Coming soon to a Airport near you – Your naked body on a computer screen. As someone who’ll never be subject to these full body scanners, Gordon Brown has pledged his full support to the roll-out of these machines to every airport in the country – presumably focus groups are pointing to this as being a vote winner. In itself that’s horrifying enough.
And, as if to point out what I think most people already know about Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrats have added their support too, complaining that they should have been rolled out sooner. Thanks Chris.
It’s 2010 now. My dad used to tell me that by this time they expected us all to have flying cars and all that sort of jazz. Instead of that rather cheerful and optimistic vision of the future, what we have instead is onerous queuing, being herded through checkpoints by uniformed goons and now the possibility that you’ll be randomly selected to be stripped naked by an electromagnetic scanner.
Bin Laden was reported as saying his mission was to destroy liberty in the West. I’d say he’s done pretty well. I was thinking recently about the Twin Towers atrocity and how, even then, we knew that this somehow heralded the start of much darker times. This last decade has felt obsessed with muslims, terrorism, war and oil and then, in the end, economic crisis. The result has been a monumental enlargement of the Government and its power – and almost no discussion or debate around this in mainstream politics. It’s difficult to be optimistic.
Psi said...
4 Jan 10 at 12:53 pm
Perhaps a journalist should suggest that GB should pose in one of these scanners so they can show how “wonderful” they are. I know it will be a traumatic image for us to deal with, but I woner if having had to look at it the focus groups would still think it was such a good idea?
People don’t think about how humiliating these will be for people, and Gordon has shown how he is happy to look like an idiot for a publicity shot, perhaps they could even post it on youtube…
Charlotte Gore said...
4 Jan 10 at 1:01 pm
Yes, totally agree – if Gordon Brown will pose in one and allow the photos to be published then I’ll admit he’s not a hypocrite about it, at least.
Of course, we know he’ll *never* have to. Ever.
Meandering Mammal said...
4 Jan 10 at 1:05 pm
Ever more intrusion, ever more inconvenience and cost, ever more opportunity for authoritarian busybodies to throw their weight around. And to little effect. As the countermeasures catch up, the threat moves on.
Transport security needs to be smarter, and I’d quite happily see it opened up to the market. Let carriers opt for the level of security that they’re prepared to charge their customers for, and let the travellers decide how much cost they’re prepared to bear. Then we see which survive, and which do not.
Meanwhile, eventually, someone will get lucky and another attack will be a success. We need to get more mature about the threat, and the fact that sometimes people will get caught up in it.
JuliaM said...
4 Jan 10 at 1:21 pm
Yeah, where IS my flying car and robotic manservant, anyway..?
But I can’t see any politician not agreeing with these scanners with an election looming. After all, who wants to be seen as ‘weak on terrorism’ ?
Oliver Drew said...
4 Jan 10 at 1:23 pm
First it was luggage, then it was the plane itself, then it was shoes and now underwear. One wonders whether the next stage will be hiding the bomb inside someone in a similar manner to a drug mule…and if so just how would that be stopped?
Honestly until governments figure out a way to tackle the cause rather than the symptoms we will all suffer more and more authoritarianism. The problem is that there seems to be no appetite for talking and negotiation on either side anymore – if there ever was.
Jennie said...
4 Jan 10 at 1:42 pm
OFFS Huhne…
Shaun Pilkington said...
4 Jan 10 at 2:07 pm
My initial reaction would be to clip a Simpsons style (remember the X Files ep where David Duchovny’s FBI ID card pic had him posing in a small pair of briefs in an erotic pose?) pic of my flabby carcass to the inside of my passport, insisting that the operators of the imager ‘get my bet side’. My reckoning is that they’ll be less prepared for the embarrasment than I would, post my pre-flight lager/chaser/lager/chaser prep!
But then I thought… actually, surely the idea of being seen or imaged naked would act as a deterrant to all but the most committed muslim. You know, one who prided modesty over convenience. So perhaps it’s a scam to make muslims not take planes and any muslim looking fella who does go for a flight is either a reprehensible atheist (since govts pander to *faith* groups and not those who don’t believe in Sky Fairies) or a terrorist who will sacrifice his modesty for his mission. We’d better just hope his explosives are in his pants like the Nigerian on Xmas day and not up his arse since these scanners aren’t x-rays you know! Oh bugger, as it were. I may give them ideas!
