Body Scanners for the London Underground

Ronald Dumsfeld writes "In a report in the TimesOnline, it is alleged that those lovely see-through-your-clothes scanners are to be installed in London's Tube stations. Part of the UK's Military-industrial complex, QinetiQ stands to make £150,000 to £2 million per station ($260,000 - $3.4 million) with their Millimetre Wave Imagers."

Comments

The perception of security

[gbulmash]

Well, some will say you can't put a price on a human life. Of course, that's in the abstract. Our courts do it regularly in wrongful death lawsuits. I also seem to recall someone doing an invoice for the carbon, water, and other compounds our bodies contain if we were to buy them at a chemistry supply house, but I dcouldn't find it on Google.

Essentially it boils down to this. However you believe a government should spend tax dollars, they're going to get spent in two ways: to benefit campaign supporters and cronies, and to do things that mollify the public just enough to make the re-election fight a little easier. A terrorist incident makes people feel less safe, so politicians spend money on things that make them feel safer. Good, bad, effective, useless... doesn't matter. It just has to be perceived as responsive.

Expensive scanners in tube stations? Brilliant!

Security costs money. Of course, the money gets spent on expensive and showy equipment, not on better training of security personnel (or screening of security personnel - some TSA screeners look like they should have their mittens safety-pinned to their coats). But it's all bread and circuses. It's about the perception of security. And governments are great at spending money to create that.

- Greg

Re:The perception of security

[Znork]

"Expensive scanners in tube stations? Brilliant!"

Truly. They should create absolutely marvellous queues where terrorists can blow up bombs and get a whole lot more people killed.

"It just has to be perceived as responsive."

Indeed. Of course, the money could have been spent on things that might actually save some lives, like measures to prevent traffic accidents or healthcare. Which means spending the money on useless security junk actually costs people lives instead.

"It's about the perception of security."

Yep. Sticking a 10 cent blinking diode device in the hand of security guards and calling it a 'bomb detector' would do just as well. Heck, stage a few very public and publicised incidents where an actor is caught by such a device emitting a beep and even a whole bunch of the terrorists would think they couldnt get away with carrying around explosives.

Re:The perception of security

[los furtive]

Your point is valid as well, but flawed. Put scanners on the subway, and terrorists will just take the bus instead. Put them on the bus, they'll bring bombs to the movie theatre, the concert hall, the bowling alley, the schoolyard, the community center, the gym, shopping mall, grocery store, day cares, etc... In fact, the London bombings are a perfect example of the ease by which terrorists can shift their targets, and was probably a direct result of the increase in security at airports over the past few years.

Of course, perhaps it is money well invested since the logistics involved in a subway terrorism incident aren't pretty, but neither were the logistics of for the people trapped in the World Trade Center nor even the children in Beslan.

Since there will always be a way, I think it's a matter of changing the will instead. The money should be spent on winning the hearts and minds of the people of other countries. I'm not talking about the terrorists but those who the terrorists use for support. Blow up a bus... increase aid to starving countries, shoot down a plane, build a dozen schools or a community center in a struggling nation. Oh, and I'd still have my gov'ts police and intelligence seek out and punish those who took the action.

Re:The perception of security

[Lonewolf666]

In this case, you would have to secure ALL stations at a really high price. Otherwise the bomber gets aboard at a remote suburb without scanner, sets the bomb off in the city, and the bad guys will just laugh at the stupid cops.

Considering the shortsightedness of typical politicians, "less critical" stations will be left out to save money and the above is exactly what will happen.

Re:The perception of security

[rmstar]

A german police chief was asked on TV the day of the London bombings what extra measures should be taken.

He said: "None. The measures are effective as they can be; we cannot avoid all terrorist attacks just as we cannot avoid all crime." I was impressed, really. Intelligent man.

There is a point of diminishing returns for everything.

Re:The perception of security

[AGMW]

The purpetrators of this attrocity are the faceless, and I would suggest faithless (because no one could truthfully commit such acts in the name of any God) terrorists, and their aim is to spread, rather obviously, terror.

If serious actions are now taken to try and prevent them succeeding again, then two things will happen :-

1) Our freedoms will be eroded and we _will_ be terrorised by the spectre of metal detectors, exposive sniffers and body searches when untertaking any normal, day-to-day, things like getting on a bus or entering a shop.

2) We will NOT stop them from doing it again, because it is simply not possible to prevent someone hell-bent on suicide from blowing themselves up!

Therefore, at least on the "home front", we have to not impose restrictions on our freedoms in the futile attempt to curtail the movements and actions of the terrorists. This will be the most difficult thing for the Government, who apparently believe that "taking action" is always the answer because if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail!

