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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."
London has five airports: Heathrow (west), Gatwick (south), Stansted (north-east), Luton (north) and City (central). Heathrow is the biggest airport (it has more international flights than any other airport, or something like that) but the others are all busy international airports.
You have a .de website -- if you're coming to London from Germany you'd probably fly to Gatwick, Stansted or Luton, assuming you choose a budget airline.
There are several alternative London airports. London City is in fact the best airport for London, it's within the city itself, Gatwick and Stansted are further out than Heathrow, but often quicker to pass through. They both have fairly good transport links to the city.
No, the government has won - it just so happens they have the same aims as the terrorists so they've co-opted them as a useful smokescreen.
They're saying they have introduced this measure as a response to the Christmas underpants bomber, the truth is they were waiting for anything, any kind of attack no matter how small as an excuse to introduce these scanners. They already trialled them, they were always going to be introduced, Brown was just waiting for an excuse.
It's a similar tactic to having a public consultation to give the appearance of fairness, when they have already decided what they're going to do anyway. Yes I'm angry.
Thankfully somebody has already run the numbers. Even accounting for all of the 9/11 deaths, the skies are much safer than they were in the 70s and 80s.
I posted this in a reply above, so feel free to mod me redundant if you wish. I have to stop the FUD spread, though, or we'll end up fighting a battle with the wrong facts.
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1) The scanner demonstrated is a body-heat scanner, picking up variations in infra-red radiation output from the body. The devices installed at Heathrow and Manchester are millimetre wave X-ray, measuring reflected x-rays from any item more dense than clothing.
2) When scanning properly, jackets are removed and placed through the baggage X-ray machine. The man has the containers in his jacket pockets. This would not be allowed.
3) The scan was done quickly, and is not representative of a full scan (remembering that this is not even the same scanner being used in the UK).
They say all of this in the video, and I posted a comment (which wasn't published) saying the same. The Reg was spreading FUD that day, and you bought it.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
In the last two years over 80,000 people died on US highways, but there wasn't even one death from flying in a commercial airliner.
You're more likely to die from falling down your basement stairs, and far more likely to die at the hands of your own family than a terrorist.
You linked to an old article. In the last two years, we had this crash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407
However, I believe that crash actually helps make your point. Let's expand the time line from your article to the present. We now have about 130,000 people dead in the USA from car crashes and 50 from airline crashes. There were some smaller crashes (the global list of all crashes is here http://www.planecrashinfo.com/ but it doesn't change the point. The ratio is truly stunning.
You are one of many. I would love to visit NY, but won't because of the same reasons. Many of my friends here have given up going to the States. Now Heathrow is off the list that now reduces substantially my number of destinations. Gatwick is still quite friendly with no scanners... for now.
The great thing about living in Europe is that there are more wonderful things than you can see in a lifetime, and all you have to do is jump in the car and drive there. No border controls, unless you live in the UK (where due to eBorders every single citizen needs permission to leave the country). Milan - Monaco: under 3 hrs drive. Barcelona - Bordeaux: around 5.5 hrs. Zurich - Munich: just over 3 hrs.
Sad times if you live under an oppressive regime, like China, States, or UK. Or a corrupt Eastern European country. There are plenty of quite easy going countries out there still.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France