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Women refuse to go through airport body scanners

• ars 17y ago
  "Security staff use the X-ray machine...." It's not an X-ray!! And I thought you always had the option of a pat-down if you refused the machine.
  • roboneal 17y ago
    You do in the U.S., not in the UK.
  • allenp 17y ago
    "In US airports where scanners are installed passengers have the option of a undergoing a body search. " These passengers were in the UK though and didn't have that option/right.
  • runningdogx 17y ago
    Are you sure? There are two different technologies being used in various countries for scanning passengers. 1. millimeter-wave 2. backscatter x-ray (low power) It is not clear whether mm-wave photons can be biologically damaging. However, there are plenty of articles from the UK claiming that UK body scanners (at least some of them) are x-ray, not mm-wave. Are you saying all of them have it wrong, and that the UK is using 100% mm-wave scanners?
• CoryMathews 17y ago
  It's just a matter of time before these body scanners are overruled. Personally I'm glad to see people refusing to use them, its just sad they had to miss their flights.
  • icefox 17y ago
    Last time I flew I had to deal with the body scanners so this week rather then flying I drove from Boston to Toronto. I ended up arriving faster then when I flew and I didn't have any of the hassle crossing the boarder (and I brought a cake, something that would have worked on a plane).
  • evgen 17y ago
    It's just a matter of time before these body scanners are overruled. Based on what? You have no particular right to get on a plane, nor do you have especially strong privacy rights when passing through an airport. I am also glad to see people refusing to use them, but am more pleased by the fact that the people running the system are telling those who are opting out that their option is to choose another mode of transportation. Random screening selection and consistent application of policies are a good start for any such system.
• almost 17y ago
  So you can refuse to go do it if you are randomly selected and you just forfeit your flight. How exactly does that add any protection against anything? Potential hijackers can't just buy another plain ticket?
  • pbh 17y ago
    Related: "Carnival Booth: An Algorithm for Defeating the Computer-Assisted Passenger Screening System," Samidh Chakrabarti, Aaron Strauss. tl;dr Anything other than random is arguably worse.
    • gnosis 17y ago
      "Anything other than random is arguably worse." Why? If every passenger is screened, how is that worse than random?
      • alan-crowe 17y ago
        More expensive.
        • gnosis 17y ago
          More expensive in terms of money or in terms of lives?
  • avner 17y ago
    This is security through obscurity. To quote Bruce Schneier: Security is both a reality and a feeling. The reality of security is mathematical, based on the probability of different risks and the effectiveness of different countermeasure... Security is also a feeling, based on individual psychological reactions to both the risks and the countermeasures. And the two things are different: You can be secure even though you don't feel secure, and you can feel secure even though you're not really secure." The body scanners give the reactionary populous a reason to "feel" secure; even though the chances of a terrorist being caught by body scanners are slim. (see http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/german_tv_on_th.html#comments http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/german_tv_on_t...)
• roboneal 17y ago
  It is inevitable that a SMOKINGGUN-like website with famous peoples body scans will be created. "But it was COLD in the airport!"
• btilly 17y ago
  Let me get this straight. Muslims have religious objections to going through machines that were supposed to catch Islamic terrorists? Yes, I understand and agree with the objections. But I'm still amused.
  • marshallp 17y ago
    I don't think the majority of muslims like to be associated with islamic terrorists just as germans don't like their association with hitler, or we white americans like our association with past slavery.
    • btilly 17y ago
      Obviously true. However Islamic terrorists are clearly a subset of Muslims. So our liberal society is left with a choice between refusing Muslims their basic civil rights, or giving Islamic terrorists an easy way to bypass the expensive machines that we spent a fortune on to catch them. (Machines which, incidentally, are more used on non-Muslims than Muslims for the simple reason that the terrorists are able to use people who don't look like our stereotypes of what Muslims look like if that helps them bypass security.) I find this kind of predictable policy failure amusing.
