Disgrace and Debacle – Euro Scanners
After more than 3 years of to and fro in Brussels, we finally have common rules on body scanners. In 2008 the parliament voted against European Commission proposals to legislate scanner use within the EU. MEPs were horrified at the thought of such contempt for fundamental rights and refused to back the EC. Barroso’s boys were not to be undermined this time round and chose to circumvent regular parliamentary process and push through their law via a new Comitology process so not to let Democratically elected members in on the plan. MEPs could have voted down the EC’s bill, but as it was presented over the summer, most were on holiday.
On the surface the law, which comes into effect on the 1stof December, is not so bad as it bans
Manchester airport peep show
backscatter scanners (x ray) and gives a choice to passengers to opt for a frisk instead of a scan. The reason for the ban on x ray scans quoted by Siim Kallas, European Commissioner for Transport was health concerns. A recent study in the US concluded that up to 100 people per year could die from cancer as a result of these scanners in the US. A better kill rate by far than al Qaeda, I’m sure you will agree!
However, it seems that the British are not as prone to cancer as the rest of Europe because, dangerous or not, Manchester and Heathrow airports have been granted special permission by the EC to continue trials with this potentially carcinogenic technology.
Either the technology is dangerous or it is not. The EC decided to allow Manchester to extend their scanners trial yet again only 2 days before they published the new rules on scanners, enabling MAN to keep their 16 £180 machines. Manchester security providers, including OCS (office cleaning contractor doing airport security), seem pretty unhappy about the new rules and latest reports from MAN are that elderly passengers are being forced get up from their wheelchairs and stand in the scanners.
Speaking of Manchester airport security, where scan selections are said by the DfT to be ‘random’, I recently read an interesting interview with their head of security in which it was admitted that scanning is no faster than frisking passengers and no more effective, and that the airport operators look to make huge financial savings from using scanners rather than trained security professionals. Another curio of this interview was his explanation of the ‘beep’ of the metal detector. It seems that the metal detector arches at MAN are set to beep automatically every few passengers whether the person is carrying a metallic item or not. That person is then led over to the body scanner. Now, if for example, the metal detector automatically ‘beeps’ every fourth passenger and then that person is scanned as part of their so-called ‘random’ screening process, the system can only ever reach a maximum of ¼ efficient. If it’s every second passenger, then it will only be 50% efficient, and that is before we have even taken into account the effectiveness of the technology or if the viewer of the image.
Airport security has become a joke in the UK:
- We no longer have trained professionals evaluating risk, we have cleaning companies.
- We have nonsensical security procedures that actually reduce real security rather than increase it.
- We are killing more people through cancer by using the scanners than we are saving from terrorists.
- The UK government is allowing anyone to enter the country and deliberately switching off terrorist watch-list procedures.
I’m putting money on backscatter scanners being widely deployed around all Olympic events next year. I’m also betting that the EC’s health risk evaluation, which they have only just initiated, will come back next March with favourable results for the scanner industry.
Sam Edi
Scrap the Scanners
Oppose the scanners – urgent petitions
Please sign the petitions below. We need to send a very clear message to our governments that we will not stand for these anti-constitutional, cancer-causing, right-violating, charlatan machines at our airports.
It will take up only two minutes of your time.
SIGN THE PETITIONS NOW and pass the message on!
http://www.petitiononline.com/StopScan/petition.html
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/38370.html#fbbox
http://www.wnd.com/airportscreening
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More info:
http://airportbodyscan.org
http://www.nudeoscope.com
http://ThousandsStandingAround.com
http://scrapthescanners.wordpress.com
http://dontscan.us
and join us on Facebook
All Facebook Against Airport Full Body Scanners
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=239458517874
and join in on Flyertalk.com
Organized resistance to WBI/invasive patdowns
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/1119548-organized-..
Rapiscan Backscatter Scanners – Reflection and Absorption.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.
~Herman Göring at the Nuremberg trials
It is time to dispel one or two myths about the scanners and delve deeper into the health debate. Let’s look seriously at how these machines really work.
Image kindly donated to Scrap the Scanners by John Wild (johnwild.info)
Meet John Wild. This British man was visiting a security trade fair in London in 2006 when he was invited by the Rapiscan sales team to be scanned. John managed to persuade them to print off and give him a copy of his scan. It is a hugely significant image in that it is the only Advanced Imaging Technology image publicly available that has not been ceded by the manufacturers in its public relations exercises. It is also the only full-body scanned image that has not passed through a ‘gaussian blur’ filter in Photoshop and been cooled by a calming soft blue tint. Moreover, it is the only image from a Rapiscan Secure 1000 security scanner that does not include guns or other weapons. On a level of public perception, this last point is essential. Firstly, in 2009, more than 2.5 billion people flew on commercial flights around the world and only one boarded a flight with a weapon – and a dud at that. Secondly, it is not the job of the scanners to detect metallic objects, such as guns or knives. The metal detector arches do that job before an airline passenger is goaded into a full-body scanner. The job of the scanners is to detect “non-metallic weapons”, such as those used by Richard Reid in 2001 or Abdulmutallab in 2009. Whether or not the scanners are capable of doing that is something we will return to later on. However, there do not exist ANY images of full-body scanned people carrying the popular explosives TATP and PETN, precisely the substances they are supposed to be looking for.
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This is NOT a photograph.
The old adage is that “a picture tells a thousand stories”, and it was never truer for this image. But let’s just look at a few of those stories:
It is essential to understand that the image we can see of John is NOT a black and white photograph, even if it appears similar to one. In fact, it has very little to do with conventional photography as we know it. A traditional black and white photo is made from the reaction of reflected light radiation on photographic film. The more light that is reflected off a surface, the whiter the area on the photograph, while less reflected light gives a darker tone. The overall result is a patchwork of light and dark areas depending on how much light radiation was reflected off the subjects in the image. These differences in lightwave radiation exposure are what define the image of a photograph. BUT, the above is not a photograph. So In the absence of natural light below the subject’s clothing, what produces the light and dark tones that make up the representation of the naked body in a full-body scanner?
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The Backscatter Method.
Rapiscan’s backscatter machine bombards its subject with ionising radio waves from head to toe. The idea is that the photons from this radiation are given sufficient energy to penetrate the clothing of the subject, but not the whole body. Once the photons, which progressively lose penetrative power, encounter something dense enough and their penetrative energy has diminished enough, these photons then bounce off the subject and scatter in all directions. A small percentage bounce back to the reader inside the machine.
The readings are then calculated and electronically rendered so as to produce an image like the one above. The Rapiscan software renders the image in such a way that it appears similar to a black and white photograph, and therefore easy to recognise, read and process.
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Penetration
A myth has been floating around ever since these machines were introduced onto the market that says backscatter radiation does not penetrate skin. This is pure propaganda on behalf of the industry and establishment. As you will see, the penetrative power of this radiation is far greater than ever previously thought.
So to make the image easier to understand, I am going to undo one aspect of the Rapiscan image rendering and invert the picture of John.
