Australia: No Opt-Out Rule for Airport Body Scanners
February 6th, 2012Via: ABC:
Civil libertarians are worried by proposed legislation meaning passengers will not be able to opt out of undergoing full body scans at Australian airports.
The Federal Government will introduce legislation this week so the technology can be rolled out in all of Australia’s international airports.
The move follows a trial in Sydney and Melbourne.
Except for travellers with serious medical conditions, all passengers will have to go through the scanners if asked by airport staff.
Civil Liberties Australia director Tim Vines says the scanners will amount to an unnecessary digital strip search of citizens who want to travel.
He says passengers should be allowed to request a pat-down.
“In the European Union, where they do allow these types of scanners, they have issued a directive that says governments must provide citizens with an option to opt out,” he said.
“We think that, as in the US and in Europe, people should have the option of opting for pat-downs rather than having to go through the digital strip search of the full body scan.”
If they propose to excuse travelers with serious medical conditions, is this not a clear admission that the proposed screening procedure could degrade of a passenger’s health?
To put it another way…
If it is totally safe, why exclude those with serious medical conditions? To allow exclusions indicates a problem.
Why is this always and only portrayed as a privacy issue rather than a health issue?
The ‘sides’ are always pre-selected for us ie:
If you are against HPV vaccine you are a science-denying, regressive (if not retrogressive),pro-cancer, fundamentalist, religious, anti-choice, ignorant, nut job.
If you are for HPV vaccine you are a progressive, science-minded, humanity-loving, compassionate, moral, anti-cancer (nevermind there’s no data), upright individual.
Change the adjective around a little and you can plug it into any issue:’climate change’; terrorism; vaccination.
It might make an amusing board game but it makes for appalling reality.
Common $$cents$$ I guess rule over logic anymore.
What ever happened to the concept of a cost-benefit analysis being done before these stupid, twitchy,knee-jerk laws are made? Wherein the costs (which would include human health costs) versus the benefits of using these scanners occurred?
Oh I am sure that these scanners have found about sixty trillion people flying the “no longer friendly skies” who have bombs stuffed in their body parts. I’d love to see the statistics on exactly how many people actually have been taken out of the security line cause these freaking nut job scanners have “found something.”
But that would be classified information. What a joke on you and me.
I flew through an un-named US city this weekend where they had all of the millimeter machines on.
I heard the woman in the line behind me tell her husband that “they have all of the machines on.”
Yea verily, there was no line that I could see where you could not have to opt out.
I told the woman I was opting out. She said, well then, I am too, and I saw a few other women doing the same after us. The woman behind me told me that her husband would not opt out because it is so much worse for men to do the pat down. I can only imagine. I am glad I have an innie rather than an outie in these times.
The pat down isn’t a bad thing. I wish I could have told the TSA agent to save me the story about how safe these machines were. But I felt heartened when I saw women opting out behind me. I hate to say this because it is a quote from someone I don’t admire so much, but I do think it “takes a village” to stop this CRAP.
The Australian government might be worse than Pennsylvania in the US – deciding whether to tax fracking, not how to stop it altogether. There must be chemicals in the water, no doubt, in all the water these people are drinking.