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.

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.

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!