    • deleted 17y ago
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• jpatte 17y ago
  Am I the only one thinking "the hell with privacy"? I understand the need for a certain level of privacy. However people watching these monitors see hundreds if not thousands of people a day... Do you think they care a second about who wears a pacemaker, or a gastric ring? They might notice it, but they will forget it the second after, and most certainly never meet the person again. So tell me, how is it a privacy violation?
  • jpatte 17y ago
    ?! Not exactly sure why I was down-voted... This was a sincere question. Did I miss something obvious?
    • yalurker 17y ago
      Your post is self-contradictory and illogical. You say to forget about privacy, then acknowledge that some privacy is important, then suggest that privacy invasions don't matter as long as they happen to a lot of people. Most of us recognize we're more likely to get hit by lightning while winning the lottery than be saved by one of these machines, and as such oppose their use.
      • jpatte 17y ago
        Maybe "the hell with privacy" was too strong. I reacted this way because my feeling is privacy is often an over-used excuse not to comply to a security measure. And actually my point was not that these invasions should happen to a lot of people, but that they are fine as long as the collected information are immediately disposed and have no consequence in the future.
      • rick888 17y ago
        "Most of us recognize we're more likely to get hit by lightning while winning the lottery than be saved by one of these machines, and as such oppose their use." Do you actually know how many attacks these machines will prevent? You don't seem to have any facts to back up your statements. In addition to this, the fact that people know that these machines are in place will prevent some future attempts.
• pedalpete 17y ago
  How the air security organizations got into buying these machines without thinking through the implications is what I find ridiculous. I can understand a muslim women's (or any women really) objection where there religion says they have to cover their bodies, and now we tell them to go through a machine so we can see what their bodies look like.
  • bootload 17y ago
    "... How the air security organizations got into buying these machines without thinking through the implications is what I find ridiculous. ..." There is a heavy PR campaign going on for scanners. I found this via Jane News Briefs. "... Body Scanners, Security and Airport Efficiency A Message from BOZO Systems... Can airports lower costs, improve operations and increase passenger satisfaction - while enhancing aviation security? ... As the world's leading personnel screening technology, a NERK 500 system can be a key part of an integrated aviation security solution. Learn how a NERK 500 can lower airport operating costs and improve checkpoint throughput and passenger satisfaction. Our consultants can demonstrate how a NERK 500 can optimize checkpoint operations.... With the NERK 500, passengers get through the checkpoint faster: total scanning time far faster than competing millimetre wave body scanners. ..." This is the message being sold to airline owners.
    • pedalpete 17y ago
      But isn't it a serious lack of foresight that passenger would revolt against being scanned? That was my point. I understand the why of doing it, but there needs to be some understanding of the reaction of your customers. And let's not forget. We as travelers, are customers. It often doesn't feel that way.
• MikeTLive 17y ago
  Guilty until proven innocent. I am disgusted at how quickly people give in to this. Go through the scanner/rectal screen to prove your innocence.
  • rick888 17y ago
    "Guilty until proven innocent. I am disgusted at how quickly people give in to this. Go through the scanner/rectal screen to prove your innocence." Do you have a better answer? We are searching people before they go onto a plane. We can either have less security and potentially allow someone to get through and kill innocent people (which has already happened and almost happened on multiple occasions) or have body-scans and other measures to prevent these situations. I have flown many times in the last year and I don't mind the extra levels of security that are in place. I think the real problem is that the security measures are working too well and people are getting complacent. It reminds me of Y2K. After it happened, there were many people that said "see, nothing happened!". When in reality, thousands of people worked for a long time to fix all of the issues that would have been a problem.
