Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Body Scanners for the London Underground

Posted by timothy on from the require-nakedness-instead dept.

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."

16 of 761 comments (clear)

  1. The perception of security by gbulmash · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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

    --
    Start a happiness pandemic
    1. Re:The perception of security by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
      ...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...

      I hope they factored in the cost of assembly. People are always forgetting little additional expenses like that.

    2. Re:The perception of security by Znork · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "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.

    3. Re:The perception of security by rmstar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:The perception of security by AGMW · · Score: 5, Insightful
      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.

      --
      Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
      handmadehands.co.uk
  2. Hype it up! by FTL · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

    --
    Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
  3. The Middle East Is Everywhere by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here(In Israel) we got used to this long time ago.

    You can't go to anywhere without passing thru metal detectors(full size or hand used) and surface body checks.

    Armed guards are common view.

    I can't remember when was the last time that I've entered a mall and nobody have checked me.

    The terror is taking over our lives, Now all over the world.

  4. How about this idea instead? by Seventh+Magpie · · Score: 5, Funny

    You know, pay me a tenth of what is being charge and I will set up a few of these Sony cameras for them that will do the same trick! Although I would hate to give them up from my collection. What else will I do at the beach each weekend now?

  5. Education by Ochu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  6. Those who paid attention during Fahrenheit 9/11... by M3rk1n_Muffl3y · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...will have heard about a Private Equity company known as Carlyle Group. This is one of biggest and most profitable Private Equity firms in the world. The shareholders include the Bush family, the bin Laden family and former British PM John Major may still be their Chairman. It's a bit like Milo Minderbinder's outfit in Catch 22, where everyone benefits, because everyone is a part of the syndicate. Well anyway they own QinitiQ. And please don't assume that I am suggesting anything other than the fact that the war on terror, has been quite profitable for some parties involved.

    --
    This is not the sig you are looking for...
  7. Read Schneier's "Beyond Security" by stereoroid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    (this is not a .sig)
  8. Over-reaction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Before people start getting their knickers in a twist, they might want to remember that:

    a) This story is being denied by the government and QinetiQ.
    b) Tony Blair has specifically stated that he does NOT intend to bring in a raft of draconian laws and new surveillance powers.

    Both of these were reported on the BBC.

  9. Terrorism thrives on publicity by stoanhart · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...

  10. Re:Anti-terrorist recipe: by aurispector · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
  11. FFS by t_allardyce · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
  12. The authorities were BEGGING for this! by Builder · · Score: 5, Informative

    A couple of months ago there was a big campaign in London to raise awareness of unattended packages. The slogan was something about don't take a chance, alert someone.

    Around this time, I did see a suspect pacakge, and I called the police like a good shitizen. The full story is on my diary, but I'll give you the summary...

    The police gave me such a hard time about calling them about the package that I swore then and there that I would never call them about anything again. I will get me and mine out of the way, and that's as far as it goes - civic responsibility be damned.

    The woman on the other end of the line just kept asking why I thought the bag was suspicious, and I kept telling her that it was unattended, looked expensive and was out of place. Any two of these satisfied their stupid poster campiagn, but she even phoned be back to ask what made me think the bag was suspicious.

    If the police want the public's help, then make it easy. If you've said call things like this in, then don't give me a hard time when I do.