Rapiscanned - down to the bone
There are two concepts to consider. The first is reflection. We know that the radiation is powerful enough to penetrate clothing, but unlike gamma radiation not enough to pass through the entire body. I think it is safe to assume that it cannot pass through metal or similarly solid material and would simply reflect back off giving the most pronounced reading. In the case of the buttons on John’s trousers and the loose change in his pocket, we can see that they are now represented in white (or black before inversion). Apart from the bright background, the next brightest white features are John’s bones.
Clearly visible and recognisable we can see the tibia (shins), all the bones of the feet, the patella (knees), suggestions of the pelvic girdle (hips), sternum, clavicle and ribs. Thus we have instantly dispelled the myth of non-penetration of the backscatter radiation.
It is clear why we can see the bones we see and not others. All the above mentioned bones are close to thinner areas of skin. None are hidden behind large muscles or typical accumulations of fat.
Perhaps more worrying is not the whiter-looking bones revealed in the scan, but the other important bone covered by only a thin layer of skin – the cranium. In the image below the familiar outline of the skull is easily seen. The question now arises of why it is not as white as the other bones we can see. If white + black = grey, and white represents reflection, what does the black represent and what is happening to cause the thin bone of the cranium to appear grey and not bright white like the tibia?
- Partially penetrated skull visible .
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Absorption
We now understand the the more pronounced white areas of John’s scan represent dense and brittle areas such as thick bone that reflect a certain anount of radiation. Now we need to establish what provokes the other end of the scale – the black areas. For the most part, we can see that these are the opposite – soft and fleshy areas such as the belly, calves, shoulders, cheeks, buttocks, etc. So why does the scanner pick these up as being opposites to the tibia (shin bone). Well, in terms of radiation dosage, the opposite of the reflection seen in John’s white bones can only be absorption. This absorbing of energy is essential in the process. If all the energy were simply reflected away, the previous image of John would simply appear as a white silhouette.
All areas of John’s body are being penetrated by the radiation of the scanner, but only those with dense, brittle material directly below the skin (bones) are bouncing photons back towards the reader on the scanner with any efficiency. Those softer, fleshier areas, such as his belly, are doing the opposite of reflection and absorbing the radioactive energy inside and storing it as it is then too weak to continue its journey out the other side and exit its victim’s body. It stands to reason that if the backscatter waves have nothing significant to bounce off they will keep on penetrating until they have lost their penetrative power. Then, the energy just sits there – cooling … ionising.
This idea was better expressed by a group of 4 scientists working at the University of California earlier this year. In a letter of concern addressed to Obama’s science advisor the group urged the government to review and re-test the backscatter equipment. They had realised that a lot of the energy that was penetrating the skin did not have sufficient to exit again and was therefore “depositing energy beneath the skin”. Their warnings have gone unheeded and the popularity of the Rapiscam monster continues to grow with airport security firms.
The question remains then of how much of a dose we are receiving from these machines. The University of California studies instantly dismiss the UK and US governments’ measurements in micro Sierverts as they do not take into account the type of radiation in question. In effect, what our governments have done is the equivalent of saying “Don’t worry. Our studies have shown that you are unlikely to drown in a foot deep of boiling water.” The parameteres of the study were entirely irrelevant.
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Is there any point to the scanners?
So, we can see how the rays from the Rapiscan machine penetrate leather (no sign of John’s shoes) , tough muscles like the calves and fleshy areas such as the belly. The effect they have is of little or no reading on the scanner due to their absorbent nature. I am left asking myself just how efficient these scanners are at detecting liquid or powdered explosives, the job that originally justified their implementation. Rapiscan has never produced a single image (that was not obviously Photoshopped) that demonstrated to the public that these machines were fit their purpose. We have seen plenty of scan images that show how they can detect guns and knives, but not explosives. We already have much cheaper and safer metal detectors arches to detect such weapons.
How long is it going to be before we see mass cases of skin cancer? What about in children? And let’s not forget to keep an eye on those miscarriage figures. Since February this year Heathrow airport has Rapiscanned more than a quarter of a million people. If you times that by all of the airports in the world using this technology you can get an idea of the extent of the danger. No one can be certain. The only thing you can be sure of is that once our governments have admitted that cancer is on the increase, there will be lengthy arguments about who and what is to blame before scanner withdrawal is even considered. Recently, Dr David Brenner at Columbia University in New York claimed that the health risk was underestimated and that the actual dosage being received was some 20 times the official figures.
I’m going to up the ante a little: Considering what we have seen and understanding now that radiation absorption is essential to this kind of image creation, I’m going to add another zero to Dr Brenner’s estimation.
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Refuse the scan.
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Sam Edi
Scrap the Scanners
Note:
Hate to tell you that I told you so, but after I wrote this, the inventor of the backscatter monster sent this letter to Obama’s Science Advisor. In it, he inadvertently confesses that penetration of radiation forms part of the imaging process… as we already suspected and in contra to what Rapiscan PR wold have us believe.
http://tek84.com/downloads/radiation-bodyscanner.pdf
Note 2:
US Government official report claims that up to 100 people WILL die each year due to scanner use at US airports. Remember that is ‘DIE’, not suffer cancer, thyroid disfunction, etc. And, I am sure you will agree, being from the source of the problem, it is safe to assume that figure is rather conservative.
Scanners: Abdulmutallab, Reid, Chertoff, that Nicely Dressed Indian Man and the Great Terror Lobby
Terror Fever
Terror Fever has celebrated its 10th birthday. You may well think that all the hysteria that brought us the full-body scanner as a security measure began with 9/11, but you would be wrong. Extreme measures were already being taken a year before at around the same time GW Bush was dubiously winning his first electoral victory. The UK’s Terrorism Act 2000, for example, which included such Draconian measures as Stop and Search procedures based on your appearance or treating organisations that fight against state led torture as terrorist groups, etc. They sought to fight a phantom menace before most of the world had even heard mention of al Qaeda. Today, the CIA coined term for “the database” (al Qaeda) has been entered into every dictionary in every language worldwide.
Reid tried to set fire to the explosives in his shoe in spite of having a liquid detonator (PETN)
You may also be mistaken about what you consider to have been the most significant political soundbite ever uttered. I have no doubt it was when Bush Jr. addressed the world’s governments post 9/11 and threatened “you are either with us or with the terrorists”. Paradoxical for most, plain surreal for others. From that moment, who would dare question the demands of the US government in their War on Terror? Those who have dared have suffered the Neo-Con bullies within the US government with their sabre-rattling, and cruise missile showers.
In spite of all the warnings, in spite of all the intelligence, in spite of all the defence measures already in place, 9/11 happened and a fearful new chapter opened in the history books. Questions were raised, theories debated and new national security measures were eagerly sought. In the shock and awe of the TV images lower-end officials and politicians, bewildered by what had happened, fell over themselves in order to appear to be doing something… anything.
