Special Blog Feature
Guest Article:
25 reasons to reject airport full body scans
By "Former Flier"
Note: This article has been updated, click here to view update: "Author was 'prophetic'" It's sickening that many television personalities have been so willing to violate the privacy of honest Americans over fear due to the recent foiled terror attempt. On the matter of full body scans, they are wrong, not to mention terribly shortsighted. They have one - and ONLY one - supposed argument in favor of full body scans; that is, such scans MAY make airline travel safer. But will it? Certainly there is no guarantee that this will occur. Rather, it is their "hope" or "belief" that this will result. But it is wrong - immoral even - to subject innocent people to this degrading procedure.
The following are my 25 reasons to reject these full-body scans...
1. These scans are a total violation of privacy! (Have you seen the full body scan images on TV? You can see everything, and I mean EVERYTHING!)
2. This procedure is immodest and will further a sense of immodesty as people become accustomed to allowing strangers to examine images of their body.
3. It is wrong to allow strangers who are not doctors to examine images of your private parts and the private parts of your family members. You wouldn't dream of allowing this to occur in any other setting.
4. The people who will be viewing every single nook and cranny of your body are government employees. Think of that, government agents viewing full body images of you. Did such privacy violations even occur in Communist Russia on such a wide scale?
5. Most likely you won't be allowed to know, see, or give your consent to the individual chosen by the government to analyze your body scan from head to toe. You will not be given their resume or information on their criminal record (if any) or about their mental health or any past transgressions involving others' scans. For all you know, the person who views images of your entire body and the entire bodies of your loved ones will be a pervert. The person viewing the images will be able to focus on any part of your body they want, free from any objection of yours and with your knowledge & consent. (If you go through the scanners, you are consenting to this.)
6. I wouldn’t allow my 13 year-old daughter's body to be viewed in the nude by a stranger - would you allow your daughter's to be? So why would you allow a revealing full body scan of your teenage daughter to be viewed by a stranger at the airport?
7. When this becomes widespread, EVERYONE who flies will be subject to this invasion of privacy - be they minor, grandparent, man, woman, priest, nun, or bishop. This is plain wrong.
8. When viewers of the full body images can't make out certain details on their screen, people will be subject to even more evasive, exploratory searches. Watch out if you have a safety pin, underwire, fancy zipper, unique button, or unusual growth!
9. Americans are supposed to be constitutionally protected from unreasonable searches. If revealing full body scans of INNOCENT people who simply want to visit relatives doesn't count as an unreasonable search, what does?
10. It is impossible for full body scans to be a foolproof security measure. Obviously they are only as good as the equipment and the (probably overworked) government employee viewing them. Eventually something will get through. People aren't perfect.
11. Full body images will eventually be stored. How would you like yours or your loved one's to turn up on the Internet? It WILL happen sometime, somewhere, to someone, especially to celebrities or "controversial" persons (e.g. pro-life activists). Do you bring forth the argument that they aren't saving the images? Maybe they aren’t now, but after the first security breach, people will call for storing body scan images to see "what went wrong".
12. There can be no guarantee that these full body scans are safe. We often discover long after the fact that procedures that were supposed to be "safe" were more dangerous than first thought. Just recently, ubiquitous CT scans were shown to be much more dangerous than previously believed. Ironically, although CT scans may be used to detect cancer, they have been found to cause cancer in some patients. In contrast to CT scans done with "meticulous care" in medical facilities, full body scans in airports will be conducted by non-medical personnel on people in a rush. Even though a different technology is used in airport scans vs. CT scans, rushed patrons combined with non-medical government personnel in a public setting is not an especially good combination for personal safety. Plus, who will control any settings on the machines? Who will make sure all emissions are always within proper limits? How often will the equipment be tested for dangerous leaks? And what about the effect of these scans on pregnant women and their babies? What about the cumulative effects of exposure to this equipment on frequent fliers or airport personnel who will be standing next to the machines for hours at a time, day in and day out? The extent of the effects may be unknown for decades.