We in London and the rest of the UK do, however, have to return to a vigilance akin to the height of the IRA campaign and should watch out for unattended packages. Let us not start suspecting each other as we remember that the bombs did not target any religion, race, creed, or colour, but were an indisciminately blunt weapon affecting any and all in its path.

We need to know what they are hoping to achieve. We should not simply capitulate like the Spanish because that sends the message that terrorism works, and simply passes the problem on to our neighbours. We can try and make sure it becomes more and more difficult for them to recruit new terrorists. We must simply stop pissing people off, and use our power to make life easier for the down trodden and huddled masses, for it is amongst their ranks that the recruiters have the most success.

To this end, it is right that the G8 conference continued, and it is right that we should help Africa, but we should also finally put to rest the Isreal/Palestine problem and give aid to Palestine to help them rebuild. We should then finish the jobs in Afghanistan and Iraq by rebuilding their countries and handing them back to local governments when we can offer aid, be it monetary or military, fiscal or physical and we can be invited to help, rather than imposing our solution.

But I'm still waiting for Our Tony to use this as a reason for the introduction of ID Cards and GPS transponders in our cars, because it can't be far off now.

Re:The perception of security

[TopShelf]

I would suggest faithless (because no one could truthfully commit such acts in the name of any God)

Thousands of years of human history would seem to contradict this. Think the Inquisition, the Crusades, countless Protestand vs. Catholic wars in Europe, Hindu/Buddhist conflicts in India, and Sunni/Shiite violence in more recent times. For (far too) many people, their belief in God allows them to dehumanize those who don't share their beliefs, making just about anything fair game.

Re:The perception of security

[houghi]

We should not simply capitulate like the Spanish

How did the Spanish capitulate? If you talk about the elections, that was a direct result of the then current governement saying it was the ETA who did the bombing. If he had said he didn't know, the result would have been different.

It was also because of the governement being involved in the Iraqi war. The results of the elections had nothing to do with the direct fear of terrorist attacks. It had all to do on how the governement handled the situations. People where not happy how that was done and elected acordingly.

Do you vote for somebody who has lied to you? The Spanisch didn't.

Hype it up!

[FTL]

Argh. I have had it with people and organisations cashing in on terrorism. Some quick facts:
* Population of London: 5.5m
* Average deaths per day: 215
* Increase of death rate on 7 July: 23%
If there had been 50 extra heart attacks in London on 7 July, do you think that it would have been noticed? If it weren't for the wall to wall media coverage, this would have been a non-event.

Britain used to have a really good track record on terrorism. When the IRA blew something up, there would be a brief note about it on the news, then nothing. Terrorism is about publicity, and over-reporting it simply feeds it. But it seems that the dymanics have changed. Now there are too many organisations who have a vested interest in a continual state of terrorism.

Re:Hype it up!

[QuickFox]

Argh. I have had it with people and organisations cashing in on terrorism.

The United States has shown the way: How to take advantage of terrorism for profit, entertainment and re-election.

The writeup mentions the military-industrial complex. Maybe we need to start discussing the terror-media-politics complex.

I do hope my sig isn't too optimistic.

-- Terrorism may have turned the United States into a nation of fear and aggression, but it won't succeed in Europe.

Profit range?

[mccalli]

QinetiQ stands to make £150,000 to £2 million per station

That's quite some gap. Suggests that figures are being plucked out of the air, perhaps?

Cheers,
Ian

Problem

[iamdrscience]

These scanners still can see through clothing, but they can't see through all materials. This means that (a) there's a security hole or more likely (b) anyone carrying anything that cannot be seen through and is large enough to potentially carry something dangerous will have to be pulled aside and taken a closer look at. In the second case this will slow things down just like airport security slows things down making it even more of a hassle to take the tube.

Public more willing to accept surveillance?

[malkavian]

I don't think so..
I'm regularly in and around London, use the underground and the trains.
This scanner deal will be as much use as a chocolate teapot.
Do you get stopped for carrying an iPod, or some other music device?
No?
Then what if that's just the cover for a bomb?

There is no protection from terrorism. If somebody really wants to get you, they will.
If you spend your life worrying over it, stress'll get you before the bomb.

Be vigilant, yes. Watch out for the unclaimed baggage on the tube or the bus.
Keep your eyes open.
If everyone does that, you've got the best intelligent surveillance network in the world. The general public.

My first reaction to seeing the bombs go off was sadness for the people hit.
The second was a wave of resignation that phoney Tony would use this as an excuse to get additional surveillance in, and railroad the ID scheme.
Part one dead of track.. We see what happens next.