As a post 9/11 response to the threat posed by boxcutters, the sensitivity of the metal detector arches at airports was tweaked and we were all told to remove our belts before passing security. Then 3 months later, a fool with no proven connection to any terrorist networks carved out holes in the heels of his shoes in which he carried a small amount of potentially explosive material that he did not know how to handle, onto an American Airlines flight from Paris Charles de Gaulle. Ever since we have been told to remove our shoes at the airport.
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Enter Rapiscan
Rapiscanned: Nothing left to declare
The following year the answer to the problem of how to detect weapons hidden in shoes and pockets was answered in the form of the Rapiscan Secure 1000 backscatter scanner. Rapiscan, subsidiary of OSI Systems, manufacturer of security and medical scanning equipment, had come up with a monster. While several of those panicked low-level politicians must have cheered with Rapiscan’s release, most others were sucking through their teeth. Even in the aftermath of the most terrifying TV horror show of all time, the 200-times-a-day slow-motion repeat sequences on CNN and the BBC, even in the midsts of the “T” word being mentioned thousands of times per hour on every network and radio station, many in government felt that a machine that stripped innocent people naked was a step too far.
Interestingly enough, even today some 8 years later, the scanner programme is often said to still be in ‘trials’. These trials were tentatively initiated with as little press coverage as possible and with no chance for public debate whatsoever. As early as 2006, body scanners were being tested at Liverpool Street train station in London and later on at Paddington station and even Heathrow airport back as early as 2004.
However, the UK trials proved to be resounding failure causing extensive delays and false alarms. The scanner system was not going to work. To add insult to injury L3 had come up with the Millimetre Wave scanner and Rapiscan had its first serious competitor. L3, the bastard love child of the Lehman Brothers and Lockheed (Wow! What pedigree!) and with the full force of the military lobby behind it, had opted for the lesser of two evils in its technology. Whereas everyone knew that the ionising radiation of the Rapiscan scanner could provoke cancer, the L3 technology was untested and therefore showed no negative side-effects. On top of that, the quality of image was far below that of the Rapiscan machine. But who cared? What was important was to be seen doing something to join in the Bush administration’s War on Terror.
In 2008, the European Commission prepared a report on scanner use at EU airports which favoured full-body scanners. However, the EU parliament was not buying it and through fears of violating essential EU citizens’ rights, voted down a common policy on scanner use. All the same, Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport had already decided to adopt L3′s scanners. L3′s machine was a mere side-line to their overinflated defence contracts and so they could weather any storm, EU common policy or not.
OSI (Rapiscan) share price plummets with EU rejection followed by a sharp recovery with underwear bomber at the end of 2009
The future for Rapiscan and its parent company OSI, however, was bleak. They had bet most of their chips on their backscatter technology and the inferior and more costly machines were winning the day. The OSI share price began to plummet and only a miracle could revive their fortunes. What they needed was a double-barrelled miracle that would reopen interest in their product and simultaneously spit in the eye of their competitor.
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Enter the Underwear Bomber.
I find it hard to believe that it was simply a coincidence that this miracle decided to pass through Schiphol, the only EU airport to wholeheartedly embrace L3 Millimetre wave scanners.
The miracle came in the form of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who like Richard Reid before him, was another inept misfit with no idea of how to make or detonate a bomb. Son of a successful Nigerian banker, this troubled youth was planning to kill himself. He strived attention, the kind that CNN gives you 200 times a day and travelled to London and Yemen for ideas, and like so ignored many kids, he got in with the wrong crowd.
On Christmas day 2009 he boarded a flight from Lagos, Nigeria to Schiphol, Holland where he would catch his connecting flight to Detroit. Hidden in his underwear were two plastic bags with PETN and TAPN, the ingredients to make a plastic explosive, exactly the same explosive carried by Richard Reid in 2001. The shoe bomber’s ineptitude had known no bounds, if the official story is to be believed. Reid had tried detonate his explosive with a cigarette lighter and a fuse. But the explosive he had detonates when its two principal ingredients are mixed. The ‘official’ story of his actions did not make any sense, and will never as Reid is currently serving 3 life sentences in the US and has been forbidden access to the press. Abdulmutallab’s plan was to mix the two liquids aboard the plane while flying over Detroit. But again, his plan was entirely flawed. Laboratory conditions and expert hands would be required to create a reaction violent enough to explode the material he was carrying. Instead, his unsteady hands just provoked fire and noxious smoke from his underpants. It also provoked enough of a political kneejerk reaction to revive the dying beast of Rapiscan design.
Had the mysterious al Qaeda not learned how to make a bomb in the 8 years between Reid and Abdulmutallab?
There were enormous anomolies in what was to be the official story from early on. Firstly, Abdulmutallab was already on CIA and British intelligence watch lists, yet managed to board the flight. His own father had reported his son’s intentions to the CIA office in Lagos two weeks before the event, yet he was still able to board the flight. An updated no-fly list was sent to Schiphol with his name on it, but, we are told, arrived too late. For some reason the body scanners which had already been in use for the two years previous were not switched on that day. Is this yet another string of faux pas and fuck ups just like we heard of on the 11th of September 2001, or on the 11th of March 2004 in Madrid or even on the 7th of July 2005 in London? Or was there much more to the story?
According to eye-witness testimony on the ground, Abdulmutallab, dishevelled and without so much as a jacket or luggage on a flight to Detroit in winter, was accompanied by a “nicely dressed Indian-looking man” at the airport. Michigan attorneys Kurt and Lori Haskell waiting for check in to begin noticed the Indian man accompanying what they would later recognise as Abdulmutallab.
“My wife and I were playing cards directly in front of the check in counter. This is what I saw:
An Indian man in a nicely dressed suit around age 50 approached the check in counter with the terrorist and said “This man needs to get on this flight and he has no passport.” The two of them were an odd pair as the terrorist is a short, black man that looked like he was very poor and looks around age 17. It did not cross my mind that they were terrorists, only that the two looked weird together. The ticket taker said “you can’t board without a passport”. The Indian man then replied, “He is from Sudan, we do this all the time”. I can only take from this to mean that it is difficult to get passports from Sudan and this was some sort of sympathy ploy. The ticket taker then said “You will have to talk to my manager”, and sent the two down a hallway. I never saw the Indian man again as he wasn’t on the flight. It was also weird that the terrorist never said a word in this exchange. Anyway, somehow, the terrorist still made it onto the plane. I am not sure if it was a bribe or just sympathy from the security manager.”
Kurt Haskell
The scene mirrored perfectly the prediction of the US Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff in his report presented in 2008 which foresaw that “terrorists” would board planes claiming to be refugees or asylum seekers in order to exploit foreign travel channels. I am always amazed at the foresight of politicians and policy makers and my jaw then hits the ground when these so-called terrorists waltz nonchelantly onto an international flight unimpeded.
Who the “nicely dressed Indian man” was is key to the whole story as well as to the excuse for the mass roll-out of body scanners worldwide. Why was he helping the Nigerian kid? How did he know him? The FBI have said that they there was no Indian man and just to prove it, they and the Dutch security forces have decided to withhold all CCTV footage from Schiphol that day.