    • defen 17y ago
      > Do you have a better answer? Read up about Israeli airport security measures - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025173 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025173
      • ErrantX 17y ago
        Israel have the dual advantage of smaller numbers of required staff plus higher risk of terrorist activity (which leads to better investment into security infrastructure) They do have a reasonably good security set up (been through Israeli airports a few times now) but they do have issues/idiots too (who doesnt). They have a reasonable trade off of privacy over security. For a larger country with lower risk cheap options such as body scanners are a "solution" because they theoretically require lower skilled staff to spot a terrorist. Of course the theory is poor in the first place and the execution worse (so far)
      • 17y ago
• kilian 17y ago
  From the article: "[T]hey were selected at random to go through the new scanning machine." Two Muslim women? traveling together? picked at random?? Really now. In The Netherlands we have similar "random" increased security checks for people whom fit a specific profile, but the government refuses to tell what that profile is. Now, I'm a a skinny white guy so will probably never fit any profile, but the whole "do what we tell you to do and we wont tell you why" coming from a governing body really gets under my skin.
  • ErrantX 17y ago
    Just to be clear the article only mentions that one was possibly a Muslim (no comment on the other) and there is not data on if they were travelling together.
• ErrantX 17y ago
  I always get "randomly" chosen (for a variety of specific reasons) when going through foreign (not UK, they are fine ;)) checkpoints. Usually I either have to do body scanner or interview/pat down/strip search. So I've seen all sorts of security setups and privacy intrusions. In an opinion on this I am biased because going through a scanner doesn't worry me. There is no feeling of sexual or privacy intrusion for me. It's just step in, scan, step out and move on. But I can understand how it does concern people. I think if they must use these things there should be alternatives offered - refusal of all of which would, I feel, make it fair to refuse entry to the plane.
• roundsquare 17y ago
  Maybe I'm missing something incredibly obvious, but one way to make much less invasive is to hire both male and female specialists and only allow a person to be scanned by someone of the same gender.
  • gnosis 17y ago
    How is that really any less invasive? It sounds like the reasoning behind this sort of attitude (also seen in the frequent requirement of using someone of the same gender to frisk people) is that someone of the opposite gender must be heterosexual and would "get off" on seeing/frisking someone of the opposite sex. But the screener could easily be homosexual. Or bisexual. But I really doubt if they're even asked what their sexual orientation is. And, honestly, do you even care if they get off on seeing/frisking you? How does their stimulation or lack thereof hurt you? Another explanation for this sort of attitude might be that people are simply embarrassed when seen/frisked by someone of the opposite gender. But the reverse could just as easily be the case. Someone might feel no embarrassment from being seen/frisked by someone of the opposite gender, but might feel embarrassed by someone of the same gender. Mandating that everyone be frisked by someone of the same gender based on these flimsy justifications makes no sense to me. If these are concerns at all (and they clearly are for some people), it's much more reasonable to simply allow the passenger a choice of being screened by a male or female screener.
    • roundsquare 17y ago
      The fact of the matter though is that most people don't consider it as invasive, despite the factors you listed (which, to be honest, are probably edge cases). Your solution seems fine, but doesn't change the basic premise that having technicians of both genders would solve a good proportion of the problems. I also said this because my understanding of the main religious reason that muslim women wouldn't want to go through the scanner is because they men other than their husbands aren't supposed to see them. As per the particle: One, who is believed to be a Muslim, refused on religious reasons
• gnosis 17y ago
  People need to get over their neurotic, up-tight attitude towards sexuality, and their own and other people's bodies. So someone will see you naked... what's the big deal?
  • plinkplonk 17y ago
    "So someone will see you naked... what's the big deal?" If it isn't such a big deal why don't you walk around naked all the time then? (Given decent weather) why wear clothes at all? Yes I am exaggerating to make a point, but "getting naked" in front of strangers is a big deal for many people. The debate is about whether improved security in airports is worth "getting naked". Dismissing peoples concerns as "no big deal" doesn't help.
    • gnosis 17y ago
      "If it isn't such a big deal why don't you walk around naked all the time then? (Given decent weather) why wear clothes at all?" I would have absolutely no problem with that myself. Unfortunately, where I live it's illegal. I do understand perfectly well that many people do have problems with others (particularly non-intimate strangers) seeing them naked. But I just think this is the result of socialized neurosis. Hopefully with time our society will get over it.