Education

[Ochu]

Technology can only go so far. It seems that most of us Londoners have forgotten the lessons we learnt from the IRA. Ten years ago, you would never, ever let an unattended bag go ignored, and you would never leave bags unattended. Until three days ago, you saw both happening all the time. We need to remind people how easy it is to beat terrorism if everyone works together. I would also like to add a personal view on this, which is; these guys are pathetic. We have grown up with the IRA, and there is nothing special about these. Why the fuss?

Water enters via the weakest point

[Toby The Economist]

So we make Tube entrances secure.

Bombers then attack concert halls.

We make concert halls secure.

Bombers then attack football stadiums.

We make football stadiums secure...

There is no purely defensive solution to this problem.

--
Toby

Read Schneier's "Beyond Security"

[stereoroid]

How many copies of that book can you get for the cost of one scanner? It doesn't have all the answers - how could it? - it is designed to get you asking. So you install an expensive scanner at the entrance to Piccadilly Circus tube station. A huge queue forms, waiting to walk through the scanner. Add in a "queuing system" (tansabarriers etc.), so you have 200+ people waiting patiently in an enclosed space. Bang.

Terrorism thrives on publicity

[stoanhart]

It seems to me that terrorism only funtions because people way over react to it.

Think about it. How likely are you to die in a car accident, or from a heart attack, or just some other stupid accident/conincidence? Now how likely are you to be bombed? You should be "terrorised" of the free way, not a bunch of extremeists!

So many people die of hunger, disease, and civil war in developing countries every day. I don't know the figures, but I immagine more die daily than in all terrorist attacks in the last few years combined. <i>This</i> is where we should be spending out money. Just maybe, if we did that, people would stop hating developed nations, and stop bombing them!

And how much news coverage do the attrocities mentioned above get? A 30 second blurb on the news once a week, if that at all? Maybe if we treated terrorism that way, it would stop as well!

Think like a terrorist. Your objective is not to kill people, it's to get a message out. Unfortunately, killing people is the easiest way to get attention. Shitloads of attention. Days of prime time TV coverage. Of course you will resort to this method.

However, would you do it if the evening news went something like, "and in other news, London was bombed today. 30 to 50 people are believed to be dead. Now, back to the Simpsons."

Think about it...

Re:Anti-terrorist recipe:

[Tim Browse]

allow democratic secession of any region that does not want to be part of your country;

Follow the recipe and *no* terrorists will *ever* want to bomb your country.

From wikipedia's article on Northern Ireland:

A slight majority of the present-day population are unionist and wish to remain part of the United Kingdom, but a significant minority, known as nationalists, want to see a united Ireland. These two views are linked to deeper cultural divisions. Unionists are predominantly Protestant and often descendants of Scottish and English (mainly Scottish) settlement in previous centuries, while nationalists are predominantly Catholic and usually descend from the population predating such settlement.

So...er...you were saying?

Re:Anti-terrorist recipe:

[aurispector]

1) Results in instant fragmentation of every country in the world into tiny, competing and opposing units each sporting their own political agenda. Large areas of the world will be controlled by political and/or religious extremists of every stripe, coming to power and enforcing their creed by brutality and murder. Taliban galore!

2) Abide by this and guys like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.. can do anything they want to their own people. After all it's all "internal affairs" - tienanamen square anyone? Do we really have to wait until they fire up the ovens and gas chambers until we act? Or isn't that enough in your opinion? Perhaps we wait until they amass an ustoppable armada and congratulate ourselves on being ethical as they roll across our borders?

2a) What if they have no desire to negotiate honestly? Pacification only perpetuates the problems. Look at North Korea and the Non-Proliferation treaty. They used it to aquire nuclear technology and pulled out when they decided they wanted to make bombs. Do you really think Saddam was negotiating in good faith? This only works if you have a carrot AND a stick AND you are ready, willing and able to use the stick AND the other guy knows it.

3) Does "predatory" include making a profit? Without the willing concurrance of corrupt local officials who would sell out to ANYBODY, this wouldn't happen.

5) Although I agree that everyone deserves a certain degree of respect owing to fact of their humanity and that we should appreciate differences, there will always be discontent by minorities by virtue of the fact that they ARE minorities. As a white upper middle class guy I can't count the number of ways big and small I've been screwed over by people of all colors. If I was a minority and inclined to shift blame I can see how I might cite racism but in most cases race had nothing to do with it.

If you want a recipe that works, then how about this? Foster democracy to give everyone a voice and get the people to believe in the democratic process as fair. Have a truly free press to expose the bad people who abuse power in every society. Don't tolerate abuses, no matter where they occur. Recognize that there is no end to human shortcoming and that there is no end point, only the process.

It pains me to think about how many of these things do not truly exist in my own country.