At Detroit another Indian looking man from the flight, younger this time (the man in orange) was taken aside for questioning after police sniffer dogs reacted to something in his hand luggage, and was soon released without charges. He was also released and left the airport facilities before the rest of the passengers. Who was he? The FBI say they have eliminated him from their enquiries. Initially they had denied all knowledge of the man, changing their official story 5 times. They later admitted to his existance when other witnesses spoke of him
During the incident when almost everyone was buckling up their seatbelts and expecting the worst, another man was standing calmly and filming the whole event. He has never come forward and presented his film publicly. Who was he and why was he so calm? Did he know something the other passengers did not? Why was he filming? The FBI make no mention of him whatsoever.
The Haskells, of course, were not the only witnesses to the crimes and weirdness that day. They were the just the only ones brave enough to come forward and speak out against the lies. Some have corroborated Kurt and Lori’s story in private, but few have spoken out publicly about it. Likewise, no one has corroborated the “official” story either. On the 25th of December 2009 something was seen. It was considered to be far more frightening than a man with his underpants on fire. Something frightening enough to keep the silence of scores of passengers.
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The Chertoff Connection and ICTS
Everyone must understand that ICTS is the worst airport security company ever to have existed…. FACT. They were running the show at Schiphol that day, just as they were at Boston’s Logan on 11th of September 2001, and as well when Richard Reid boarded his flight at Charles de Gaulle. This is the security company made up of crack Israeli ex Shin Bet agents, expert in counter-terrorism, that has the worst airport security track record in history. Prior to the 3 biggest air-terrorist acts in recent history this company actually managed to TURN OFF all procedures just at the moment when the terrorists were passing security. Mohamed Atta managed to breeze through the magnetic detectors with his boxcutters without so much as a beep. Richard Reid had already been identified as a potential threat, yet was allowed to board his flight. Abdulmutallab had all the markings of a suicide bomber and even his own father had reported him two weeks before, and the scanners just happened to be switched off that day. Either this company is really, really unlucky or its Israeli owners had a side-line more profitable than its airport security racket.
Michael Chertoff did not consider this relevant. He only thought it appropriate to throw more money at airport security.
Ex US Secretary of Homeland Security under JW Bush and co-author of the controversial Patriot Act, Michael Chertoff was one of the first to shout from the rooftops his idea of the cure to the problem. He was under no doubt that what the world needed was full-body scanners at all international airports. He also claimed that if they [the US] had been in charge of security that day, the flight 253 incident would never have happened. Ha ha ha! US Customs officers WERE there, so why were they not interviewing passengers?
Then there are Chertoff’s business interests to consider. The Chertoff Group had actually been contracted by Rapiscan to sell their products. And here was an advisor to the Secretary of Homeland security peddling his client’s wares shamelessly on CNN. Advisor to Janet Napolitano, he was telling her that the US needed body scanners and at the same time was receiving money directly from one of the principal manufacturers of scanners – Rapiscan.
I don’t know about you, but that seems to me to be the ingredients for the biggest scandal since Watergate.
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Follow the Money Trail
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.“ US Constitution, 4th Amendment
Everyone knows that the government, no matter how “Democratic” you think it is, is a closed shop. It will never be revealed exactly how much of a financial interest Chertoff ever had in the scanners. That is why, some 10 months later, even Kurt and Lori Haskell have not been allowed access to the CCTV footage of that day at Schiphol to confirm their eye-witness testimony. If anyone out there is the eternal optimist, today on the news I heard that the US government has just released the ‘remastered’ version of the moon landings- Photoshopped to hell to cover up those conflicting shadows. So, don’t hold your breath waiting for the Schiphol tapes.
In investigating any crime, all avenues of possible responsibility have to be explored. A rushed nonsensical excuse of a story, which the official story was, can never reveal even a fraction of the truth. Motive and probable cause should be meticulously examined. Was the initial charge laid against Abdumutallab the full story? Until the identities of all the players have been revealed, we will never know. The excuse given for not releasing certain information, such as the CCTV footage from both Schiphol and Detroit, has always been “National Security”. But what kind of significant threat to National Security is a terrorist network that cannot train its own operatives in bomb manufacturing and that is incapable of learning the mistakes of a failed operation 8 years before? Are our nations really at threat from the likes of Abdulmutallab and Reid currently serving jailtime in US prisons? I doubt it.
The smartly dressed Indian man as well as the Indian man in orange remain key to this case. They are, in themselves, reason for a fully public and independent enquiry (Chertoff is another). Without them there are far too many gaps in this puzzle.
Nicely dressed (left to right) Deepak Chopra, Chairman, OSI Group, L. Satyanarayana, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, ECIL Rapiscan, and G.P. Srivastava, Chairman and Managing Director, Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL)... laughing all the way to the bank.
Sam Edi
Scrap the Scanners
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Check out these sites for more info on the scanners and the growing movement against electronic strip searches.
http://airportbodyscan.org/
http://www.nudeoscope.com/
http://ThousandsStandingAround.com/
Umar Farouk
Liquid Explosives and the Scanners
What are they looking for through the scanners?
What is it that they are looking for? It’s time to lift the veil of what they are telling us to fear.
Kindly drop your perfumes and toiletries in the bin. You can find them again later on Ebay
Is it rude to mention “liquid explosives” in public? The entire debate around the need for airport body scanners revolves around the subject, but hardly any media source makes mention of them. In security circles, is it the equivalent of farting at a wedding? Our beloved governments dare not mention liquid explosives when discussing the imperative need for scanning millions of innocent people with radiation emitting devices, and neither does the EU. They only dare refer to ‘Prohibited Items’. A more ambiguous objective for a multi-billion dollar scanner roll-out, I cannot imagine. Only the UK government admits that their scanner roll-out is in direct response to the underpants bomber debacle on the 25th December 2009. Still, they daren’t mention the weapon he was carrying – that’s taboo!
200 killed and no one saw anyone dropping off the rucksack bombs
This was all born off the back of post-9/11 Terror Fever, so we know that it’s all about suicide terrorists. Who else would try to take a bomb aboard an aircraft? It’s unlikely to be an attack of the style we were told the Madrid bombers used, in which the apparent terrorists boarded overcrowded commuter trains, put their rucksack bombs down among the passengers and promptly got off again without their luggage and without so much as raise of an eyebrow from the soon-to-be victims (of course all of the scores of cctv cameras along the route and station platforms were switched off that morning). No, it would be impossible to perform that kind of attack at an airport, with or without the TSA. And it can’t be the style of attack that we were told Libya perpetrated against a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland. That bomb was placed in the hold and no passenger could possibly have had access. Nor are they trying to stop any airport workers slipping an explosive into the drinks trolley. No, no, no, the gin and tonics do not have to pass security scanners in 100ml bottles sealed inside transparent baggies.
So you see, we are definitely talking suicide bombers with bombs hidden beneath their clothes.
