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Body scanners - panacea or more trouble?
Published: 07 January, 2010, 00:46
Edited: 10 January, 2010, 06:17
TAGS: Crime, Scandal, Obama, Human rights, Terrorism, USA
With increased air travel safety measures in the US coming into force, the wider use of body scanners is very likely. Their implementation is controversial because of their intrusive nature.
Some experts also say that they are less effective than simple physical pat-downs.
The security moves came after American President Barack Obama’s speech on Tuesday, in which he criticized US security agencies after they failed to prevent an attempted bombing of an airliner on Christmas Day.
In the US there has been mixed reaction to the changes. Many people are outraged at what happened on December 25, wondering how this could have happened after 9/11 and demanding that something be done about it, but others are saying that this is an invasion of privacy.
James Ridgeway, an investigative journalist for Mother Jones.com and author of the book “The Five Unanswered Questions About 9/11,” argues that full body scanners are actually incapable of identifying metal parts, explosives or chemicals hidden in a human body.
“I’ve been following this since 9/11, and the people I’ve been talking to who are actually involved in this they say [the scanners] don’t work,” Ridgeway said. “Because they say you can take an explosive and put in a body cavity and they can’t detect it. So, as one of them said to me, you could put the entire works for a bomb inside your body and no one will know.”
06.01.2010, 23:51
“German govt. may have covered secret CIA group”Despite German intelligence saying that it knew nothing of a secret CIA group operating in Hamburg, it is not necessarily the case, said investigative journalist Wayne Madsen. |
07.01.2010, 21:56
1 comment
“US security should be one step ahead of terrorists”To make the US a safer place, the country’s security operatives should stop acting on the defensive, said Kristen Soltis, director of policy research at the Winston group. |
It makes me angry that the USA authorities had ignored warnings about this guy. When they fail to use information already given to them, why should they claim even more intrusive powers? Instead of this silly political correctness, they should concentrate on the riskier people - yes racial and ethnic profiling. A white 85 year old grandmother is not a potential terrorist and should not be subjected to humiliating searches. Nor should respectable businessmen.
Amerika is the model of efficiency! New strip search machines are designed,built, installed and have personnel trained in 10 days! All they had to do was have this guy go through passport control. Why is the media not demanding video footage showing this panty bomber going through the "established" security procedures?
First of all, what lucid, rational individual is going to step foot into a body scanner fully knowing he or she has a gun or other weapon strapped to his or her thigh or elsewhere? Seriously. Think about it. It aint gonna happen folks and if you are an individual who thinks it's gonna happen, then you are not a lucid, rational individual and you in turn are the type of individual who might attempt to do such a stupid thing.
This body scanner - at best - will weed out undesirable flat-chested women and under-endowed men [and oldsters with sagging butts I might add] from flying while the entitled voluptuous women and well-endowed men [and youngsters with tight butts I might add] will proudly and with great relish spend as much time as they can in the scanners as they show off to the rest of us why they are what they are and the rest of us are not. Voluptuous and well-endowed "TERRORISTS" will, with great admiration, just walk on through. No problem.
PLUS it injects money into the economy for body scan manufacturers and associated personnel and completely breaks down personal barriers setting up the public to allow for some possible future neo-gestapo agency to do whatever it is the powers that be might feel like doing down the road. Also, regarding the possibility of a gestapo tactics scenario, being "less than" might just pay off -in the end- after all. THINK people!