WATCH: BBC Breakfast, Monday 7.15AM - Alex Deane debates full body scanners.

Alex Deane, Director of Big Brother Watch, will be appearing tomorrow (Monday) on the BBC Breakfast Show (available on BBC One and the BBC News Channel) debating the government's decision to roll-out full-body scanners to all UK airports.

Putting forward the official line will be Transport Secretary, Lord Andrew Adonis.

Tune in at 7.15am to watch the full report.

 

Comments

[Watching Them, Watching Us]

Please ask Lord Adonis why the Government is so fixated on intrusive "full body scanners", when the Deportment of Transport's own previous trials at Heathrow and Gatwick airports and at Paddington railway station, showed that the technology is unsuitable for mass transit use.

Please ask Lord Adonis what exactly is likely to happen when an operator spots something suspicious apparently in, for example, your left hand trouser pocket ?

Will the security guard who then pats you down only be allowed to search your left pocket, but not to touch anything on your right ?

Of course not, that would be stupid and unprofessional - they must and will check both sides, so there is no saving in queue time etc.

There is no actual security advantage in having machines which exploit Passive Millimetre wave or TeraHertz or Ultra Wide Band or Backscatter X-ray technologies, to attempt to "see through your clothes" and produce an "naked body image", compared with those which simply give an alarm or a red / amber / green traffic light status, without producing any images at all.

All of the major equipment manufacturers already produce "non-imaging" versions of their equipment, so why have these not been tested before rushing into a full deployment at public expense ?

Remember that the draconian UK Child Pornography laws involve strict liability criminal offences of "making" or "distributing" images or pseudo-images, for which there is no reasonable excuse, not even for national security or the prevention or detection of crime etc.

Even the accidental, temporary, creation or "child porn" images on a computer has led to arrests and prosecutions here in the UK.

A "Child", for the purposes of child porn images, is anyone under the age of Eighteen.

There have been far too many teenagers who have been brain washed into being suicide bombers or drug smugglers etc. so if such "see through you clothes" image scanners are, according to a Code of Practice etc., not to be used on them, then why bother at all ?

There is a place for such technologies, but it is not at airports or railways stations.

Given the thousands of illegal mobile phones and packages of drugs smuggled into British Prisons each year, these "full body scanners" would actually be better deployed to check all the Staff and Visitors at the approximately 150 Prisons in the UK.

Finally you should also ask how much this is all going to cost ? Remember that to provide the same level of throughput of passengers through an airport, there need to be multiple "full body scanners" working in parallel not just the one, and that means extra staff costs as well as the capital and running costs.

Any extra delays caused by this "security theatre" measure will have a negative effect on the wider economy.

[Purlieu]

Could you please also ask him (if the conv goes that way) if he thinks it appropriate to have so many unelected people in charge of key departments e.g. himself, Mandleson, etc

[Watching Them, Watching Us]

Where was Adonis ?

That must be one of the most biased BBC reports and interviews I have seen for a long time !

How did they let the "head of security"! at Gatwick get away with pronouncing that somehow the child porn laws do not apply - he has no power to say that.

[Alex Deane]

Adonis bailed at the last moment - he "had a meeting" apparently. Really..?

A tough ride from the king and queen of the sofa... thanks to everyone for their messages!

[sikiş]

There have been far too many teenagers who have been brain washed into being suicide bombers or drug smugglers etc. so if such "see through you clothes" image scanners are, according to a Code of Practice etc., not to be used on them, then why bother at all ?

[LED Light Bulbs]

I have never heard Lord Andrew Adonis, who?