An incompetent would-be terrorist sets his bag aflame and we’re rushing to install invasive Orwellian security technology? Get. A. Grip!:
Transport Canada is actively examining ways to implement full-body scanners at airports, a spokesperson said Wednesday.
“We are working with CATSA (the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority) to implement various screening techniques and millimetre-wave technology is one of them,” said Maryse Durett.
Two airports involved in the failed Christmas Day attempt to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 announced Wednesday they are rushing to get full-body scanners working. [...]
“We’re interested in all technology that would help,” said Scott Armstrong, spokesperson for the Greater Toronto Airports Authority. “Full-body scanners are part of that.“
The image below is from a scanner already in use at Manchester Airport in the UK:
The terrorists must be laughing their asses off watching us as we compliantly allow our governments to subject us to all manner of intrusion and humiliation in the name of “keeping us safe” from Al Qaeda’s best and brightest — 23-year-0ld loser Underwear Bombers.
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The undiebomber succeeded quite nicely in getting security to be beefed up to the point of idiocy.
I will NEVER allow myself to be scanned by this.
They tested this out in Kelowna in 2008. (Yeah, Kelowna. Stockwell Day territory)
It’s been in the works for a while. They’ve just found their excuse to roll it in.
Wait until the terrorists figure out that the bottle of brandy you picked up at the duty free is flammable…
We are so fucked…
sorry for bad language.
Luna – Agreed.
It seems to me that the airport is the wrong place to be catching terrorists anyway — what about intel? What about all these “watchlists” they’ve supposedly got? I don’t understand the logic of putting the 99.9999% of passengers who aren’t terrorists through all this invasive searching… unless it’s because The Authorities think it’s useful for other reasons.
FF – Wow. I totally missed this. I knew they were using this kind of thing in the UK and a few other places, but Canada?? Good grief. This is authoritarianism run amok.
SQ – I don’t think you’re allowed to carry a bottle of booze aboard a plane. It’s been awhile since I traveled outside Canada, but IIRC, duty free stuff was always handled separately and passengers picked it up after their plane landed.
But I see your point, which is that people are resourceful and will keep coming up with ways to get around security. Even so, it’s still a one in a million chance that someone will successfully pull off a terrorist attack on a plane. This kind of response is disproportionate to the actual threat.
A terrorist attack was pulled off on a plane during the holiday season. Just look at how much terror it caused. Also, if the guy wasn’t a bumbling idiot, he would have been successful in the attack.
Bleatmop – I don’t mean to downplay the seriousness of this attack, and it was an attack (albeit a bungled one), but I think this kind of invasion of privacy in response to it is wrong.
Dangerous people should be flagged at some other point in the security chain well before a guy gets his boarding pass, and that’s what they should concentrate on fine-tuning: intel and communication between security agencies (which had knowledge of this guy and could have caught him before he boarded the plane if they were operating properly).
JJ – I find the greater invasion of privacy to be disturbing too, though this tech seems to be far less invasive than many others out there. I think I’d rather have a full body scan than having some jackass security guard tell me to take off my pants (actually happened), not to mention the
dozensthousands of other humiliations and abuses those guys have inflicted on people.I just figure that this is going to keep happening so long as airport security is a for profit industry and people keep trying to blow up planes, Therefore I’m for the least invasive option that affords people the most dignity they can get. Since these machines use computer algorithms and do not need a human to look at each film, this seems to be the option I prefer. Besides, airport security is more an opioid for the masses to make them feel safe, akin to the hide under your desk if there is a nuclear attack videos of the 40′s and 50′s.
My biggest concern is the health effects these things may have on people. What are they even using to see through clothing like that? Some kind of radiation? I didn’t see any information on that. The other option might be ultrasound imaging?? I duno.