They are not looking for …
- Hand grenades – metal detector arches spot those.
- Dynamite sticks – sniffer dogs.
- Solid plastic explosives such as C2 – needs cables and batteries – metal detector arches again
They are primarily concerned with detecting LIQUID EXPLOSIVES. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
The underpants bomber carried liquid explosives because they do not require metallic parts that can easily be detected in traditional metal detector arches. He had TATP and PETN, which for those of you who have suffered seeing Die Hard 3, are the 2 magic liquids that, once mixed together, can explode with a simple shake of the wrist … apparently.
Reid tried to set fire to his explosives in spite of having a liquid detonator (PETN)
Richard Reid, the Shoe Bomber carried the same substances in the heels of his hollowed-out hiking boots, leading to the need to remove your shoes at airports over the last 10 years. Clearly (from this picture), he was not able to carry more than 100ml in each heel, so why do we have a ban only on bottles of liquids over 100ml? Either Reid was no real threat to his flight with his tiny amounts of explosives, or the airport liquids ban is a complete waste of time. Someone is not telling us the truth! In any account, the inept would-be shoe bomber had no idea of how to detonate the liquids and simply set fire to his foot.
And please ignore the likes of European Commissioner Siim Kallas who claimed in his report last year that the liquids ban should be lifted because most airports now have hand luggage scanners that can distiguish between PETN and shampoo. Less than 10% of EU airports have bought this technology and their screening processes cannot distinguish between different liquid substances. The airports are not buying it Mr Kallas. They don’t believe you. They still fear some other inept fool like Adulmutallab or Reid may still besmirch the name of their airport security staff. I’ll come back to Kallas and the real reason he
"Doh! Can you see the egg on my face yet?" Euro Commissioner Siim Kallas realises that the threat from liquid explosives was just a prank.
thinks the liquids ban should stop, later on.
Liquid explosives must be mixed on site. They cannot be practically mixed at home, dropped into several 100 ml bottles then put into a rucksack and casually tossed over ones shoulder to later be exploded at will. The final substance would be far too volatile, and could do just about anything while you are travelling to the airport. Everything from foaming up, letting off copious amounts of noxious fumes and/or even setting fire. Airport security might notice that one at a distance.
Once on board the aircraft, the terrorist would have to employ the following method … if destroying the aircraft were really his intention:
1. Very gradually, drop by drop, mix the two substances (PETN and TATP, for example) into a fireproof container. This process, it is said, would take around 5 hours considering the quantities necessary for the job.
2. Maintain the liquids and mixture at between 2 and 10 degrees centigrade. Any variation of this would render the liquids inert and inexplosive.
3. In the absence of adequate ventilation on board the aircraft, some sort of breathing apparatus would be needed as during the process as large amounts of noxious fumes would be produced.
Terrorist in the toilet???
So, if you happen to find yourself on a flight that lasts more than 5 hours and a passenger disappears into the WC for the duration of the flight with a couple of buckets of ice and a gas mask, and then the entire aircraft fills with chemical fumes, you should alert the cabin crew. If not, you have nothing to worry about.
That is what Mr Kallas at the European Commission must have realised just before he called for the lifting of the liquids ban.
That is why all the panic over liquid explosives is unwarranted.
That is why airport body scanners do nothing whatsoever to improve your safety.
And that is why unenlightened politicians exposed to the temptations of security industry lobbyists, or far too lazy to do a little bit of rational investigation into these so-called threats, should not be allowed to take human rights risking knee-jerk reactions after every inept would-be bomber sets fire to his clothes in public.
Currently, new legislation that gives the EU’s blessing to member states to use scanners, is moving slowly through the bureaucratic soup called Brussels. Not even the parliamentary members who have to approve the imminent new law know what they are voting on because the European Commission’s impact assessment which was finished in March 2011 has still not been published yet.
We have a copy though, even if the MEPs don’t.
I hope to post it on this site in a few days.
Sam Edi
Scrap the Scanners
Further reading:
Liquid explosive list – http://www.aiexplosives.com/inspections_articles.asp?id=23
Liquid explosives impossible to mix on board a plane -http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364×2011878
The improbability of liquid explosives - http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/faba743a-288c-11db-a2c1-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=ac91a100-4fae-11da-8b72-0000779e2340.html#axzz1YuVTQtys
Schneier on the Implausibility of a Liquid Bomb Plot -http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/on_the_implausi.html
Scanners and European Reticence
European Reticence
Come queue with me
The US Congress have just voted in a $37 billion addition to the already inflated Dept. of Homeland Security budget, a large amount of which will be invested in body scanners at US airports and train stations. Yes, that’s right, ‘train stations‘. A piece of news Obama was clearly not privy to when quipping at his State of the Union speech. But then why should he be? He’s only the president. The aggressiveness of the TSA ‘scan-or-grope’ plan as a reaction to one dimwit with a dud explosive seems to know no bounds as shoulder-shrugging acceptance seeps into the US travelling public.
So, while the US generously protects other nations from the potential attacks of the phantasmal al Qaeda by ensuring suicide tourists do not take explosives by plane into foreign airspace, what about those incoming flights like that on which Abdulmutallab set fire to his underwear? The good ol’ US of A is surely at threat from incoming flights as much as domestic and outgoing flights.
A quick trip around the world with scanners
Tragic aftermath of suicide terrorist attack at Moscow airport
One would think that Russia would be reconsidering scanner use, along with any other airport procedures that cause delays and accumulations of people in public buildings, after the recent suicide bombing at Domodedovo airport in Moscow. But no. They have just announced plans to introduce the scanners in their train stations too. But hey! There’s nothing like a good old terrorist attack to unify the voters behind the ruling party, is there? Just ask Bush and Cheney. Terrorism has its upside for some, it seems. Nonetheless, there has been little talk of more airport scanners in Russia.
Middle Eastern countries are still holding out, for obvious reasons, and don’t look likely to have the scanners on the table for some time yet.
… and Europe?
What happened to the scanners plan in Europe?
That ‘special relationship’ between the US and the UK was evident when Prime Minister Brown pledged full support in January of 2010. They already had the scanners on-site at Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Manchester and were already up and running at Heathrow (since 2006) and Manchester. In spite of the new Deputy Prime Minister Clegg’s bold promises to redress the imbalance of civil liberties in the UK, the scanner issue seems to have slipped his mind. Or has it? He has shown that, in spite of his initial bold speeches, he hasn’t got the balls to come forward and openly denounce the obviously offensive nature of scanner use, but then neither has the government tried to extend the scan-plan. I can only imagine that they are still awaiting the results of the public consultation they ran before last summer. My, it does take a long time to write a report, doesn’t it? They have given the go-ahead for operating a Millimeter Wave scanner at Gatwick, but that was a plan that already programmed before the fall of the Brown government.
