Dutch Using Full Body Scanners for US Flights
The Netherlands will immediately begin using full body scanners for flights heading to the United States to prevent future terrorist attacks like the foiled Christmas Day attempt.
This was inevitable:
The Netherlands will immediately begin using full body scanners for flights heading to the United States to prevent future terrorist attacks like the foiled Christmas Day attempt.
Officials say Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, managed to board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 to Detroit from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport carrying explosives but failed to successfully detonate them. The plane was carrying over 300 people.
A sign explains the procedure for going through the whole body scan machine, or millimeter wave machine as passengers wait in line at a security check point at the Salt Lake International Airport in Salt Lake City, Utah, March 10, 2009. REUTERS/George Frey
In a preliminary report on Wednesday, the Dutch government said the plan to blow up the Detroit-bound aircraft was professional but called its execution “amateurish.”
“It is not exaggerating to say the world has escaped a disaster,” Interior Minister Guusje Ter Horst told a news conference.
Actually, it is. The families of those aboard did, however, escape a horrible tragedy.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol has 15 body scanners, but their use has been limited because of privacy objections that they display the contours of the passenger’s body. Neither the European Union nor the U.S. have approved the routine use of the scanners.
New software, however, eliminates that problem by projecting a stylized image onto a computer screen, highlighting the area of the body where objects are concealed in pockets or under the clothing and alerting security guards.
Two scanners have been experimentally using that software since late November and the Dutch said those will be put into use immediately. All scanners will be upgraded within three weeks so they can be used on flights to the United States.
If and when the kinks are worked out of this system, it actually makes perfect sense. It appears that they have gotten around the most serious privacy concerns and a scan actually provides much more real security than the nonsensical procedures they’re using now. My strong guess, however, is that they will continue those as well.
This is typical of the liberal, Old Europe, Big Government way of doing things.
The only way to deter plane terror is to allow people to carry guns on planes. That way no idiot would try and start something since they would know that other passengers would likely shoot them.
Honestly-I prefer this type of scanner to having to take my shoes off and carry little bottles of shampoo and toothpaste.
Of course, full body scanners would probably not have actually caught Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab because of the location of the explosives. But hey, what’s a little privacy compared to a false promise of safety?
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Posted by antizealot
Seriously, WTF fred?
I second that, Steve. WTF Fred? Is this apropos to this conversation whatsoever? I’m ok with crazy, but keep it to crazy that is inspired by the article in question.
I have no problem with body scanners. Flying is not a right, and it seems like a reasonable and effective precaution. Not especially worried of someone sees my “body contours” for that matter.
How long until the internets provide us with Angelina Jolie’s body contours?
I don’t see these things as a big deal. I usually fly naked anyway. I like the feel of leather on my body contours.
Fine. Let’s use these for general screening in the U.S. as well; we might as well speed AQ recruitment of women and obese men, who will have more options for hiding explosives on their persons.
It certainly makes more sense than looking more closely at people who are flying on one-way tickets without any luggage at all . . .
Naked body scanners? I know obesity is a problem in the U.S., but are we really better off with the other end of eating disorders taking hold of our new self-conscious flyers?
Economists would probably tell us that we could reduce far more auto-traffic deaths at far lower cost. But that’s not terrorism, right? And it’s a risk over which we “feel” we have control?
All sorts of weird human factors here. IMO the terrorism thing gains irrational focus because it is an easily visualized death, a frightening one, and one that we didn’t grow up with. All those things trigger a response, make it seem non-background risk – even if our commute to work is still riskier.
Well, if the pilot lost control of the plane, it could have hit anything. So some places near Detroit may have also averted disaster.
But on the other hand, considering that Detroit is already a disaster …
Well, if TSA personnel get their giggles looking at my teeny-tiny penis while stopping Nigerian terrorist persons with muslim sounding names and explosives attached to their genitals (and a whole lot more penis envy than I ever dreamed of) from bringing down a plane full of well endowed, virile (read: lustful) American men and lusty (read: loose) well endowed American women….
I geuss I can provide the comic relief to their day,
“All those things trigger a response, make it seem non-background risk – even if our commute to work is still riskier.”
That, of course, is the lightweight’s analogy.
In reality, people understand that they take risks all the time in their everyday lives. But they also understand motive; and they differentiate between unintended events and planned events, and naturally recoil at the notion of being intentionally targeted, hunted down and slaughtered like mongrel dogs.
Points off for leading with the Ad Homenum, Drew.
Beyond that, here is an feature article at Time Magazine expanding on the “humans have a hard time with risks” theme. I think my comment above was a fair summary.
hahaha I never go back and spell check Ad Hominem