Full body scanners in airports

[General Spoon]

Would somebody care to enlighten me as to why the holy hell they're such a problem? I seem to have missed this crucial piece of information, and would like to know it before I join the media in making a big deal out of it.

Edited November 30, 2010 by General Spoon

[Zanarkin]

Privacy mostly, there is a thread in serious discussion about this.

"Security Vs. Privacy"

[Nightmare]

It's more than "oh I am virtually naked and that's sort of embarrassing." Some people have things they want to hide for completely legitimate personal reasons: prostheses, surgical scars, colostomy bags, and such. One breast cancer survivor (a flight attendant!) was forced to remove her prosthetic breast at a checkpoint. Some people have psychological reasons, especially victims of sexual abuse. And some people have personal standards of modesty they want to keep, religious or otherwise. I suppose from a viewpoint of complete logic that's silly, but people are far from completely logical. Besides, it's a strip search without warrant or probable cause. The Constitution's pretty clear that that is not at all allowed, and yet... here we are.

There's also a sexual element; while the majority of people are not all that attractive, there's been a reported tendency at places that randomly select instead of putting everyone through the scanner for young women to be picked more often to go through. One flight crew member traveling with his eighteen-year-old daughter heard an officer tell his colleague in the screening room over the headset, "Heads up, got a cutie for you." Nobody should have to go through that.

And of course the pat-downs kind of turn into spectacle in that regard; their hands go everywhere, and even if the screener isn't getting anything out of it (and I imagine many don't, this isn't what they signed on for) there are passengers hanging around to watch. And of course if you're an abuse or rape victim, being touched all over is going to be traumatizing all over again. Some people just can't stand being touched, and don't want to or can't go through the scanner. You have to hold still for a few seconds for the scanner; what if someone has, say, an autistic child who has problems holding still, and freaks out when touched? Are they just not going to let the kid fly? (Obviously, the kid's a terrorist!)

Kiryn summed it up nicely. There really was no need to make this topic, so I'm locking it. If you want to discuss this issue, there's already a thread for it.