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"No Scan, No Fly" At Heathrow and Manchester
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Feb 02, 2010 06:19 AM
from the stand-and-deliver dept.
from the stand-and-deliver dept.
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."
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Submission: 'No scan, no flight' at Heathrow and Manchester by Anonymous Coward
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Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially when traveling with small children security on Heathrow was always a show stopper for me. There a plenty of alternative hubs to fly from, unless you want to go to London.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
You think this won't spread to other airports?
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Another reason not to fly. Period.
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Another reason not to fly. Period.
Annoying thing is sometimes life just gets in the way of making such decisions. I hadn't flown since 2001 until March last year taking all my trips to Europe via boat, bus and train. That is until my girlfriend got a cushy job in Spain necessitating monthly trips or no girlfriend. And much as I like the environment (and my privacy) not flying just wasn't a choice - and neither will it be, naked bodyscanners or not!
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Funny)
I take the bus to European cities all the time from the US. Not only do I not get stripsearched, I get to visit Spongebob.
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Right (Score:5, Funny)
Another reason not to fly. Period.
If god had meant us to fly he wouldn't have given us genitals.
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
>Jeez, what's the big deal?
Hey, it's not like anyone was using their civil rights anyway, right? Why should anyone care when government becomes even more obnoxious and intrusive?
-jcr
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Making explosives is just not hard for a dedicated person with basic reading comprehension and math skills. Your best bet is to ban education and close libraries, and well, the internet is right out.
The total lack of things blowing up all around us, combined with the relative ease by which an adversary could do so, tends to poke a giant fucking whole in the theory that specific measures to protect against all these people who aren't blowing anything up.
Its not about the right to blow stuff up. Its about the right to be secure in your person and have a little privacy. This invasion is unjustified. If i thought there was even a small chance that a full on "finger in the ass" cavity search meant the difference between me landing safely and dieing ina fireball, I would assume the position without a second thought. No machine needed.
I simply don't buy it. I don't care if this "feels" less invasive. Its still my privacy going away, for what I see as no benefit to anyone, not even myself as a flyer.
All I see is my privacy being taken away and my tax dollars being wasted to do it for some authoritarian wet dream.
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
The right I was referring to is the right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. Do you actually equate privacy with violence, or are you just trolling in a particularly stupid manner?
-jcr
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially given the high risk of flying in the past decade
compared to what exactly, being hit by a meteorite?
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
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. [usatoday.com]
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.
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Outrageous! Why isn't the the Department of Homeland Security protecting me from my own family?
They should also turn my basement stairs into a playground slide while they're at it.
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Informative)
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. [usatoday.com]
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 [wikipedia.org]
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/ [planecrashinfo.com] but it doesn't change the point. The ratio is truly stunning.
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially given the high risk of flying in the past decade
What high risk?
How many people have died thanks to terrorist incidents on aircraft in the last decade? How many people hove flown in aircraft? Divide the first number by the second to get the risk and you'll see it's a very small number indeed.
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
I largely agree with you, a fear of nakedness can never be an excuse for less security.
Why not? Why should the handful of people who set up security measures be allowed to tell everyone else what a sufficient level of decency & dignity is for them? Being able to tell someone when they're allowed to be dressed or not is extremely personal, and more-or-less the last hurdle to cover before you as-good-as own them.
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
X2
with it becoming more and more obvious that doctors and nurses in operating rooms can't remain professional and discreet, why does anyone expect a $7 an hour security guard will? You do know there will be pictures showing up on some website at some point. Probably similar to peopleatwalmart.com. But instead of some overweight person grazing in the candy aisle wearing a leopard print, it will be pasty anatomically correct and higly detailed people.
If we have learned anything since 9/11, it only took 3 planes to crash before the passengers are willing to take on any potential security threat. Any incidents since then have been thwarted, not by the stupendously effective (ha!) security but by the other passengers will to live. There is zero need for the scanners.
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
a fear of nakedness can never be an excuse for less security.
In your opinion, what can be an excuse for less security? Surely there is a limit; what do you think should this limit be?
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Britan has beaches! (Score:5, Funny)
And they are far better then any foreign beaches. No burning sand to scorch your feet on, you do not have to actually enter the sea to be soaked to the bone and free condoms float by whenever you need one!
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
So they spend millions preventing a rare event, yet allow sale of tobacco that kills millions a year
It is sadly ironic that you complain about a government limitation of your freedom by suggesting that they limit your freedom.
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just a penis, there's no shame about this.
