Demolish the myth that safety, in and of itself, is an absolute good

In arguing against airport body scanners, I've been met with variations on an increasingly prevalent fallacy: "if it makes us a little safer, it's worth it"; "if it saves one life, stops one crime..." What a specious argument that is. It would "save one child" to ban the car, but we don't, because it would be disproportionate and we have to get on with normal life, even if we incur a slightly higher element of risk in doing so. Safety, in and of itself, is not an absolute good.

Society would be a lot safer if we had a night curfew, or banned alcohol, or were forced to wear elbow and knee pads. We don't encourage people to take wild risks, but we don't make (many) liberty-reducing and disproportionate motor laws, either. We should react to the threat of terrorism in the same way.

It's peculiar, the hoops we've obediently jumped through since 9/11. Belts off, jackets off, shoes off, no liquids, no gels, hop on one leg, bear the officiousness of the power-happy bureaucrat with good humour. And now, expose yourself at the airport in order to fly, even though there are real questions about whether the scanners work. And perversely, given the safety first agenda, these £100,000 machines may be dangerous. The Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety (which includes the European Commission, the IAEA, and the WHO) says passengers should be made aware of the health risks of airport body screenings; that governments must explain any decision to expose the public to higher levels of cancer-causing radiation; and that pregnant women and children should not be subject to scanning – authoritative guidance the government ignores.

People are understandably afraid of terrorism. But we didn't allow the IRA to change our way of life to anything like the same degree. Jettisoning liberty in the face of what is objectively a much smaller risk is both wrong and entirely disproportionate – an understandable but foolish overreaction from a government desperate to be seen to be doing something. President Obama said that systemic failures in sharing information already held by the security services allowed the "Christmas Bomber" to get on the Detroit flight. It's not some new, magic solution that's needed; just competent use of the current ones.

Alex Deane is director of Big Brother Watch

This article is reproduced from today's edition of the Independent

Comments

[Steve Baker]

Very well said. Just a little more courage could go a long way.

[alastair]

No, no, they aren't dangerous at all. The backscatter X-ray ones create less radiation exposure than fitting granite worktops in your kitchen, while the millimetre wave machines use non-ionising radiation (just like TV broadcasts, which nobody worries about).

I do, however, agree with the thrust of your argument; all of this is a huge waste of time and money, and I increasingly resent the stupid security theatre nonsense because, apparently unlike the morons that espouse it, I realise that it makes me no safer. Indeed, the security queue is a much better target than any aeroplane ever will be, because of the ever increasing size of it and the fact that the queuing arrangement is invariably designed to fit the queue into as small a space as possible. Ideal for a suicide bomber.

If the "safety" proponents were correct, we should all live in underground bunkers for fear of asteroid impacts, since this would save a handful of lives and that, apparently, justifies anything.

[LeChiffre]

"an understandable but foolish overreaction"

No, it is incomprehensible foolishness and expensive too: the security theatre is just a pocket-lining scam which this idiotic government is falling for, at a time when we don't have money to spare either!

[1984]

With regard to the comments from alastair above - you are completely wrong about the safety of this scanners. They are highly dangerous, particularly to men and boys because the testicles are effectively outside of the body, being covered by only a few millimetres of skin. The ionising x-rays from these scanners easlily penetrate through this skin and WILL cause infertility and cancer.
Sites:
Rapiscan Secure 1000 FAQ's : clearly state that the x-rays penetrate at LEAST 3mm, though they clearly travel MUCH further - look at the scanning image they show, you can see bones, and even the lung fields.

[Reason]

The alleged "underpants bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was an inside job. The US allowed him to board a plane so that they could attack Yemen. The all body scanners are a useful spim-off.

[A. Jarrell Hayes]

I think the last sentence summed it up nicely: we need more competence from those charged with securing our safety.

[graham wilson]

What possibly can we do about this..?

I will have to submit to the forced naked X Ray bodyscan of my 4 year old son & 13 year old daughter to go on a family holiday by plane.

It's madness & I am powerless to do ANYTHING to protect my family's freedom & privacy. Is there any legal disobedience we can undertake as passengers to make this process unworkable?

Last year we went by boat to Ireland - there were no checks/ inspections or anything - I say this to display how disproportionate the power given to airport security has become... The security services are acting in a constantly reactive knee-jerk way.

I shudder to think where the next attack may come - because with it will go the next raft of our liberties. Perhaps this is the whole purpose of their undertaking?

How amazingly courageous our predecessors were with living through the horrors of 2 world wars whilst stoically upholding the rights and liberties for the generations to come.

[1984]

people should be under no illusion that this wretched Government of ours are lying to us about the privacy and safety issues of these scanners. I have already stated that if people check out the website: Rapiscan Secure 1000 FAQ's, it clearly states that the ionising x-rays penetrate the skin, and you can see that they enter deep into the body to show clear internal structures, and that the images ARE stored and transmitted - both contrary to what this Government are telling people.
Look at the record of the 'honesty' of this Government and what they have lied to us about:
weapons of mass destruction and the reasons for going to war in Iraq - Bush -Blair oil theft;
the level of and the reasons for mass immigration in recent years- keep wages down and 'multiculturalise' the country;
the threat of swine flu- profits for drugs company's and back-handing MP's;
the end of boom and bust;
promised referendum on EU treaty;
compulsory ID cards will protect us from terrorism - really, well it would not have protected us from the 7/7 bombers.
The list goes on and on and on;
MP's expenses;
loss of personal data kept on Government files;
everybody must now have a CRB check if they as much look at a child in the street by chance- EVERYONE must now prove to the Government that they are NOT a paedophile.
If anyone believes that this Government would not lie about airport body scanners to line theirs and the scanner company's pockets then they are deluded. The Government are playing a dangerous game with a slippery slope to mass cancers, sterilization, and a insidious erosion of ALL civil liberties and the construction of a dictatorial police state. Hitler came to power legitimately, and only slowly dismantled civil liberties under the pretence that it was for the greater good. You have been warned.