The Netherlands to start full body scans of all US bound passengers

by Scott Carmichael on

The Dutch government held a press conference this morning announcing their plans to beef up security at Amsterdam Schiphol airport.

Within three weeks, fifteen bodyscan machines will be in place (sources say the machines are the Rapiscan Secure 1000 scanners), and a 100% screening of all US bound passengers may help prevent a repeat of the Northwest Airlines incident.

See – THIS is how you tackle security. Something happens, and within 3 weeks, you implement the technology required to prevent it from happening again. I’m not a big fan of the bodyscanners, but given how the terrorists are operating, I don’t see any other solution, short of asking people to fly naked.

Government officials made it clear that only one person will be able to view the scanner screen at a time, and that images can not be stored. The initial implementation requires border protection police staff to view the screens, but the next version will be fully automated, and a computer will determine whether any items are on your body that require closer scrutiny.

Of course, the Dutch privacy groups are very much against the scanners. My biggest concern is that images of naked children leak out, and make their way into the hands of pedophile groups. If governments are indeed going to start an accelerated roll out of these scanners, they’d better be 100% sure they protect our privacy – if they screw this up (and chances are, they will), the backlash will be fierce.

Annoyed passenger goes head first in the X-Ray machine

by Scott Carmichael on

Here is one you don’t see every day. Apparently, this passenger was not in the mood to empty his pockets and remove all his metal objects, so he jumped head first into the X-Ray machine.

Sadly, as with many of these video clips I can’t help feel that it’s a hoax. Why else would there be someone standing at the other end of the checkpoint with a camera? Plus, it’s not like they grabbed the footage off a security camera, as you can clearly tell its someone with a handheld camera.

Either way, the clip made me chuckle, and it certainly is a creative way to get around the annoying beep from the metal detector. Of course, just in case any of you are considering doing this next time you pass through the airport – don’t. The X-Ray machine delivers a pretty hefty dose of radiation, and is designed for luggage, not bored passengers.

(Via Liveleak, thanks Robert!)

Catching the Travel Bug: Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

by Josh Lew on

Welcome to Catching the Travel Bug, Gadling’s mini-series on getting sick on the road, prevailing and loving travel throughout. Five of our bloggers will be telling their stories from around the globe for the next five weeks. Submit your best story about catching the travel bug in the comments and we’ll publish our favorite few at the end of the series.

SARS. The subject was worked into every conversation amongst the expats and long-term tourists in Vietnam. The government claimed that the virus had been contained in several northern provinces, far away from Sai Gon (Ho Chi Minh City to Communist Party officials and fresh-off-the-plane tourists). Still. There were rumors about people’s neighbors being taken away in the middle of the night to be quarantined because of a persistent cough. Mostly, that was just speculation, fueled by one too many beers or one too many years in country.

Nonetheless, when I came down with a cough and fever, I had thoughts of gasping for breath in a hidden away hospital ward guarded by CP officials who didn’t want their SARS secret to get out. I wrote my illness off as a regular flu bug I’d picked up from being in a classroom teaching eight-year-old Vietnamese kids how to speak English. When my chest started to tighten and my cough to turn into a wheeze, I started to worry a bit more.

I confided in my girlfriend who took me to a doctor who had an after-hours private practice in his home. I was assured that he spoke English. He spoke great Russian because he’d been schooled in Moscow, but only a bit of English (like “Injection” and “Infection”). Between my modest Vietnamese skills and miming and his pidgin of Russian, English, and charades, I was able to get started on an IV of antibiotics. But he wanted an x-ray to rule out the unspoken disease. He kept asking me if I had been up north, to the areas that were hit by SARS. I said no, but he casually slipped a surgical mask on before starting me on the IV.
I got into the x-ray at a hospital the next day. It took two hours in the waiting room, which was not the best experience. Radiology was located by a nurses’ station and there were several people on hospital beds just parked in the hallway. I found out from a smiling but nervous lady in a neighboring seat that they were on a death watch. The nurses could keep an eye on them until the end.

The x-ray technician was unfamiliar with practicing his trade on someone of my height. It took 5 tries to get it right. I paid him 150,000 dong ($10 US) to hand the pictures directly to me instead of putting them up with the others.

My next antibiotic session consisted of me and about 4 others, sitting in plastic lawn chairs in the doctor’s back room with drips hanging from hooks in the wall. One guy smoked the entire time, but no one said anything.

A few days later, I went through the x-ray ordeal again. This time a smiling technician got it right on the second try. Through my girlfriend the doctor said that he chalked it up to a chest infection.

“No SARS?” I asked.

“No SARS.” He chuckled, said something in Russian, and patted me on the shoulder.

Check out the past travel-bug features here.

TSA considering allowing passengers to keep shoes on

by Anna Brones on

Remember the time when you wore your heaviest pair of shoes on the airplane to leave as much space as possible in your baggage? Then came increased airport security and increased security checks, and removing your shoes meant wearing something that would come off easily; there’s nothing worse than holding up the security check line because you have to untie your hiking boots.

It’s true; the removal of shoes is not the TSA’s most popular policy (then again, do they have a popular one???) On the TSA’s blog removing shoes is even compared with “root canals and doing your taxes.” That’s why the TSA is currently testing some new shoe scanners in LAX.

During the trial period passengers will still be required to remove their shoes once they get to the magnetometer. But if all goes well, this might be the end of shoe removal, allowing you once again to wear whatever footwear — no matter how large and obnoxious to take off — on your next flight, hassle free.

[Via Jaunted]

Airport Security: Once You Go Through, There’s No Turning Back

by Justin Glow on

On Friday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that once a passenger places an item on the x-ray machine’s conveyor belt, or walks through a metal detector, they can not refuse further searching.

According to Christopher Elliot, “The decision involved a Hawaii airline passenger, Daniel Kuualoha Aukai, who was arrested for crystal methamphetamine possession before boarding a scheduled flight to Kona from Honolulu in 2003.”

Mr. Aukai was flagged for not having identification and pulled aside for subsequent searching. He then claimed he was late for his flight (which was true) and left the designated search area bound for the gate. He was stopped, and forced into a search which revealed drug paraphernalia.

In this situation, I think the court’s decision is correct. If you’ve been pulled aside for whatever reason, you can’t just get up and walk out. If you could, the search would be useless, as all those who did not have anything illegal on them would comply, while anyone carrying something illegal would simply walk away. This ruling needs to exist for the searches to do any good.