No Body Scan? No Fly!
Posted: March 4th, 2010 | Author: admin | Filed under: Politics, civil liberties, human rights, surveillance society | Tags: body scanners, ECHR, European Convention on Human Rights, Manchester Airport, Pakistan International Airlines, privacy | 10 Comments »It’s sure to cause a storm, but two women have been barred from flying out of the UK for failing to submit to full body scanning:
Two women, one a Muslim, have become the first people to be barred from boarding a flight because they refused to go through a full-body airport scanner.
Manchester airport confirmed today that the women, who were booked to fly to Islamabad with Pakistan International Airlines, were told they could not get on the plane after they refused to be scanned for medical and religious reasons.
The women had been selected at random, said the airport.
The Muslim woman decided to forfeit her ticket and left her luggage at the airport. Her companion also left the airport saying she did not go through the scanner on medical grounds because she had an infection.
The full-body scanners were introduced at Manchester and Heathrow last month after the Christmas Day bombing attempt in Detroit. The £80,000 Rapiscan machines show a clear body outline and have been described by critics as the equivalent of “virtual strip searching”.
While American transport authorities offer passengers a choice between going through the full-body scanner or going through a metal-arch scanner and a physical search, the British government has said that a refusal to go through the body scanner would bar passengers from boarding aircraft.
I’m not sure what to say, other than isn’t this the most blatant violation of Article 2 of Protocol 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights? There has been no debate about the introduction of full body scanners at airports – what advantage do they actually provide, against the level of the real threat we face after using pre-existing technologies, scanners and security procedures? Yet again we’re all presumed to be terrorists unless we prove otherwise. Hopefully a legal challenge will be soon be launched against their introduction, and to indeed to rescue the right of privacy which this government holds in such low regard.
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Ok, il start off by saying that i do not under any circumstances agree with these scanners. But if i am asked to go through them, il go through them. I have nothing to hide and the idea that the people viewing the image can see you naked is a complete misconception.
That said, the women had no just reason to refuse to be scanned. However they should simply have been made to go through the regular scanners. They should not have been denied the ability to fly.
How are these scanners an assault on the right to life? What about the right to life of all the other passengers on the plane, or under article 5, the right to security of all the other passengers. How are they a breach of any articles of the ECHR? How are they different to a pat down?
The only possible (and i stress ‘possible’) article that could be in breach is article 8 – the right to privacy. However even this is qualified and is not absolute:
“There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except ….in the interests of national security”
Scanners of ANY kind are necessary for the security of passengers flying. You cannot deny that! And as people think up more elaborate ways of blowing up airplanes, we need more advanced technology. It’s a sad state of affairs but that is the world we live in. And no, i am not giving into government fearmongering, i am merely stating a fact.
Just because we do not agree with something does not mean that it goes against the ECHR!
When you say article 2, you realise the scanners don’t kill them right? are you thinking of the suicide booths in futurama?
@God Article 2 of Protocol 4. My apologies I’ll amend. And how interesting that the UK hasn’t ratified Protocol 4.
@Gordon – I screwed up with Article 2. Of course it’s Article 2 of Protocol 4, which the UK hasn’t ratified yet, but the point was that everyone is now not free to leave the country. Whilst it is true that there’s never been unrestricted freedom to leave the borders, this is an entirely inappropriate impediment to use to prevent someone from being able to leave. What demonstrable benefit do the scanners pose, as opposed to using existing technology properly and professionally? Has anyone even asked these questions so far?
Scanners of ANY kind are necessary for the security of passengers flying.
That’s true. Noone denies that, but where’s the unanimity for full body scanners? When 9/11 itself would have been prevented merely by existing security doing their job properly, and no demonstrable need to use these scanners, particularly when they’re inevitably going to be used to racially profile, why are we even going down this route?
I take the point about the ECHR (but I’m not 100% convinced about Article 8 at all), I personally believe this is more about responding to security questions in an evidence-based way. Even the so-called liquid bombings have never been proven either to be real or to have been possible. I personally don’t care if someone sees me naked pretty much anywhere – I have no shame, but I’m not what this issue is about.
might I point you towards the case of Robinson v Balmain New Ferry on false imprisonment and wether it’s really false imprisonment if there is a reasonable means of exit, which in this case there is – they are not restricting their right to free movement, just adding security to make sure the other passengers as well as these passengers do not come to any harm, so I’m sure any court would consider the scan a reasonable term
Is that likely to be true? I would imagine the effectiveness of the scanners would have to be proven (I don’t believe it remotely has been). And in using ‘cure all’ technologies such as these, in the same way that we use every other conceivable shortcut (including bureaucracies), are we not fooling ourselves into thinking we’ll be safer when we likely won’t be?
ah, but remember the only reason these are being used is because they started eating the explosives and so on, so unless you’d rather wait at the airport for a few days while your excrements are analysed, waiting in a scanner for say 30 seconds doesn’t seem that bad does it?
While discussing with Gordon, I realised it should be swallowing, much like drug smuggling, not really eating as there’s no chewing lol, I know its semantics, but still important to me
Freedom to leave the country has never been universal. It has always been qualified. Prisoners cant, those with criminal records cant go to certain countries and people without a passport can never leave the country.
In this instance i will agree with ‘God’. The case of Robinson v Balmain New Ferry said that there is no restriction on movement unless ALL avenues are blocked. In this case all avenues were clearly not blocked. They had an option, they just chose not to use it. They could have used it, it is not the airports fault.
This does not however mean i agree with the airports decision! I dont agree with racial profiling which this clearly was and the 2 women should just have been subject to a regular scanner and a pat down.
At present there is no unanimity as Manchester is only a test case in the UK. The system has been rolled out elsewhere in the EU and the only reason the EU Commission hasnt issued the regulation it wanted in making them compulsory was the European Parliament complained. It will only a matter of time before they are compulsory in airports.
I completly agree that body scanners would not have prevented 9/11. They had knives and not bombs which should have been picked up through regular scans. I will also point out that it is very easy to but knives etc after security at airports. The government havnt really thought that through!
As humanity thinks of newer ways to destroy itself, such as liquid bombs, we need newer technologies to detect these dangers. Normal scanners would not be able to detect the liquid bombs or the ones used in December due to the lack of metal parts. This is why we need the scanners!
The December plot may not have destroyed the plane but would have killed people had it actually worked (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8547329.stm)
And as for the liquid explosives comment; if the 2006 plot had not been foiled, the results would have been deadly (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7536167.stm)
Not my most coherent argument in the world but i think i get my point across.
One point i missed. I do not believe that these should be used as a cure all technology. If they are, they will no doubt fail! Nothing when it comes to aviation security should be a cure all technology. They should instead be one step in many – a part of the procedure and not the be all and end all of it!