Full body scan at airports justified?

[swatiraohnlu]

Full-body scanners at airports, which have already been implemented in many airports internationally. These machines essentially take an x-ray picture of a passenger, too peer under their clothing to detect any potential weapons and bombs on the body. In the broader fight on terrorism they are believed to have the potential to thwart future, similar terrorist attacks and save lives. Yet, opponents consider them an intrusion on the privacy of passengers because they allow screeners to view an outline of genitalia and bodily contours.

Do you think Full body scan at airports are justified?

 

[swatiraohnlu]

A January 2010 front-page editorial in the German daily Die Welt: "Privacy finds its limits when the life of others is at risk, and that is the case in this matter. People who are worried and put their privacy above the lives of others should not underestimate the extent to which Germans would like to stay alive."

Jon Adler of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association told The Washington Post in January of 2009: "I think a bomb detonating on a plane is the biggest invasion of privacy a person can experience."

 

[swatiraohnlu]

Full-body scanners are incapable of revealing explosives hidden in body cavities, which has been an age-old method for smuggling contraband. Future terrorist plots are likely to include such efforts, and have the potential to get-around body scanners. Scanners do not detect low-density items very well. A British defense-research firm reportedly found that full-body scanners can be unreliable in detecting "low-density" materials like plastics, chemicals, and liquids, which is what the 2009 Christmas "underwear bomber" had stuffed in his briefs. While a hazy outline is often revealed for such items, the blurriness can often prevent the detection of such items, particularly when hundreds of thousands of passengers are being screened daily.