13.51, 14 January 2010
As many of us were tucking into our turkey and roast potatoes on Christmas Day, over the skies of Detroit a 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was attempting to detonate a bomb hidden in his clothing.
He had been a transit passenger when he was passing through Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, and hence had not been required to pass through a security scanner. The passenger list had been transmitted to the US and no irregularities had been reported.
Fortunately for the passengers aboard the Northwest Airlines Flight 253, the bomb simply burnt Mr Abdulmutallab and did not detonate. The possible outcome does not really bear thinking about.
Now, governments are calling for the introduction of
full body scanners at airports for everyone. For some, their primary concern is the issue of privacy and the scanners revealing too much of a person’s body – I thought we were talking scanners, not some cartoon-like machine that allows airport staff to view passengers naked! I suppose my first thought is the impact of scanning on pregnant women and the fetus. Hospitals go to great lengths to ascertain prior to an x-ray whether you could be pregnant, but now we are in effect going to be x-raying women for the greater good. We have no idea of the long-term effects of this. What happens if the woman is a frequent flyer? Surely repeated exposure to these scanners’ microwaves is going to have some impact, no matter how small? Will it affect fertility perhaps?
I ask the question – is it necessary to scan everyone? I know we want to prevent acts of terrorism, but could this be considered ‘over the top’? I guess if I had lost a family member to such an act, then my answer would no doubt be ‘no’ – but luckily I haven’t, and hence I think there must be a safer alternative.
What about profiling likely suspects and scanning only them? Would that then mean that every Middle Eastern and African Muslim for example travelling around the world would be singled out? I fear this would simply breed prejudice and fuel the stereotype. But we can’t avoid the facts – the majority of recent acts of terrorism have been carried out by men of Middle Eastern and African culture and/or descent. Is it fair to tar each with the same brush?
I think there are a couple of failings that could be addressed before the international blanket call for the use of full body scanning at airports. Firstly, there should be open communication between countries. If media reports are right, Mr Abdulmutallab had been refused entry to the UK – why wasn’t he on the US radar? Why when the passenger list was sent to the US for flight 253, didn’t someone pick this up? Secondly, surely there should be an international generic security system? No matter which airport you visit, in whichever country, the system should be the same. We can’t seem to get it right in the same airport, let alone nationally or internationally? If you stand in different lines at the same UK airport for example, some passengers will be asked simply to walk through security, others will need to remove shoes, and others will need to remove shoes, belts, and almost everything else!
I fear the answer to all this boils down to the culture of air travel. Passengers demand that the security system is as fast as possible, airlines are greedy, wanting to turn planes (and passengers) around faster and faster and inevitably corners are cut. But would the proposed system of scanning improve this, put more pressure on airport staff to be even more vigilant, or would they simply become complacent as mankind relies more and more on machines? But still, no one seems to be asking the question about how healthy these scans are? Governments are rushing in to seem to be proactive – maybe to win votes? But they are not thinking about the future and the implications. I guess they are just going to add this to the list of possible things that may damage your health.
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