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"No Scan, No Fly" At Heathrow and Manchester
An anonymous reader writes "It is now compulsory for people selected for a full body scan to take part, or they will not be allowed to fly from Heathrow or Manchester airports. There is no optional pat down. Also, a rule which meant that people under 18 were not allowed to participate in the body scanner trial has been overturned by the government. There is no mention of blurring out the genitals, however reports a few years back said X-ray backscatter devices aren't effective unless the genitals of people going through them are visible."
It's not OK, but I don't think I'd find the need to take naked pictures of everyone I meet just in case they're carrying a blunt knife as well
While this is true, blunt knives do not explode and bring down planes ... the pants bomber had every intention of doing so, just because he was an inept dumbass doesn't change his intention. My choice of weapon was merely to illustrate the point that just because he failed, it wasn't from lack of trying.
The people on that flight got very lucky that day, a slightly smarter bomber would have meant we'd be mourning the dead right now.
Surely a procedure (the full body scan) that will probably end up quicker to walkthrough and be done AND covers not just a random sampling of "people with beards", but everyone ... that's got to be more effective than the current system ?
Or you prefer to have your bits felt by some sweaty minimum wage security guard, and the risk of having to endure a full body cavity search on the whim of "that guy looks suspicious" ?