<story><title>Airport full-body X-ray scanners banned across Europe as unsafe</title><url>http://www.geek.com/articles/news/airport-full-body-x-ray-scanners-banned-across-europe-as-unsafe-20111116/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>martingordon</author><text>I experienced &quot;security theater&quot; just this past weekend coming back from Nashville. As the line for the x-ray scanner started to grow, they started letting people just go through the metal detectors. Once the line shrunk back down, they started forcing people to go through the scanner again.&lt;p&gt;I opted out of the scanner just as they started letting people go through the metal detector again. The TSA agent told me, &quot;you know these are completely safe and no human sees the pictures anymore, right?&quot; If I had gotten in line just a few seconds later, I wouldn&apos;t have had to go through the scanner or be subject to the enhanced pat down. I mentioned this to the TSA agent doing my screening and he said, &quot;sometimes timing is everything&quot;. If the scanners are as necessary as they want us to think, I&apos;m glad to know that the chance that my plane gets blown up doesn&apos;t depend on how well those scanners work but simply on whether a would-be bomber went through security during a busy period.</text></item><item><author>Cushman</author><text>Is there a reason why the concept of &quot;security theater&quot; hasn&apos;t caught on in the mainstream? It seems like it should be easy to oppose things that make us feel safer but objectively make us &lt;i&gt;less&lt;/i&gt; safe.</text></item><item><author>tallanvor</author><text>While I&apos;m happy to see them banned for any reason, I&apos;d much rather they were banned on the basis that they constitute an unacceptable violation of peoples&apos; privacy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>roc</author><text>The TSA has an absolutely abysmal record for catching weapons and explosives during security audits.&lt;p&gt;The most embarrassing bit of security theater is that, even if these new devices &lt;i&gt;were&lt;/i&gt; safe, even if they &lt;i&gt;were&lt;/i&gt; necessary, even if they &lt;i&gt;were&lt;/i&gt; effective at presenting the relevant data to their operators, that those operators simply &lt;i&gt;do not catch&lt;/i&gt; actual weapons ~80% of the time. [1]&lt;p&gt;And that number has been that bad year after year after year.&lt;p&gt;Truly, a given flight&apos;s chance of getting blown up depends on little more than the chance that someone capable &lt;i&gt;is trying&lt;/i&gt; to blow it up.&lt;p&gt;The only comfort to be found is in the relative difficulty in assembling a suitable explosive and the low co-incidence of that skill alongside murderous intent.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/loaded-gun-slips-past-tsa-screeners/story?id=12412458&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/loaded-gun-slips-past-tsa-scre...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Airport full-body X-ray scanners banned across Europe as unsafe</title><url>http://www.geek.com/articles/news/airport-full-body-x-ray-scanners-banned-across-europe-as-unsafe-20111116/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>martingordon</author><text>I experienced &quot;security theater&quot; just this past weekend coming back from Nashville. As the line for the x-ray scanner started to grow, they started letting people just go through the metal detectors. Once the line shrunk back down, they started forcing people to go through the scanner again.&lt;p&gt;I opted out of the scanner just as they started letting people go through the metal detector again. The TSA agent told me, &quot;you know these are completely safe and no human sees the pictures anymore, right?&quot; If I had gotten in line just a few seconds later, I wouldn&apos;t have had to go through the scanner or be subject to the enhanced pat down. I mentioned this to the TSA agent doing my screening and he said, &quot;sometimes timing is everything&quot;. If the scanners are as necessary as they want us to think, I&apos;m glad to know that the chance that my plane gets blown up doesn&apos;t depend on how well those scanners work but simply on whether a would-be bomber went through security during a busy period.</text></item><item><author>Cushman</author><text>Is there a reason why the concept of &quot;security theater&quot; hasn&apos;t caught on in the mainstream? It seems like it should be easy to oppose things that make us feel safer but objectively make us &lt;i&gt;less&lt;/i&gt; safe.</text></item><item><author>tallanvor</author><text>While I&apos;m happy to see them banned for any reason, I&apos;d much rather they were banned on the basis that they constitute an unacceptable violation of peoples&apos; privacy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>slowpoke</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;#62;As the line for the x-ray scanner started to grow, they started letting people just go through the metal detectors. Once the line shrunk back down, they started forcing people to go through the scanner again.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&apos;s not even limited to airports. I&apos;ve seen it on festivals and concerts as well, and I&apos;m sure it extends to other public events. Most notably I remember the security checks at the entrances of the infield on the Wacken Open Air 2010. When Iron Maiden or other very popular bands played, they just waved everyone through. It was ridiculous, really.&lt;p&gt;Also, there&apos;s a really amazing video[1] from a German talkshow on Youtube where Werner Gruber[2] completely embarrasses one of the most fervent supporters of the body scanners, Wolfgang Bosbach[3] of the CDU party. He easily smuggles enough thermite to blow a decent hole into the wall of a plane through a body scanner, and later demonstrates its destructive capabilities on a frying pan.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrKvweNugnQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrKvweNugnQ&lt;/a&gt; - German, I sadly cannot find a subtitled version, though it&apos;s quite possible to understand the basic gist by merely watching what Gruber does (he&apos;s the slightly chubby guy with the red tie).&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Gruber&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Gruber&lt;/a&gt; - Also German, he has no English wikipedia entry.&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Bosbach&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Bosbach&lt;/a&gt; - Quite uninformative, the German version is much better. He&apos;s a supporter of all sorts of completely ridiculous laws and measures, including a ban of &quot;Killer Games&quot; (violent video games) and all sorts of surveillance and anti-privacy laws.</text></comment>