Manchester airport’s operators are more than happy with their Backscatter scanners and have already announced an end to their trials. That means that now they are a permanent fixture at the airport. However, Heathrow airport, which has been running scanner trials since 2006, still has not declared an end to their tests and still has not been able to reduce the waiting time of passengers arriving at the airport from 3 hours. After 5 years of trials, you would think that they would have come to some kind of conclusion by now.
If the new coalition government in the UK had wanted to, they could have easily extended the scan-plan to other airports, especially when you consider the disastrous establishment charlatans heading the civil liberties unions there, such as Liberty and their acclaimed head Shami Chakrabarti, who willingly let herself be scanned at Heathrow and only managed to describe the experience as a “nuisance”.
Not even the cost to the tax payers can be used as an excuse in Britain as it’s the airport operators (and eventually the airline customers) who have to foot the bill for the implementation of scanners. So, what’s their game? Are they getting cold feet?
France too seems a little reluctant to implement a full scanners programme, even though Tweedle-Dum terrorist Richard Reid flew from Charles de Gaulle in 2001. Yet they still only have one Millimeter Scanner in Paris.
Germany played a shrewd game and waited for the noise and inertia of the anti-scanner campaigners to die down before introducing a ‘voluntary’ (yes, voluntary!) scan at Hamburg airport. What kind of perverted mind would actually volunteer to be electronically strip-searched in front of strangers? This is far beyond my understanding.“Hey! I might be a terrorist, I’m not sure. Perhaps you should scan me.”
The Italian aviation authority has already rejected the scanners for being ineffective and slow, but the Berlusconi government continue having their sights set on using scanners at train stations. They clearly think they can do it better that the Brits whose station trials failed hopelessly.
Spain has been on the verge of introducing the scanners for a year, but are still dithering. However, they do have what appear to be American TSA agents at Madrid’s airport training security guards in their new advanced groping procedures in readiness for a scan-or-grope coercion measure. One story recently out of Madrid Barajas is that of an elderly gentleman who was escorted off a US bound flight he had already boarded because the Spanish security guards apparently hadn’t patted him down enough. The Spanish guards were accompanied by their American trainers. 10 minutes later after his second grope, the poor old fellow returned to his seat limping and clutching his groin in pain. What next? A rabbit punch in the stomach for every passenger?
That just leaves Schiphol airport in Holland. They were the first in Europe to fully embrace the scanners and have a full set of L3 Millimeter Wave scanners. They learned an important lesson on the 25th of December 2009 – they learned that you need to switch them on!! But again… no plans to expand the scanner plan.
Does the EU want scanners?
The typical response of any Europolitico to questions on the body scanners is always the same: “We are waiting for the European Union to take a decision.” When the scanners were first proposed in 2008, the European Commission was called in to evaluate the technology. Their results were in favour of the technology and there was an almost immediate debate and vote in the EU parliament. But EU ministers were not buying it. They voted down a common policy on the scanners citing privacy concerns. Then, for no apparent reason, the European Commission was told to undertake exactly the same study again in 2010. This time Commissioner Siim Kallas’ report was more of a stuttering and pointless mess with no interpretable conclusions. Half the press reported it as a damnation of scanners while the other half presented it as a victory for the scanner industry. No one really understood what it was trying to say. Since its publication, no debates or bills on scanners have been presented in the EU parliament. Why??
Darth Napolitano
We need to see your children naked - it's a question of National Security
In April 2010 in Toledo, Spain, Secretary of State for Homeland Security Janet Napolitano attended a meeting with EU interior ministers (home office) in order to sell her scan-plan to Europe. The scanning of air passengers all over the US would not make any sense at all if incoming passengers from foreign nations had not been irradiated too. Exactly what was said at that meeting remains a secret, in spite of being – supposedly – of benefit to the general public. There can be no doubt that her role was to remind the European Union that when Washington says “jump”, Europe jumps. But, the way that the old continent is dragging its heels on the scanners issue suggests that she forgot to say how high.
Never mind Janet. I’m sure some other dimwit is already planning a trip with duff explosives that will catapult Europe into line with the Empire’s demands.
Sam Edi
SCRAP THE SCANNERS
Backstabbed by Backscatter
The following first appeared on the wall of “All Facebook Against Airport Full-Body Scanners“
From everyone at Scrap the Scanners, many thanks to Michelle for the story. We wish you all the very best with your treatment and hope you keep us up to date with all developments on this issue…. don’t let them get away with this!
Damage due to backscatter radiation – a first-hand account
While I was still in college I got a job with AS&E in Cambridge, MA.
I worked at their research facility on Mass Ave, a block away from the Orson Welles movie theater. Back then you didn’t have to buy pot to get high. All you had to do is to go to the movie theater. There was smoke everywhere. AS&E was a large four story beige building with huge lettering American Science and Engineering on it.
At that time AS&E had several grants from the Feds to develop scanning methodologies to be used at the airports. They had an interesting way of generating ideas. One of them was an ongoing interview process with literally hundreds of people who would come between 5 and 8 p.m. There was a team of 5 or 6 managers picking brains of all those scholars and physicists, and engineers. Many of the folks were either recent grads or worked at one of the many tech companies on Route 128. Managers would write reports after the interviews and argue pros and cons of all those ideas. Rarely did they extend a job offer.
One of my projects was to run comparison testing of different scanning methods, mostly backscatter and millimeter waves. Digital tech was still in its infancy and so most of the gear was analog.
I would vary the radiation dosages and place in the chamber cats and dogs with some weird clothing with lotsa pockets. I wore lead-meshed gloves to handle the pets and to protect myself from radiation.
Two or three weeks into the testing some of the dogs started shedding fur. I didn’t notice any changes with the cats.
After every experiment I would enter my observations into the journal. That would include time, day, dosage, pets name, intensity peaks, picture quality, etc. I also wrote about the shedding. My boss replaced the journals, and told me not to report any of that silly stuff.
Three months into the job, I noticed long white streaks on my arms and my chest. I showed them to my Physics professor who said that those are signs of the radiation poisoning. He suggested I quit working there. When I told my bosses at AS&E about my predicament they offered me money under the condition that I sign a waiver and a non-disclosure agreement. I was a student, poor, and foolish, and so I took the money.
Now, years later, those white streaks are still there.
Recently, I got admitted to the ER for an unrelated problem. Initially, the doctor who saw me said that they’ll fix me in no time. I had a CAT scan done all over my body. Two hours later the doc came to my room with several other doctors, and he looked grim. I was told that I have cancer spots all over my body, but the majority of spots were concentrated in the lungs. They asked me how long did I smoke. I told them I never smoked, and neither did anybody in my family.
They took pictures of my arms and my chest with the old x-ray burns. One of the gentlemen introduced himself as a clinical professor at the med school associated with that hospital. He asked me whether I’d be interested in their study. He’s offered me money to become a Guinea Pig, and said there will be more money later.
