ticket….passport?….single young male….muslim….travelling alone….Intelligence agencies had been informed about him recently…’Nigerian from Yemen suspect’……It hits all the buttons.
    If anyone seriously doubts that the intelligence services didn’t know about this guy and that they allowed him to run on the plane with his firecracker….I suggest that they look at a little potted history of the CIA and FBI and their modus operandi.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/alexdeane Alex Deane
  • http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home 1984

    Yes Zorro I completely agree.
    The evidence to suggest that the Christmas Day Bomb plot was indeed an ‘inside’ job is mounting.
    Evidence:
    (1) The tv programme about the plot clearly and unequivocably stated that small, and even modest amounts, of liquid explosives, COULD NOT possibly bring down an aeroplane – the fusilage is much more resilient than imagined.
    (2) The airport authorities know this and that is why they explictly allow people to carry small amounts of liquids, even in large multiples, onto the plane as hand luggage- there is not enough to bring down a plane.
    (3) Any notion that a suicide bomber could bring down a plane with a concealed internal bomb is utterly ludicrous – the amounts would be far too small and explosive experts, and yes that includes airport people, would know full well that any small explosion going off inside a body would not be powerful enough to punch a hole in a wet paper bag once its energy had been absorbed by a body, let alone a highly reslient fusilage.
    The airport authorities and the various Governments colluded together to let the bomber board the plane, with full knowledge that it COULD NEVER bring down the plane, but would absolutely GUARANTEE that naked body scanners would then be rushed in with no possible objection – huge profits for the scannner companies and back-handing politicians, and a thoroughly cowed and subservient population that could now be made to bow to all future ‘security’ measures meant to destroy the democratic will of the people and to usher in a police state.

  • Anti-xrays

    Please can you tell me where I can protest about compulsory use of scanners if you are selected for one in the UK?
    When these were 1st introduced I was relieved to read that if you objected then you could have a manual search.
    But, I understand (from the recent example of 2 ladies at Manchester) that in the UK if you are selected for a scanner, then you have to be subjected to the x-rays (harmful), or else not board the plane. I’m sure that the x-ray dose IS meant to be
    relatively small, but why should anyone, needlessly, be subjected to any further cancer-causing xrays?
    There HAS to be an alternative.
    Unless, of course, it is a cunning plan, gradually inflicting unneccessary radiation on a lot of the population to help with the population decrease?!
    I really want to object, but I don’t know where/who to write to…any help please?
    Thanks.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/alexdeane Alex Deane
  • http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home 1984

    Thanks Alex,
    I will get back to you this evening.

  • http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home 1984

    Anti-xrays
    I will post some contacts on here later for you.
    1984

  • blastproof@

    @1984
    The authorities could have simply blown up the plane: the subsequent crackdown could then have been far more dramatic than body scanners. We could have had martial rule, suspension of habeas corpus, the UK general election postponed indefinitely, reintroduction of the death penalty, curfews, etc

  • zorro

    Blastproof….All in good time….All in good time….generally condition people to more security over the years…..continual war……continual terror status (currently severe)…..Oh and don’t forget our lovely politicians need to make some more money before hand….It just so happens that Michael Chertoff (former Department of Homeland Security) and head of Chertoff Group has been representing RAPISCAN as their principal cheerleader…Oh and guess what RAPISCAN make…the full body scanners being introduced to an airport near you. It is about the elite perpetuating their rule by slowly but surely enslaving us…I see that Princess Tony has been busily enriching himself courtesy of oil companies heavily involved in Iraq……Oh happy days

  • http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home 1984

    Anti-X
    It is very difficult to get any definitive information about these scanners, because the Great and the Good that run this joke of a country have colluded together to create a mist of misinformation and lies masquerading behind a smokescreen of specious legitimacy and laughable claims of scanner safety and peoples rights to privacy.
    I have contacted the following:
    Rapiscan
    Department for Transport, headed by the Lordly Apollo, or is that Adonis – who cares because its a Greek tragedy anyway.
    European Union, and specifically the European Commission.
    Manchester airport
    Heathrow airport.
    Best of luck in contacting them, because you will need it. They have all LIED to me and stonewalled my legimate concerns. The more people that do contact them, the better, because it may, just may, make them realise that people will eventually wake up and see this growing scandal of scanners as the final curtain call for our so-called liberal democracy – liberal? Democracy? No, I am not holding my breath either.
    Ps Perhaps us scanner refusniks should try and persuade Alex to stand for parliament – we could do with a PM with honesty and integrity for once.

  • blastproof

    Yes, we should try to persuade Alex to stand for parliament. What about it Alex?

