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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."
Well to bad Amsterdam didn't do the same for the idiot who tried to blow up the plane for Detroit
Get up!
You mean my civil right to blow up planes? I'm trying to remember what part of the Constitution that falls under.
as I don't live there, I don't have to either.
I guess this will mean this islander nation is more of an islaneder by now. any UK person I'll meet, I can be sure they conceded in having their genitals exposed to some underpaid 'security' asshole
what a bunch of perverts...
The health effects of millimeter wave scanning are what we should be worried about - there's an unknown risk but a high possible impact: imagine if in 10 years time millions of people start developing melanomas as a result of being scanned.
The x-ray backscatter machines are much less worrying; we've had 100(?) years of experience with X-rays and we understand what x-rays can do to DNA.
But we have very little experience of mm level radiation.
What I've seen in the press is cheerleading. 'Experts say there is little cause to worry' with unknown experts talking in vague generalities. I've seen articles saying that the energy involved is less than the energy emitted by a cell-phone. That may well be the case, but it's not in the cell-phone spectrum, and even a little energy in the wrong place can do a lot of damage. Just see what a match can do to a pile of paper*.
Of course it's impossible to completely prove something is safe. But I don't think we don't have empirical evidence that it's safe. Or at least - I've not seen it.
I absolutely have not made an exhaustive search for literature on the health effects of mm radiation, and I'm not an expert. In the brief searches I have made I have seen that there's a lot of scare-noise based on what seems like only a few sources which imo are not applicable. What I don't see is a long list of studies. And even more striking is that that non-existent list of studies is not full of papers saying 'we found no observable effects'**.
But I have found that it's possible to cook bacteria with mm waves! Maybe this is a hint that there's a potential problem. And in the diagrams of atmospheric absorption of radiation that I've looked at, for example, it looks like mm waves are mostly absorbed, which suggests that we'd have little evolved defense to mm wave damage.
What I'd really like to see is a series of mm wave experts saying things like 'we've studied the health effects of mm wave scanners for 10 years now, and I'd have no qualms about subjecting my three month old baby to a scan because I'm confident that there's no health risk associated.'
* Pedants: yes, I know the energies involved are different orders of magnitude - it's a metaphor.
** It's quite possible I was looking in the wrong place. I'd be very pleased to see a detailed response with a link to this list.
'cos those in charge are trying to convince us of the existence of these so-called phantom terrorists
Really? You think terrorists do not exist? You think the government made up terrorists and are lying to us? This is about ten steps dumber then the people who believe the apollo moon landing was a hoax. At least then those conspiracy theorists have a point - the only proof is pictures - where we have seen terroists, experienced terrorists, and met terrorists - plus the terrorists freely admit their actions and reasons.
THere is a very real threat, and it is being thwarted constantly. These cameras are too invasive, but to say terrorists are a phantom is moronic and irresponsible. I hope nobody pays attention to tyour threat other then to mock it...though unfortunately someoen thinks you are insightful.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
By the way, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_notable_aircraft_hijackings [wikipedia.org] is why we don't profile for one race / religion.
Why not ?
With the exception of one Cuban (I'm guessing not Muslim), one Filipino (50:50), and one who gave himself up in Israel (not Muslim unless also batshit crazy), EVERY other notable hijack in the 2000's HAS been by people of the Islamic faith who demanded safe passage to a Muslim country.
That's 13 on 16 mate, over 81% ... (14 on 16, over 87% if you add the Filipino). How much more convincing an argument do you need ?
Every other religion condemns the acts of it's militant elements and would probably never do anything similar. Islam is at it's core a religion founded on militant behaviour, and it's adherents are called upon to respect Fatwahs. With that mentality, isn't it better to be safe than sorry ... any Muslim could *potentially* be a suicide bomber, even though the vast majority of them aren't.
Imagine Russian Roulette with every chamber loaded, except most of them are loaded with blanks. Would you pull the trigger ?
but I refuse to be treated like a criminal just 'cos those in charge are trying to convince us of the existence of these so-called phantom terrorists!
Then you should be happy about these body scanners... they sure make the process much more swift, and you don't need to worry about being randomly selected for a lengthy pat-down when you're already running late for your flight. Terrorists do exist, and sure you can say "they won" because of what airport security is turning into, but guess what... they'd win even more if airport security wasn't this strict.
And what are the reasons young Muslims turn to terrorist groups? Because they feel alienated and harassed by the rest of the world (who treat them like terrorists for no reason at all) and are looking for somewhere to find friends and feel like they belong.
Sounds like the description of a typical teenager of *any* religion. Although in our day, we were encouraged to join a youth club, or take up a sport. Times change, I guess ?
They don't even want to kill anybody until they have been brainwashed (and frequently drugged) by their new "friends".
Oh, so don't blame the bomber, blame "that bad crowd he fell in with". Did you ever wonder WHY Muslims are so susceptible to be indoctrinated ?
Because it's built into the very core of their religion, Fatwahs, Holy Wars, the whole bit. It doesn't take that much of a push when the indoctrinators can take any passage from the Koran where it mentions smiting the infidels ... and believe me, there are a lot of them.
When are we going to realize that draconian security measures, racial profiling, and dropping bombs on civilians are part of the PROBLEM instead of the SOLUTION?
When are you going to realize that civil liberties does include the right to fly feeling safe from terrorists, and does NOT include the right of anyone to blow the fucking plane up ?
I don't see these scanners as any big problem, and from what I see will actually streamline the whole security process ... it is more complete than the current random selection system, (i.e. everyone gets scanned, not just the "racially profiled" groups), and it saves embarrassing pat-downs and cavity searches on obviously "clean" people. This whole fuss seems to stem from the generic US prudish nature when it comes to pixellated nudity ... get a grip FFS, do you get in the same lather everytime you break a leg and need an X-RAY ? OMG, he saw my naked bones !!
So the security measures are ineffectual ? How exactly did you reach that conclusion, seeing as how many airports haven't even installed the scanners yet ? A report on FOX news ? And as for existing measures, what measure of "effect" or otherwise would you like ? A big bloody LED display scrolling the latest security news ?
"... 10 terrorists caught today ... 25 days since the last exploding plane incident ..." ?
What would you prefer ? That the government do nothing ? All I see here is civil liberties this, ineffectual that ... what would *YOU* suggest to curb the threat ? And don't say "I don't know", because that's a cop out. You too can be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
However, "dropping bombs on civilians" being a problem, I would wholeheartedly agree with you. Whoever does it ... Americans, Jews, Arabs ... it's always a senseless waste of life.
Looks like we do agree on something after all.
I'm sorry, I thought this thread was about airport security measures, not US domestic terrorism in general. You may be surprised to know that Al Qaida has also targeted trains in UK and Europe.
Sure, the US has no shortage of homegrown crackpots, I can't imagine why you'd take pride in that as if you'd scored more points at a football game ?