To be cont’d
Michelle Ng
Scanners: Stand up and defend your rights
Over the past year one of the most frequent pro-scanner comments I have seen on Internet discussion boards and comments sections has been “Flying is not a right, it is a privilege”. Every time I read it, I feel a sinking feeling in my gut and my shoulders droop with despair. It is yet another sign that we are being dragged into global media-induced slavery. Privileges are granted by a higher authority, usually for obedient behaviour. In the old USSR, for example, Communist party card holders would receive special privileges over everyone else – like food for example. Rights, however, are the opposite. They exist before and as the underlying base of any so-called “free” society. The concept of Democracy, for example, cannot exist without a good set of inalienable rights. A Democracy must therefore be false if it grants citizens privileges. In discussing the relationship between a government and citizens, privileges can only belong in a Dictatorship.
But what are the rights of a free people? They are an abstract of ourselves, of our hopes, desires and our sense of individualism and liberty. Rights are what we need to exist… the right to live, for example. Slaves do not have rights, only free people. Rights are nothing to do with the words on pieces of paper that were signed by elected representatives. They cannot be rescinded, restricted or modified at will as they are fundamental to the free human spirit. Politicians have no business messing with our rights no matter what the circumstances. Our rights are what WE say they are. And I have the right to travel unimpeded, un-irradiated, un-violated and without being treated as a criminal or an enemy of their state. I do not need the European Union, the United Nations, the British parliament or the US congress to debate and decide what my rights are. I will tell the European Union, the US Congress and all the others exactly what MY rights are. Nor do I need to be treated like a potential criminal by the TSA or any other airport security racket. A global programme of castration of all men would undoubtedly prevent any more rape cases, but we don’t treat half the population of the world as potential rapists, do we? So why treat 2.5 billion air travellers per year, men, women, children and babies, as potential terrorists?
Just like your body, your rights need to be exercised. If not, they will become flabby and weak. Which is why we are calling on all of you to join us in protest, in signing the petitions, writing to your congressmen, ministers, local and national press, etc. to voice your opposition to the scanners.
More than a violation of human rights declarations, more than a violation of our constitutional rights, more than a serious health hazard, more than a nonsensical security contradiction, the scanners programme marks one of the most daring and shameless steps in striping us all of what is left of our rights. If they are successful, you will see the programme extended to train stations, public buildings, sports stadiums, and inevitably schools and colleges. This has already begun in the US, and we will see it globally if we do not speak out now. If we accept the scanners by simply not opposing them, we will path the way for ever more audacious and offensive “security” measures. Don’t sit idly by. Organise, team up, inform, raise questions, expand the public debate and, above all, protest!
SIGN THE PETITIONS NOW and pass the message on!
http://www.petitiononline.com/StopScan/petition.html
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/38370.html#fbbox
http://www.wnd.com/airportscreening
Defend your rights.
End the terror.
SCRAP THE SCANNERS!
www.scrapthescanners.wordpress.com
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=239458517874
Sam Edi
Your Rights 1 – Mind the Scanners.
Dear mum
In a few days you are off on another adventure with my aunt around the world. Two middle-aged girls (stereo-typical terrorists) travelling around to meet up with old friends, see the sights and savour all the joys of the latest security procedures in airport departure lounges. As you are already aware from your numerous travels, you are far safer flying transatlantic than you are walking down the street because international terrorist attacks are thousands of times less common than lightning strikes. But this year, you will see, that Terror Fever has reached new lows. Some of the places you are visiting (all the places least prone to terrorist attacks) have decided to adopt ridiculously over-the-top security measures, while other places in the world, such as countries of the Middle-East, have seen through the falsehood that is the body scanner and rejected the lobbyists’ offers.
Leering from a darkened booth.
You’ll be starting off from Heathrow, London. You may well be selected for a scan in the Rapiscan Secure 1000 backscatter x-ray scanner, in which your naked body will be viewed by a security guard sitting in a room with a radio connection to the security guards in the Departure lounge entrance. They will be looking for explosives. Guns and knives will have already been eliminated from the search list as you will have already passed through the metal detector arch. Of course you do not look like a potential suicide terrorist, but as you already know, rational thought is beyond the little Hitlers of airport security. You will also be quized on other privacy-right violating questions, such as what your racial background is, what your political beliefs are and what your religion is. You see there is the paradox – the selection process for scanning is supposed to be completely random, but after being ‘randomly selected’ your profile is recorded and lifestyle documented. Why, if you do not match their mysterious profile, you are still required to be irradiated in the scanner is a mystery to me and all other sane people.
You will also be glad to hear that if you feel uncomfortable with the idea of a male security guard leering at your naked body on a screen in his own dark little private booth, you are generously granted the right to request a female security guard to ogle you instead. There are, however, no effective systems to monitor that this request is actually being granted, but hey, imagining that government departments like the DfT are doing their job will do you fine – sticking their heads in the ground when being attacked by lions apparently works for ostriches too!
You do, of course, have the right to refuse the scan, but you must understand that you will then be refused the right to fly. In fact, what will happen if you refuse is that you will be led away to private room where you will be held against your will for several hours and interrogated. Once the interrogation is over they will have established that you are not, of course, a suicide terrorist and that you do not have illegal objects hidden beneath your clothing. When the little-Hitlers have finished with you and established that you are not in any way shape or form a danger to national or air security, you still will not be allowed to fly. Why? There’s no logical reason other than you are being punished for questioning the word of authority.
So I fully understand why you or anyone else would accept being scanned. Flying is not the same as getting on a bus (which incidentally holds a far greater statistically-based risk of terrorist attacks). It demands a much greater investment, both economic and emotional. You could be going on holiday and spending between 5 – 15% of your annual earnings on a well deserved rest you have waited over 11 months for, or you could be off to visit loved ones who live far away, or travelling to an essential meeting for work, etc. All of these reasons to travel require an investment that has to be weighed up against your essential human rights being eroded chip by chip. Most would risk the scanner, its health risks and its human rights violations during a few seconds rather than lose all investment in that flight. More than 1/4 million have done so far through Heathrow. That does not make the violations any less offensive though.
The establishment chooses its own opposition
So, I wonder why Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, the most applauded civil liberties campaign group in the UK, decided it appropriate to be scanned at Heathrow on her way to Belfast. Here is a person who has received accolade after accolade for her “work” on human rights. On the topic of airport body scanners – what must be the greatest violation of human rights on British soil in recent history – Chakrabarti has said nothing. In fact, being paid what she is being paid and travelling on Liberty expenses, she had less obligation to pass through the scanner than most. All she had to do was say ‘no’ and then seek one of the many alternatives . But by accepting to be scanned she did the opposite of what she has been applauded for – she endorsed human rights abuses. She endorsed the scanners.
Under most constitutions of the world, compulsory strip-searches without demonstrable suspicion would be illegal, but the UK’s constitution is impossible to interpret with any objectivity, so essentially you have no rights.
Once you have managed to board your flight you can look forward to visiting all of those countries where the word ‘constitution’ still means something. Well, ‘something’ is better than nothing, right?