It's not the nudity that's shameful, it's the submission to an unreasonable demand from the brain-dead security theater assholes who pretend that obedience is the way to safety.
-jcr
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Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeahh... That's probably complete bullshit. I can just see British parents dragging their children through scanners that take pictures of their genitals.
If it is true, I see a precipitous drop in air travel in that country. Screwing with adults and their privacy is one thing, photographing naked children is some next level shit to put it bluntly.
The war is over. (Score:5, Insightful)
Since we're constantly being told the terrorists are "jealous of our freedoms", I think they can now say job done.
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You had nothing to hide, right? (Score:5, Insightful)
You had nothing to hide. Privacy didn't affect you.
Until some goon started to look at your balls when you board a plane... lol.
Sorry everybody, but I find it more disturbing that my every move is recorded and stored than that some person checks my genitals. The genitals are pretty much the same for everybody - my travels, my bank account, my posts online, my phone conversations - those are things that make me unique. Those matter far more.
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Re:You had nothing to hide, right? (Score:5, Funny)
The genitals are pretty much the same for everybody.
Mine disagree with that statement.
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Re:You had nothing to hide, right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Those matter for your security. Having parts of your body covered preserve your privacy. The two are different. I doubt you'd enjoy having a webcam in your bathroom, even though what you do in there is about the same as what millions of others do in their bathrooms. That would invade your privacy, even though it would hardly affect your security. Both are important.
I suppose your point was that if the scanners are there for security, which you value more than genital privacy. Funny thing is, they don't increase it measurably, and they decrease privacy.
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Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Screwing with adults and their privacy is one thing, photographing naked children is some next level shit to put it bluntly.
Yeah, some guy in Australia, I believe, got sentenced to jail for pedophilia because he had pornographic pictures of cartoon characters, but it's OK for government employed perverts to be ogling our kids in the name of "safety". Top grade job UK government, fucking A+.
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Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Both sides of this arguments have entered Ridiculousland a long time ago.
If we assume that these body scanners actually help in preventing terrorist attacks on airplanes, it's silly to exclude children. Pictures of naked kids are only a problem if there's a reasonable possibility that they will end up in the wrong hands. Also, I doubt these scans have any erotic effect on even the most desperate pedophile except for those with some freaky scanner fetish.
Surely you don't think x-rays of children in hospitals should be banned? Or pictures of naked kids for medical purposes in files of pediatricians?
But the other side of the argument is the one making that assumption, that these body scanners will do any good in preventing terrorism. Sure, they may help a bit to prevent all sorts of smuggling and they will prevent people from bringing most weaponry on board. But what's to stop me from implanting some C4, or putting a balloon of liquid explosive in my bladder? Does that mean we'll start x-raying everyone next? Fine, I'll have the bone marrow in my legs replaced with high explosive, don't need it where I'm going anyway, right?
Terrorists will always find a way to get explosives on planes if they feel they need to. The only thing we can do is remove their reasons for wanting to do so in the first place.
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Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Pictures of naked kids are only a problem if there's a reasonable possibility that they will end up in the wrong hands"
"Surely you don't think x-rays of children in hospitals should be banned? Or pictures of naked kids for medical purposes in files of pediatricians?"
Did you really just equate My child's DOCTOR with some TSA (or what ever they call them in England) screener?
Are you ok with the Greeter at the entrance to Wall-Mart seeing your child naked?
How about the taxi driver?
Clearly, for this thing to work, they need to see your genitals.
Why then don't they have a strip search?
Quick, effective, cheap, and doesn't expose you to an x-ray. what could be better?
and it's not like "the wrong people" are going to see you naked...
these scanners are terrorism.
remember when it was pleasant to fly?
never again citizen.
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Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Terrorists will always find a way to get explosives on planes if they feel they need to
True, and actually, if someone shoves a C4 capsule up their ass, this stupid machines won't detect it. Hell, they can even swallow a complete explosive device and they can't do shit. So, why all the trouble, all the privacy violation? How many terrorist attacks have actually happened against aircrafts? More people die on the road or in aircraft accidents than on terrorist attacks. All this "air security" is complete bullshit, and people are "fine if we're secure". Come on! Two hours to board an stupid airplane is fine? Naked pictures of your child is fine?
What I find more intriguing is the real reason behind all of this crap. Distract people from real problems? Collapse the air transportation system? Mess with our minds? Totalitarian control?
I think the famous quote fits perfect here:
Don't go to England
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Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in they day before the Wave of Pedo Fear, actual nekkid babbies running about the house were pretty common. Of course, that was before we discovered that genital representation has a huge blast radius and turns all nearby adults into baby boffers, just as bare ankles uncontrollably arouse men.
