Since the failed attempt to blow up a U.S bound airplane on Christmas day, the security checks have reached a new and higher level, according to BBC.
Source: CNN full body scanner from YouTube
From beltless and laptopless to shoeless and liquid restrictions, now passengers are presenting their “naked” bodies to the new full body scanners.
The video above shows how officers are enabled to check the objects beneath the clothes through X rays by using new scanners. It seems that we have been stripped to naked slowly as defensive measures against terrorism has tightened.
Debates on privacy and health concerns are heated around the installation of the new scanners. Privacy advocates said those naked images had breached child protection laws and passengers has raised their health fears over the radiation when they are exposed to the scanner.
I don’t want to join any of these debates at this moment. Nothing could be more important than life. If new full body scanners do work effectively to protect our lives, I will give up my privacy then. Besides, the news scanner has been proved by expert no health threat. The point is “do these new machines actually work”?
The effectiveness of full body scanners
- What the scanners can reveal?
Explosive devices: liquids, chemicals or plastic explosive, which the
traditional metal detectors cannot reveal.
- What the scanners cannot reveal?
Low-density materials, the items concealed in the body or resembled into the skin .
Worth or not?
Machines are machine after all. They are not almighty, but the humans are. Countermeasures can always be worked out by creative human beings in order to achieve their purposes, needless to say the scanner’s inefficiency of detecting certain objects.
The solution is to acknowledge that there isnt a single technology out there that is an answer to the whole problem Mr. Murphy, from The Independent.
“We cannot be convinced of the absolute proof of the working at 100 percent level of any technology, that is absolutely true” Gordon Brown, Yahoo News
It seems to me that the government and bombers are beating around bush. The governments tighten security check after being threatened. Then terrorists might figure out new ways to get round them. Then security checks are upgraded again. When will the game end?
Also, the most important thing is to learn from the past. as Sarah Ludford, a British member of the European Parliament told Time.com, the common mistake made by 9/11, 7/7 and Christmas day was not join the “dots of available information”.
Now the governments spend around 150,000 dollars on each ineffective scanner to check “naked bodies” rather than using those money to train security personnels and improve information system to prevent the terrorist acts beforehand. Everything has been late.
I cannot even imagine what will happen to our bodies if next creative terrorist turns up. What else people can scarify to save the country from ? Do the privacy and health sacrifices worth?
