German body scanner protesters remove clothes at airport

In Germany, a “fleshmob” of semi-naked activists from the Pirate Party staged a body scanner protest at the Berlin-Tegel Airport, reports Discover magazine. German authorities plan to begin using “Nacktscanners,” or AIT (Advanced Imaging Technology), which uses high frequency radio waves to produce images of a passenger’s naked body, across the country within the next two years.

Here and elsewhere abroad, the TSA and its international partners are increasingly employing body scanners as an airport security measure, so items like explosives, weapons, or drugs can be detected beneath a passenger’s clothing. The use of the scanners has become a subject of much public controversy, ever since the would-be “underwear bomber” was thwarted at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Dec. 25 of last year. Many passengers feel that the use of full-body scanners is a violation of their privacy.

Wired states that the German protesters scrawled comments such as, “Be a good citizen–drop your pants,” and “prosthetic [with arrow pointing to the wearer’s leg],” on their bodies. One flesh-toned-clothed woman bore a sign reading, “pixelated,” referring to the option modest passengers have to request a scanner be programmed to produce a blurred image of their body.

For more information on your rights as an air traveler, Reddit has created Fly with Dignity, a “site-based initiative to inform the public.” Want to personally protest body scanners? National Opt-Out Day is November 24th.

Body scanners used as porn by airport security

It had to happen sooner or later.

The Nigerian newspaper This Day has reported that security officials at Lagos airport are getting their jollies by watching female passengers go through a full-body scanner.

Nigerian investigative reporters visited the airport during a slow period when security officials had time to spare. The journalists found some of them hanging around the scanner display. Since the scanner blurs the face in an attempt to give anonymity, the officers were hurrying over to the line to peek at the passengers before going back to the scanner to check out their favorites.

The scanner was installed after the failed attack by underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was from Lagos, yet technicians have revealed a full-body scan wouldn’t have caught him. An Israeli security expert who helped plan security at Israel’s super-strict Ben Gurion Airport says body scanners don’t work. Israeli airports don’t use the device.

Many Nigerians feel it is against their religion to expose themselves to a stranger, while others fear the effects of radiation. The investigative journalists witnessed passengers objecting to go through the scanner until security turned off one of the metal detectors, giving them the choice of using the full-body scanner or waiting in a longer line.

New York area airports no longer immune from the whole body imaging machine

After the rest of the country, the large New York area airports are next in line to receive the infamous whole body imaging scanners. The Port Authority announced that La Guardia, JFK and Newark will receive 39 of the machines (24 for JFK, 14 for Newark and 1 for LaGuardia).

As of right now, the machines are still voluntary, and are only used when you have been selected for secondary screening. You are allowed to opt-out and request an old fashioned pat-down, but TSA agents often “forget” to point this out, as a manual screening takes more time.

The machines themselves are still quite controversial, and not without their problems – just ask Rolando Negrin, who beat up his supervisor after he was mocked for his “small manhood” during a TSA training session. Jo Margetson is probably not a big fan either, after a checkpoint operator complimented her on her “gigantic tits“. But more importantly, the safety aspects of these machines have not been fully tested.

The first batch of machines will be installed in New York next month.

[Photo from Getty Images]

Scientists question safety of airport full body scanners

As soon as the underpants bomber was caught, the US department of Homeland Security started a rapid deployment of full body scanning equipment. These new scanners can see under clothes, and are designed to check for bombs or other suspicious items.

The technology is by no means new, and the Transportation Security Administrations has been using similar technology for years, but only on a very limited basis. Since the first of these machines made it to an airport, the TSA has been very vocal about telling the traveling public that they are 100% safe, and that we have nothing to worry about.

Except for the risk of too much exposure to ionizing radiation that is…

Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco are disputing the claims that the machines are safe – and have presented their own research on the effects of the radiation from a trip through a whole body scanner.

According to the researchers, the calculated amount of radiation was based upon an average over the whole body – but the number that actually gets deposited in your skin may be higher – though they don’t know by how much.

Rapiscan, who build the majority of the machines being installed around the nation refused to comment on the findings, but the TSA repeated that travelers would need to go through the machines thousands of times just to reach the radiation levels you receive when you get a chest X-ray.

David Brenner, head of Columbia University’s Center for Radiological Research also aired his concerns – “There really is no other technology around where we’re planning to X-ray such an enormous number of individuals. It’s really unprecedented in the radiation world”.

I’m not sure about you – but those findings don’t sit too well with me. I’m obviously not against technologies that can prevent terrorism, but there are limits to what the traveling public should be subjected to. When the scanners were first tested, their purpose was for secondary scanning procedures, not for mass scans of every passenger.

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(Photo credit: Getty Images)

Israeli airport security specialist – full body scanners are a waste of money

For years – supporters of strict airport security have pointed to the effective systems in place in Israel, and claimed that those systems would finally make the TSA a more effective organization.

Unfortunately for the government, one of the men that helped design the security programs at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport has spoken out against the implementation of full body imaging machines.

Rafi Sela told the Canadian Parliament that the machines are useless, and that he could pass through them undetected with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747.

Of course, he did not specify how to do this, but he did point out that there is a reason Israel has not invested in the machines.

The news probably won’t change the direction the TSA is taking, but it does once again make clear that the mass implementation of these very expensive scanners will not be as effective as they are hoped to be.

Mr. Sela published a very insightful article about U.S. airport security back in 2004 – and sadly, it does not appear that much has changed since then.

(Image: Getty Images)