Fuhlsbuettel Airport,Hamburg
GERMAN SECURITY EXPERTS SAY RADIATION SCANNERS USELESS
(BERLIN) The weekly Welt am Sonntag, quoting a police report, said 35 percent of the 730,000 passengers checked by the scanners set off the alarm more than once despite being innocent. The report said the machines were confused by several layers of clothing, boots, zip fasteners and even pleats, while in 10 percent of cases the passenger's posture set them off. The European parliament backed on July 6 the deployment of body scanners at airports, but on condition that travellers have the right to refuse to walk through the controversial machines. Worried about embarrassing intrusion into people's privacy, the parliament said the scanners should only produce images of "stick figures" and that any data must be immediately destroyed. Concerned about the potential health risks, lawmakers also called for a ban on the use of X-ray scanners that use ionising radiation. The report concludes that the machines are too sensitive to movement and operate too slowly to be of any practical use. The federal authorities have no interest in carrying out more tests with the machines at this time. Despite these findings, the Department of Homeland Security in the US plans to roll out hundreds more of the machines into airports across the country. The idea that the machines are effective flies in the face of the viewpoint of surveillance experts who note that the scanners will do nothing to make air travel safer. Of course, anyone who sets off the alarm while passing through a full body scanner in the US is subjected to an enhanced grope down at the hands of the TSA, meaning that wearing a bulky sweater or simply having bad posture could single travelers out for the embarrassing procedure.
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