Body Privacy or Flight Security?
Loutraki, Greece, December 29, 2009.
Salaroche

Some explosive powder attached to someone’s underwear. Some explosive liquids attached to someone’s leg. Both of those devices got into Northwest Airlines flight 253 on December 25, 2009. Fortunately, neither of them created the disaster they were meant to create. But, how did those devices get into that airplane in the first place?

After checking out some news and articles on the subject, the answer to my question is very easy. What happened is that many International Airport authorities across the world have decided that the use of Millimeter-wave machines and other such body-scanning devices at boarding gates is unacceptable because they're an intrusion into the privacy of the passengers.

Yes. Many Airport authorities around the world have decided that body privacy is preferable to flight security.

As I write and as you read, we have the technology to detect, with reasonable accuracy, any item attached to anyone’s body. But, if this is so, why aren’t those devices mandatory at every boarding gate in every airport of the world? Particularly at boarding gates for international flights headed for the United States?

Why? Because we haven’t yet understood that going through the extra hassle of having our bodies scanned at an airport is one million times preferable to having whatever is left of our bodies picked up from the wreckage of a blown-up airplane.

Sure, tightly monitoring the international movement of suspicious characters such as are the 500,000+ individuals already in the Homeland Security list is a must. Not to mention keeping constant track of the whereabouts of those in the 4,000+ no-fly list. But even if Homeland Security did a great job monitoring those people, that would still leave hundreds if not thousands of other suicidal fanatics who haven't yet worked their way into those lists, so we have to protect ourselves against those unidentified potential murderers too.

Suicidal loonies, like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab seems to be, don’t give a single hoot about anything. They don’t even give a single hoot about their own lives. How can we expect them to care about anything at all? But in the west we haven’t yet understood that. We’re still unwilling to let our bodies be scanned at airports, as if hiding the shape of our bodies from the eyes of a security official were more important than protecting our lives.

But such reluctant attitude may soon start to change. Sorry ladies, but your right to hide the shape of your breasts from any airport body-scanning machine is not worth the life of your fellow passengers. And the same goes for the guys. Regardless of how tight or flabby your tummy might look under the scrutiny of any airport Millimeter-wave machine, your right to keep it private is not worth anybody’s life either.

We should all better start coping with the idea of having body-scanning devices at airports, or just forget about flying into the US for good. And let's not think that this whole body-privacy issue will end here. Remember that those suicidal loonies won’t hesitate to hide an explosive device INSIDE their own bodies.

The way things are going, we may soon see the day when flying back to the US will inevitably involve going under the scrutiny of some airport devices that will scan, not only the contours of our bodies, but inside our mouths, stomachs, ears, nostrils, vaginas and intestines as well.

But, think of the alternative: One day you’re happily flying to Chicago, or New York, or Los Angeles, or whatever, when, suddenly, you just cease to exist in this world because some stupid lunatic blew up the plane you were in. Or, worse still, the lunatic's bomb only manages to break the plane apart so that, after a sudden, deafening blast, you find yourself freefalling down to your death.

Bye-bye.

Salaroche