Stu said...
4 Jan 10 at 2:32 pm
Who needs flying cars, jetpacks or robotic slaves? WE’VE GOT TWITTER!
Hmmm. I’m not sure I did that right.
Jock said...
4 Jan 10 at 2:45 pm
Oh well – the only safe and private way off this godforsaken Airstrip One soon will be by canoe.
Funny how they tell the EU to fuck off when it suits them, and blame them for everything else.
JuliaM said...
4 Jan 10 at 4:12 pm
“One wonders whether the next stage will be hiding the bomb inside someone in a similar manner to a drug mule…”
As Shaun points out, it’s already been done…
“Honestly until governments figure out a way to tackle the cause rather than the symptoms we will all suffer more and more authoritarianism.”
Which cause? And how are they to tackle it?
Laurence said...
4 Jan 10 at 4:50 pm
“As Shaun points out, it’s already been done… ”
and as some wag remarked the perpetrator was a martyr to his bowels…
Shaun Pilkington said...
4 Jan 10 at 4:57 pm
Anyone remember the Batman movie song by Prince? The one where the Joker says ‘go with a smile’?
Would it be wrong to, at this point, suggest that our male (and female!) anal penetration fans should, at this juncture, eulogise the pleasure obtained therein with as much venality as possible, thereby making it even more difficult for the austere devout to do since they’d fear they’d get homosexual pleasure from the 1lb of PETN phallicly inserted into their rectum.
The only problem is it may incentivise Vagina bombers and inappropriate searches of women at airports. That said, I’m sure *that* has been done too!
Dick Puddlecote said...
4 Jan 10 at 6:16 pm
The west is a huge comedy carnival to Bin Laden. He just winds ‘em up and watches the politicians run around like clockwork clowns.
Meanwhile, Huhne continues to scrabble around trying to work out what ‘liberal’ means as people called Barry and Joan are strip-scanned for the crimes of Abduls and Mohammeds.
Terrorists don’t require advertising, it’s all done for them.
Shaun Pilkington said...
4 Jan 10 at 6:49 pm
Seriously. Advertise fictional phallic shoehorn-style devices made of some pork product on the way to board planes.
“If you’ve got explosives up your bum, you know the smooth, silky touch of ‘Pork Bangers’ – You get the sausage, we get the mash”
Security can then pick up anyone who seems fit to explode in an apoplectic rage before they reach the
flying bombaircraft…DavidNcl said...
4 Jan 10 at 7:22 pm
Let the people arm themselves.
“During the “Tottenham outrage” of 1909, for instance, two Russian socialist-anarchists carried out a wages robbery, shot dead a policeman and a 10-year-old boy, and were pursued by armed citizens and the police, who borrowed at least four pistols from passers-by”.
[Sean Gabb]
Back when we were alowed the basic tools of self defence.
James D said...
4 Jan 10 at 9:00 pm
Whatever happened to that French Bateau à Grande Vitesse thing they were promising? If we could do Swansea to Boston in 48 hours, aviation would be redundant.
Jess The Dog said...
4 Jan 10 at 10:43 pm
These photos will end up on the internet and media….celebrity ‘scanner shots’ and weird body shapes (bet there’s never a Brown one, with his baggy Y-fronts, sock-suspenders etc).
Roger Dodger said...
5 Jan 10 at 1:11 am
So your objection to this is what exactly?
I take it you don’t object to being scanned for metal objects. Is it your black and white ghost like nudity that is the cause of concern?
What sort of narcissism assumes that anybody want to look at your naked form amongst the thousand they see every day?
Pretty weak.
Psi said...
5 Jan 10 at 1:06 pm
Rodger Dodger – we aren’t all as unattractive as you…
Leon Greenwell said...
5 Jan 10 at 1:49 pm
I find the idea of Charlotte’s electromagnetic scan quite appealing perhaps it could form the basis of a new social marketing site?
It’s Gordon Brown’s refrigerator I object to – surely it could be shot up with a Boys anti-tank rifle?
