"No Scan, No Fly" At Heathrow and Manchester 821
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."
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.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Really? (Score:1, Informative)
Children are exempt from scanning, according to a new item on the BBC a few weeks ago.
Re:not that bad (Score:3, Informative)
Faces are basically unrecognisable, and if by some miracle you are recognisable, you'd probably get a nice payout from the ensuing lawsuit.
This is the UK. Punitive damages are almost unheard of. Generally speaking, all you can do when you sue someone is force them to put you back in the same position you were before.
There are exceptions to this (physical injury is the obvious one), but I'm not sure this would be one.
Disclaimer: IANAL.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:3, Informative)
Stansted is a pain in the arse.
I live in South West London (Twickenham), well within the M25, and had cause to go to Stansted on Sunday. Firstly, I take a train from Twickenham to London Waterloo station (20 minutes). I'm now pretty much in the city centre, with easy access to most areas via the Underground. Next, the Underground to Liverpool Street station (20 minutes). Then I had expected to take the Stansted Express train to to Stansted (45 minutes). But wait, it's a Sunday and there is engineering works on the line and all services are replaced by buses. The bus to Stansted took 90 minutes! In total, my journey time to Stansted was over two hours. My friend's flight to Graz, in Austria was only 2.5 hours.
I used to fly regularly to Riga, Latvia from Stansted, which is a 3 hour flight. There's only a limited direct service, and into Stansted was the best return option on a Sunday evening. However, the flight would arrive at 11pm. The last train to London departs at midnight. Any delay whatsoever, and I would estimate at least 50% of the time there was, one would miss that final train. Only other option is a bus. Even if you did catch the train to Liverpool Street, by the time you arrived, the Underground service was finished and a night bus was the only option (or a taxi of course, but that's pretty expensive). It used to take me somewhere between 3.5 hours and 5 hours on a bad night, to return home after arriving at Stansted. I could fly across the breadth of Europe quicker than that!
Traveling to Heathrow is a lot easier and quicker. Granted, I live in South West London. However, even if I lived further into the city, there is a direct Heathrow Express train, as well as a direct Underground service on the Piccadilly Line. From most areas of London, within Zone 6 (Zone 1 is inner city, Zone 6 the furthest out for the metropolitan public transport service) I would estimate no more than 90 minutes maximum to get to Heathrow. It's much closer to the city, so a taxi is a lot cheaper too. In general, I will pay up to £50 more for a ticket, for the convenience of flying from Heathrow.
I'm sure someone will prove me wrong, showing that it only takes the 10 minutes to get to Stansted and 1.5 days to Heathrow, but the above is my personal experience.
Write to your MP (Score:4, Informative)
If are not happy with the way this is being handled. And you live in the UK. You can always write to your MP.
there is a great website:
http://www.writetothem.com/ [writetothem.com]
Which makes it really easy. Simply enter your post code, select your MP, then write them an email.
I've had positive results doing this in the past. If enough people agree then your MP will take notice.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Really? (Score:3, Informative)
The guy you reference was previously convicted of having images which were of children engaged in sexual acts. That is what he was originally convicted for. He was convicted the second time for having cartoons which were of the same type of indecent images of children he had previously been convicted for having. Clearly, this man has a sexual desire to (at least) see children engaged in sexual acts, and was therefore prosecuted.
Had the man not been convicted before of a similar offence, I'm fairly certain the outcome (and press coverage) would be considerably different.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Pictures not stored or captured FAIL (Score:4, Informative)
Re:So soon after being shown not to work? (Score:5, Informative)
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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.
Re:Better way to beat the scanner... (Score:3, Informative)
Wear leather underwear. Backscatter doesn't penetrate skin? Try penetrating this cow skin!
If S&M isn't your thing, maybe lamé [wikipedia.org] would do as a substitute?
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.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:3, Informative)
The tl;dr: The scanner in the video is thermal not backscatter / millimetre wave, the man would be told to remove his jacket and it would be scanned by baggage xray, and the scan process used in the video (bearing in mind that it isn't the same machine as deployed) was done on a "quick" mode for demo purposes, and hence lower resolution than would otherwise be achieved. All of this information is in the video.
Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:You had nothing to hide, right? (Score:1, Informative)
> The genitals are pretty much the same for everybody.
Well, that attractive girl that just went through the scanner... she has a penis. And now everybody knows it.
That guy with the loose fitting jacket. Turns out he has breast. And I don't mean man-boobs. Could be sex-change related or a medical condition, either way now everybody knows that too.
And both people would probably get picked for an additional search as well because of it. The average person may not have much to hide, but some people do, and probably face a lifetime of harassment if such things can not be kept private.
Some people have to be hand scanned. (Score:2, Informative)