13. Some persons involved in the scanning process may use the opportunity to harass people (e.g. subject them to more searches, spend more time on "beautiful" bodies, force persons to engage in immodest postures, etc.). Once people are in the scanner, airline ticket in tow, with a booked hotel, car rental, and waiting relatives, most will probably just consent to whatever they are told to do. They may not have the will to complain or they may be embarrassed to do so. Even if they did, it will be one person's word against another's.
14. On one hand, certain body images may tempt some scan viewers to lust (Jesus says a person who looks at another person with lust has committed adultery with the person in their heart). On the other hand, body images of some persons will probably become the "butt of screeners' jokes" (pun intended). The job of airport scanner has got to get boring after a while and an unusual body shape here and there may provide the employees with some "comic relief"
15. This practice will further a loss of respect for the dignity of the human body, especially for operators who will view nude images all day
16. Since these revealing scans put bodies on display for strangers, they may be a violation of one's right over a spouse's body. In fact, strangers viewing full body scans that expose every crevice of someone's body may view more of that person's body than their own spouse does!
17. Conducting full body scans won't solve the terrorist threat. Terrorists will just get more creative - and we will keep trying to play catch up - spending endless sums of money and giving up more of our freedoms. Eventually they may require people to remove false teeth to look for contraband or force us to strip nude, all for the "privilege" of flying. If you think terrorists will just give up because we implement full body scans, you're sadly mistaken.
18. Full body scans are just one more example of the government punishing many good people for the crimes of a few bad people. The good people will be hurt by lost freedom & violations of privacy. The terrorists will be undeterred in their plans, and they will probably be happy to see the disruption & harm they have caused the good people.
19. What effect do you think the revealing full-body scans will have on rape survivors or others who have been violated? Wouldn't it be reasonable for them to feel as though they've been violated again?
20. If we allow full body scans at airports, we'll soon be forced to undergo them in other public places - schools, office buildings, sporting events, and the like. In many places, the scans will not be optional because people will not be allowed to avoid them. In time, police may start carrying portable versions of the scanners when the technology becomes available. Allowing this practice at airports is likely to unleash a slew of new privacy violations against innocent Americans.
21. Full body scanning at airports may give passengers a false sense of security. Recent events prove that it is dangerous to be complacent with regard to airport security.
22. Full body scans are unnecessary and may be overcome. We already have (non invasive) metal detectors in place for metal objects. At this point, the most feared items may be powder or liquid. While full body scans thoroughly expose the naked body to the gaze of the scan viewer, it is questionable whether the machines will be able to clearly indicate the presence of small amounts of powder or liquid, especially when you factor in a creative terrorist. For example, how can the scanning equipment differentiate stuffing in a jacket from stuffing plus powder? Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack! And certainly even the zealous airport workers may hesitate to make passengers cut open their jackets so they can inspect the stuffing inside them.
23. Full body scans focus on the external part of the body. They would not show items taken orally or other items hidden internally (e.g. in feces). As drug enforcement agents might tell you, criminal persons don't refrain from using such unsavory tactics if they work.
24. Full body scans are incapable of solving the problem. Even if a terrorist is prevented from hiding items on their person by a full body scan, they can still keep items in their bags (who would question a prescription medicine bottle which appeared to contain real pills or a sealed shampoo bottle which seemed to actually contain shampoo?). The scans also won't prevent terrorists from recruiting insider employees who can help them evade the procedure.
25. This practice will harm the airline industry. Some people (myself included) will stop flying altogether. Costs will go up to pay for the new equipment and the additional personnel required to operate it. Airport delays will increase.
This is not a case of sacrificing "a bit of privacy for the good of the many". This practice will bring harm to many - in fact, all of us! Even if we don't fly, we should be concerned for our bothers and sisters who do and who will either, unfortunately, agree to the procedure or be involuntary pressured into it. And, as time goes by, this precedent will spill into other areas and we will ALL suffer invasions of our privacy because "new threats" have been found.
Let's not allow this to happen. Those who support this practice have only one argument in their favor - that the scans MAY make airline travel safer. But this is not the case. It will NOT be a security panacea. Rather, it is a harmful and dangerous road that we should not go down. God Himself made Adam & Eve garments after the fall. Let's not allow the government to force us to "shed" ours.
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