
Airport body scanners 'unlikely' to foil al-Qaeda - MP - soundsop
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8439285.stm
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jacquesm
What an extraordinarily candid piece. Most of the stuff in the mainstream
media about these scanners portray them as though they would have stopped the
underwear bomber in his tracks.

Maybe one of these days some politician will have the guts to step forward and
will admit openly that securing air transportation while keeping it affordable
and safe is not possible at current traffic levels.

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yters
How feasible is an unsafe airlines startup? Seems like a great way to
capitalize on the situation.

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evgen
Since negligence is a hot knife cutting through limits on personal liability I
think this startup would last right up until its first minor accident, after
which point the officers and backers of such a venture would spend the
remainder of their natural lives in court trying (and failing) to keep the
injured parties from taking every penny they have...

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ojbyrne
I managed to go through the "security theatre" twice this past weekend while
traveling from Canada to the US (first flight canceled). I was actually
impressed with the rigorous patdown, and the hand search of my carryon (and in
one of them the security officer engaged me in conversation), which was made
much easier by the severe restrictions on carryon luggage. It was, in fact,
impressively layered - this entire process was at the gate, after the usual
stuff at the security entrance.

On the plane, they just discarded pretty well the entire protocol. Once you
were on the plane, there were no real restrictions.

And I had to put a bunch of expensive electronics and camera equipment in my
checked luggage, which made it to my destination completely unscathed. Which
makes the whole carryon process much more viable. If passengers were convinced
that checked luggage is treated securely, quickly and with proper care, then
we wouldn't have to bring the kitchen sink in our carryons.

~~~
nopassrecover
It's not entirely relevant to your point but anyone with a film camera would
be concerned with checking their camera gear (well films at least). Similarly,
most airlines charge extra for checked luggage while some staggering amount of
checked luggage is delayed, lost for a small time (weeks-months) or lost
indefinitely.

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nopassrecover
Heh I'm currently in Germany and the BBC is one of the few English channels
available. The experts they've interviewed to date have all said things along
the lines of "scanners and physical checks won't stop embedded explosives",
"the terrorists will simply use internal explosives next" and "we have no
means of screening for explosives". As one HN commentator mentioned: "state of
the art for explosives detection is a labrador retriever".

Putting aside the fact these experts have just told terrorists where security
gaps are (perhaps its a false admission to try and catch terrorists offguard?)
it is deeply concerning if these security gaps do exist and that increased
security measures will do _nothing_ more but infringe privacy.

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yters
I foresee Al Queda moving to fat, ugly bombers.

~~~
jacquesm
Or send through a bunch of guys with harmless stuff on them first.

After a number of 'false positives' the chances of missing something real
would definitely increase.

Or get two or more people to smuggle bits & pieces. That's probably a lot
harder to pull off though.