I'd go on, but have ASCII pron requiring fappage...
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What happens (Score:5, Funny)
If you walk through with a hard-on?
Re:What happens (Score:5, Funny)
If you walk through with a hard-on?
They make you get off.
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Re:What happens (Score:5, Insightful)
The goons working in security have a laugh at your expense and photograph the monitor output with their cell phones. Later, they upload it to funnypixxxxx.com.
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Speaking as a morbidly obese male (Score:5, Funny)
I was quite upset about this until I realised that
a) The person viewing the image will be in another room and won't actually meet me, and
b) I can stand in that thing and jiggle my lard around like the dancing baby from Ally McBeal and make whoever is watching them image lose their lunch.
Re:Speaking as a morbidly obese male (Score:5, Insightful)
Better yet, as you are a morbidly obese male and as the X-rays from this device are designed to reflect from human skin, you can easily hide any contraband, smuggled pets, bomb belts or illegal aliens within your rolls of flab and they will be completely undetectable by the device!
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Thats it (Score:5, Insightful)
The terrorists have won.
Re:Thats it (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Please someone stop this. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I was a local sheriff or whatever the British equivalent is, I would wonder over to Heathrow and hang out in the viewing room. As soon as a prepubescent child popped up on the screen, I would whip out my camera, gather evidence and then arrest the "viewer" or "viewers" for viewing kiddy porn. This is an extremely serious charge that effectively changes your life forever. Then I would let the courts deal with it. It would suck to be the worker(s) at Heathrow, but it seems it takes extreme action to wake people in Britain up.
Pictures not stored or captured FAIL (Score:5, Insightful)
The image generated by the body scanner cannot be stored or captured [...]
So... how did they get the pictures into the article?
When will it end (Score:5, Insightful)
When will this "War on privacy" end? Most likely only when and if people stand up to it. And they won't as they do not see it as a treath to whatever they have. I rather sit in a plane with a potential terrerist and riks to be blown to smithereens then people taking away my privacy rights because of some bullshit security.
The drive to the airport is still more dangerous then the flight itself and that includes being killed by terrerists.
When looking at it now, the stazi of Eastern Germany were boyscouts.
You should not fear anything but fear itself. But as long as the media is selling news as entertainment, we will be hearing about these outrages dangers that almost never happen. Man bites dog is news and this means that dog bites man isn't and won't be shown. That means that people do not get all the information they need to do some basic risk assesment.
Somebody has to see you naked before you fly... (Score:5, Insightful)
...I can't help but think that the terrorists have won.
Images CAN be stored and captured. (Score:5, Insightful)
and
"The equipment does not allow security staff to see passengers naked, she added."
And both of those statements are absolute, 100% bullshit.
First, when those machines were originally designed, it was a specific requirement that they be able to store a digital representation of the images for later offloading or transmission. It was part of the specification. To say that they can't do it is a complete fabrication. Granted... presumably they have the ability to turn this feature off... but that is very far removed from "cannot"!
And as far as not being able to "see passengers naked"? Give me an effin' break! The picture accompanying the BBC article clearly shows otherwise. They might be faint, but you can see the guy's scrotum and penis. And I have seen other pictures and videos taken using these scanners, and you can see whatever the hell you want.
I have come to expect bullshit from government, but such bald-faced and blatant lies take me by surprise.
Completely ineffective privacy protection (Score:5, Insightful)
So we are told that privacy is not compromised because the people viewing the images are in another room and cannot tell who they're looking at. Well, they're going to need *someone* to know who they're looking at, or else there's no bloody point in this system. Specifically, they need to be able to say "Bob, the feller in the machine has got a gun on his left calf". And Bob needs to be able to say "OK, I'm on it. Keep me updated with news from the other queues".
Well, if they can tell Bob that, they can also say, "Hey Bob, this one's got a tiny dick. And that sexy fucking bitch who just went through with the baby had the biggest fucking nipples you've ever seen". And Bob can reply "Alright, I'm pulling her over. I'll find her name and you Google her"
This system has no meaningful privacy protections. The protection that's most likely to be effective for any one of us, is going to be the large volumes of passengers they are dealing with, which reduces the time available for them to take a prurient interest in one particular passenger.
No pat-downs? (Score:5, Funny)
Effing great, there goes my sex life.
Well, at least it was replaced with something that caters to my exhibitionist urges.
Re:So soon after being shown not to work? (Score:5, Informative)
------
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.
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