  • Caroline Griffin

    I do not object to the usual x-ray scanners or a pat down by a security officer, BUT I draw a line at these body scanners. Not only are they an extreme invasion of privacy, but a determined terrorist will find a way around this. If necessary, terrorists will pick easier targets like buses, trains, boats, shopping centres – a whole host of other places that are open and frequented by lots of people.
    Sniffer dogs would be more efficient, less intrusive, more cost effective and cleverer than these terrible machines.

  • Caroline Griffin

    Correction: “usual x-ray scanner” should read “metal detector”!

  • Ted

    Why not use the more accurate term naked scannners or naked cameras?

  • http://www.sharpmeds.com/ cheap viagra

    Five years after the opening of the tunnel, there were few and small impacts on the wider economy, and it was difficult to identify major developments associated with the tunnel.

  • Denise A Beresford

    I travelled to Kenya from Manchester with my family in August and, unknown to me as I was in another queue,my husband was asked to go through the body scanner. If they had asked me I would have refused. I was totally unaware at that time of the legislation that had been brought in to make it compulsory for all air passengers to submit to these scans. I would have lost the holiday and the cost of it for myself and possibly for the whole family as I was not made aware of the situation when booking the holiday. I was told by security staff at the time, that the police would also be called and that you can end up on the no fly list for refusing! I have now written to the prime minister, the department of transport and Manchester Airport (reply only received from the airport so far)explaining that I would be unable to subject myself to the humiliation and violation I would feel going through these naked body scanners (not to say the health issue arising from the radiation) and so as a result, despite my complete innocence (and without trial and despite prisoners who have committed an offence in this country having their rights protected by the EU)I have lost the freedom to travel from my own country with my family.
    I’ve noticed that these comments all seem to have died down since April. Is anyone doing anything to raise the issue further and keep this in the public eye? I was unaware in August how far reaching this has become, because no one in the media seems to consider it a problem. This should be one of the biggest stories in the news as it removes the most basic right of privacy to your body from both adults and, even worse, children. We complain readily when details of our personal information is given out. They can have my name, date of birth, salary amount etc. but I don’t want to stand naked in front of anyone except my husband and at my age I prefer that with the light off(ha ha).
    Someone has made a good suggestion about an organised group buying a cheap plane ticket each and then refusing to go through the scanners causing problems, holdups and so hopefully publicity about this situation. I’d be part of that. I really don’t think people are aware of the obligation and what they are giving up. If you are travelling on holiday with your family, have worked and saved all year to be able to afford to go and are then faced with the choice of losing the money and holiday or giving up the image of your naked body, then you have no real choice. You are forced into submission.
    Besides anything else, I believe that the scanners:
    * are innefective in what they are intended
    to prevent.
    * will make security staff complacent in other areas (cargo!)
    PLEASE, SOMEBODY, HELP! WHAT CAN WE DO? We can’t just sit here, moan on the internet, but do nothing constuctive about it. We can’t let the terrorists win in changing our freedoms (of which they are envious) and therefore our way of life, even if our government is prepared to.

  • http://www.genericsmed.com/ Generic Cialis

    Hi there,
    You have done really nice job. There are many people searching about that now they will find enough sources by your tips.
    looking forward for more tips about that

  • http://www.birthchartastrology.com Astrology Readings

    Hola,
    Ha hecho un trabajo muy bueno. Hay muchas personas en busca de eso ahora van a encontrar suficientes fuentes por tus consejos.
    espera para obtener más consejos acerca de que

  • http://www.genericsmed.com/buy-cheap-generic-diamox-acetazolamide-tablet-p-247.html generic Diamox

    Hola,Ha hecho un trabajo muy bueno. Hay muchas personas en busca de eso ahora van a encontrar suficientes fuentes por tus consejos.espera para obtener más consejos acerca de que

  • http://www.sonicinfosystem.com Seo Services India

    There are may person searching about that now they will find enough resources by your post,

  • http://www.tjcgold.com Cash For Gold

    Hi, I found your blog and read a couple of the posts here. I’ve to say that your blog post are very informative. Your blog have benefited me in many ways and I want to say thank you! I will be comming back often.

  • http://www.buymedicinesonline.us Generic Viagra

    Grande informazione, hai un blog meraviglioso e un ottimo articolo!

  • http://www.bizflats.com Barcelona Apartments

    The post is very nicely written and it contains many useful facts. I am happy to find your distinguished way of writing the post. Now you make it easy for me to understand and implement. Thanks for sharing with us.

  • http://www.mkmedicalservices.com/ Generic Drugs Exporter

    I have wanted to learn more about particular topics, but not many websites would help me out in informing me the way I expected. This left me with many question, but after reading your article, I got an answer to all my questions. You are too cool dude!!!