The United States is going to bring just as much fun to your holiday. You will have the pleasure of meeting with the ever so polite TSA agents. Now, they really, really want you try out their new gadgets. In fact you may find them a little pushy. To the point where they completely forget that in the USA you legally have the right to refuse the scan and still take your flight. If you do forego the scan, you’ll have to take the frisky ‘pat down’ instead. Some TSA agents will forget that you have an option at all. You’ll have to stand your ground though. They will try to push the idea of being strip-searched in a scanner as the most normal thing in the world and anyone who refuses must then be ‘abnormal’.
But don’t worry, you won’t be alone. Everyone gets the same treatment, even the pilots! I mean, you can imagine the threat that airline pilots pose. They might sneak in a weapon and hijack their own planes! The same plane they were flying originally!
Is any of this making sense?
What right?
So, it’s time we cut to the chase. What kind of rights are we discussing here? Well… right to privacy, dignity, protection from degrading treatment, right to practice the religion of your choice, protection from arbitrary detention, and those kind of things… Ms. Chakrabarti.
Our rights are our freedoms. Without rights we are slaves. We do not need a self-appointed governmental body to validate or grant us rights by signing a paper. Our rights and our understanding of them are what we have passed down, generation to generation, from pre-history. Our rights are a priori in anything we consider society. They are ours and not for qualifying, interpreting, rescinding or granting by anyone who considers themself empowered to do so. Nonetheless, if you wish to quote a few politically recognised rights that are violated by body scanner use, just pick some from the table below.
| UDHR | EUCHR | HRA | |
| Degrading treatment | Art. 3 | Art. 1, Art. 4 | |
| Arbitrary detention | Art. 9 | ||
| Arbitrary interference with privacy | Art. 12 | Art. 7, Art.8 | Art. 8 |
| Right to leave a country | Art. 13 | Art. 45 | |
| Freedom of religion | Art. 18 | Art. 10 | Art. 9 |
Degrading treatment: Most constitutions and rights declarations put this close to the top of the list. In fact protecting human dignity was at the forefront of the creation of the EUCHR. Arbitrary detention: I included this since the two women who refused to undergo the scan at Manchester airport were held for questioning. Arbitrary interference with privacy: What could be more private than the image of the naked human body. Most people have few qualms with exposing themselves with clothes and few would worry about sharing images of themselves below the skin. But it is the skin below our clothes that culturally we have grown to consider our most intimate image. Right to leave a country: If a person is refused the right to fly from a UK airport for turning down the scan, then how could an Australian, for example, practically return home? Freedom of religion: Exercising modesty forms an integral part of many religions and cultures, not only Islam. By forcing a person to give up their modesty would have the same effect as forcing a Jew to eat bacon and undermine their right to practice the teachings of their religion.
Martin Schenin, the UN special rapporteur on the protection of human rights said that while countering extremism scanners were both an ineffective means of prevention and an excessive intrusion into individual privacy.
“The use of a full-body scanner which reveals graphic details of the human body, including the most private parts of it, very easily is a violation of human rights. It would be a violation of human rights in respect to everyone, but there are particular sensitivities in respect of women, certain religions, certain cultural backgrounds.”
Inadequacies in security staff training and vetting, as highlighted in the recent case of a Heathrow airport security guard who it is claimed “ogled” a fellow security officer after scanning her body without her consent, would inevitably give rise to breaches in Article 3 of the UK Human Rights Act. It was clearly a degrading act and affected the dignity of the woman scanned. How many passengers have been leered and jeered at through the scanners?
The Fiqh Council of North America issued a religious ruling in February 2010 that says that going through the scanners would violate Islamic rules on Modesty.
“It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women. Islam highly emphasises haya (modesty) and considers it part of faith. The Quran has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts.”
Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the islamic Human Rights Commission in London, stated that the body scanner process at airports was “totally unacceptable and what is worse, doesn’t make any security sense.”
Agudath Israel, Orthodox Jewish umbrella group, called body scanner processes “offensive, demeaning and far short of acceptable norms of modesty” within Judaism and other faiths.
In February 2010, Pope Benedict XVIspoke out against scanners on the grounds that they failed to preserve the integrity of individuals.
In the UK and US children are not exempt from body scanning at airports. In London, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission wrote to the former Home Secretary Alan Johnson warning him that body scanners are likely to have a negative impact on privacy, especially for the disabled, elderly, children and transgender people.
Terri Dowty, of Action for Rights of Children, has said that the scanners could breach the Protection of Children Act 1978, under which it is illegal to create an indecent image or a pseudo-image of a child. Therefore if a complaint is made by a parent or guardian of a child who has been scanned, the UK government could face the charge of having committed a criminal offence in obliging children to pass through the scanning process and subsequently producing an indecent and naked image of that child.
In recent months doubts over what exactly adequate training and vetting of security screening staff would involve and of if it could in fact be achieved, were once again brought into question in the US with clear cases of breaches in the UDHR. In March, a Transport Security Agency (TSA) employee was reported to have been mocked after a fellow worker had viewed an image of his naked body through a scanner they were using at that airport. In February of this year US journalist Sandra Fish had to suffer a strip search following a body scan because the TSA agent that viewed her naked image could not distinguish between a breast prosthesis and an explosive. The same journalist tells of an acquaintance who suffered similar humiliation at the hands of the TSA due to his colostomy bag.
Over the last 10 years the Western world has seen a subtle, yet persistent chipping away of its essential rights. This erosion has been quiet enough and well managed enough to slip under the radar. It has been helped along by the look-the-other-way policies of the mainstream press, and the highly suspect inactivity of career campaigners, such as Shami Chakrabarti. Earlier this year the world’s governments chipped off a big chunk of our rights with one strike when they announced their massive roll-out of full-body scanners at airports. We barely batted an eyelid. Because of that, I can guarantee you that the next so-called security measure to be forced on us will be far more intrusive and dangerous.
Enjoy your trip. Don’t forget to send us a postcard.
Sam Edi
…
…to be continued.
Airport X Ray Full Body Scanners – A risk worth taking?
The following illustration is based on Bureau of Transportation statistics data from October 1999 to September 2009 inclusive.
Total number of commercial flights: Ninety nine million, three hundred and twenty thousand, three hundred and nine.
Total number of successful terrorist attacks: 4.
That’s a 0.000004% chance that you’ll be a victim of airborne terrorism on your next flight. Bear in mind that these statistics take into account the events of September 11 2001 – Not an event that happens very often.
Based on the number of airborne hours that’s one attack per 27.2 million hours. Or one attack every 3,105 years.
The odds of becoming a victim of terrorism in the air is one in ten million, four hundred and eight thousand, nine hundred and forty seven.
Lets put that into perspective.
The odds of being struck by lightning: One in half a million.
“Never tell me the odds” Han Solo.
Your basic human rights are being systematically eroded. You and your children are being subjected to a dose of radiation that may damage your DNA. As a passenger/ taxpayer you will have to pay for the installation and maintenance of X Ray scanners. Based on the calculations above, we really need to ask our ourselves if the trade-off is worth it.