Unfortunately resources are limited and we are forced to focus first on those things that affect our own interests, but why shouldn't people and nations be expected to do this?

I really wish the world was as fischer - price / tinker toy simple as you imagine it to be. Live a few more decades, read the news and lots more history and perhaps you will lose your "peace at any cost" mentality.

Re:I"d Rather Be Scanned Than Murdered

[vidarh]

The real issue is that terrorism is a minor killer. Every time you step into a street you have greater odds of getting run down and killed than what you have from dying on the tube network, counting both accidents and terrorism combined.

You're more likely to die of almost anything else than terrorism in the UK, even if we from now and onwards see an attack like this every year. We could have 30-40 attacks of the current size every year before it'd rival traffic deaths alone.

That kind of money would save far more lives if it was invested on any number of other things. There are 274 stations on the underground. If the average cost is around the million mark, the cost would easily finance another major hospital, for instance.

If terrorism was a significant killer, then yes, a little loss of privacy might be acceptable. But it isn't a significant killer, and blowing it out of proportion only serves the terrorists scare mongering and draw attention away from issues that affect far more people.

Londoner who has been to Israel and the States

[tezza]

Fly to Israel: Staff grill you before allowing you on the plane. Net result: 1 hour delay for say 150 passengers.

Fly to USA: Fingerprint scanning. Slight increase in time creates larger backlog. Clearing customs takes longer.

London Underground: Simple platform overcrowding at London Bridge Station, creates hour long waits *to get through the barriers*

---------------------

But I think the biggest parallel I must draw is between Israel border protection and the London Underground. In Israel a large amoutn of the suicide bombers detonated their packages at the border entry points, killing soldiers and innocent fellow border crossers.

If they install these machines at Tube stations, then terrorists will have a new target: at the point of inspection. They will be able to take out staff as well as passengers and entrance facilities. They do not have to even get on a damn tube.

Why spend money creating both a target and a delay???? The money would be better spent on building dialogue with the dis-enfrachised Muslim community. I mean who is going to be the main targets of 'spot-checks'? The man with the beard and skull-cap.

FFS

[t_allardyce]

We were doing so well on Thursday - people were saying "life has to carry on", the media were saying that we wouldn't be pushed around by this. Then it all has to go down hill. I blame the mother fucking tabloids they are basically raping this for everything, cover to cover, give it a fucking rest! It was a terrible thing to happen but do we have to drag it on? News is supposed to report things that are happening, when bombs are going off i want to know about it, when the bombs have stopped going off and there is no more fucking news about it then stop trying to make news out of it, stop trying to agitate everyone. People haven't even been buried yet and already the agendas are coming out - ID cards, scanners, companies who just want to make money selling us this crap are already pitching their bids. You know what? the end of the world is NOT here, the risk of another attack is low, our current security is strong enough and if there is another attack then it will happen no matter what security is in place. Put scanners on all the stations and someone will blow something else up. We can all carry ID cards and have check points every 10 meters and someone with a card will do the attack. Where will we be after that? more people dead but instead of being able to spend all that money on contingency, hospitals and policing we will have wasted it on useless £2m scanners. Just for fucks sake stop this mother fucking knee-jerk bullshit.

London is absolutely fine the way it is, this country is fine the way it is we do not need radical changes. The risk of a bomb going off is exactly the same has it has been for the last 5 years, just like the chance of the lottery numbers being "1,2,3,4,5,6", its only peoples perception that has changed.

Re:Anti-terrorist recipe:

[TopShelf]

Dictators everywhere will love your rules 2 and 2A - giving them free license to do whatever they want within their borders without fear of international intervention.

Re:Appeasers go to hell

[Tyler Durden]

As far as Al Qaeda is concerned, wipe those fuckers off the face of the earth. Appeasement with them is not an option.

However, there are still occupations/actions done by Israel that are simply wrong and do nothing but give Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations an easy route to getting recruits.

For Israel to act more reasonably towards the Palestinians is not caving in to Osama and crew. Quite the opposite actually. It's whenever some kind of peace settlement is about to be made between Israel and Palestinians that the most terrorist attacks tend to occur. The terrorists fear peace more than anything. It robs them of power. I am so fucking sick of people claiming "We do not let terrorists control our actions", and then right when one of these bombings happen in response to peace talks demand going into "Fuck the general population and do whatever we need to weed out terrorists" mode. Well guess what Sparky, you did exactly what the terrorists wanted. Peace talks are caput, violence has escalated, and the conflict Al Qaeda is depending on to become a movement to shape the Middle East into what they want continues.

I hope you don't confuse what you label "Islamists" with the general Muslim population. Because that's just want the terrorists want us to think.

How does it feel to be Osama's bitch?