Gregory Carlin said...
5 Jan 10 at 4:46 pm
I did a FOI to the Manchester Police re: the scanner.
If anybody wants it gregory.carlin – @ – gmail.com
Gregory
The Great Simpleton » Body scanners said...
5 Jan 10 at 5:53 pm
[...] was marshaling my thoughts on why I hate these new body scanners but found the ever eloquent Charlotte Gore has done a much better job than I ever could: Bin Laden was reported as saying his mission was to [...]
Tim Carpenter LPUK said...
5 Jan 10 at 6:05 pm
In regards Chris Huhne and liberty, maybe he should go through the scanner and afterwards someone print it off and mark out his arse and his elbow so he can study it for as long as needed so he might tell the difference and spare us.
Jock said...
5 Jan 10 at 6:52 pm
Yeah, by the way, can you give a reference for this Huhne statement? I don’t doubt it is the stated “party line” but from what I can see it is attributable to Norman Baker rather than Chris Huhne. At least the press release on the party site seems to say so.
Dan Hill said...
5 Jan 10 at 11:43 pm
If we examine the road it’s going down:
Luggage -> Footwear -> Underwear…
Next stop
Cavities -> Chemical Conduits
Blood tests and brain scans at the airport. We’ll accept like normality, that it’s never been any other way, if we keep going like this.
Of course we may run out of oil to run the plays by this stage but that’s another issue.
angela said...
6 Jan 10 at 11:06 am
For me, absolutely the worst thing that Gordon Brown has done is betray our armies. The film “The Hurt Lcoker” powerfully conveys the numbing tension and danger endured every single day by an elite squad of bomb disposal experts.
http://cyberboris.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/the-hurt-locker/
If you want a deeper understanding of what our troops go through, you must see this film, it is the war film of the decade, so tense that at times I was nearly sick. David Cameron is from a military family, he would never have betrayed our troops like the Labour Party have done.
Jock said...
6 Jan 10 at 8:14 pm
I see that even if it wasn’t Chris Huhne to begin with it is now:
http://www.libdemvoice.org/liblink-chris-huhne-terrorists-dont-stand-still-and-neither-can-we-17454.html
Mr Rob said...
6 Jan 10 at 10:41 pm
@Jock
If the title of that link is true, then it should be quite easy to spot the terrorists while they stand, or rather shuffle and hop about, in the long airport queues, without the need for any of this planned voyeurism.
angela said...
9 Jan 10 at 2:47 pm
http://cyberboris.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/george-o-and-hague-fact-find-in-afghanistan/
George Osborne and William Hague have just been on a fact finding mission to Kabul. They vow that the Tories will never betray our armies like Gordon Brown has done. They have a strategy and a clear way forward.
FaustiesBlog said...
10 Jan 10 at 2:29 pm
Not just to an airport near you, but to your football stadium, cinema – hell, anywhere large numbers of people gather.
Like town centres, for instance.
Jacqui Smith MP said...
14 Jan 10 at 7:44 pm
Charlotte
I made sure the airport illegal immigrants, I mean the security guards, could look at the ladies’s breast implants – anything to keep the DVD expenses down, I know about this, I was fed up returning home to a spunked out sofa.
Jacqui
Dale said...
21 Jan 10 at 10:27 pm
The thing is that airports are, and have for my life time, always been a special case… Whereby people are openly nonchalent enough to allow themselves into a different mindset, we are expected to answer personal questions ‘did you pack this bag’. If you like we enter into a ‘confessionary complex’ and begin to self-police which in itself is dangerous as this leads to a public attitude which not invites the erosion of liberties within the airport as a ‘special’ case, with very little being done to filter dangerous people, the focus lying entirely on objects… Which is odd, it ensures security within the flight (arguably important), but does nothing to detect the threat the person may pose in the open streets of their destination. Scanners of body are undoubtedly going too far given the lack of effectiveness one can see them having. Yes, many of us are happy to trade some of our liberties for safety… But the further these steps go (particularly without any real effect) make myself, and I’m sure many of you, wary of how far the state is willing to intrude on the pretence of protection of the citizen…