Is it me or...

[bunn]

is this a bit horrible?

http://www.breastcancercare.org.uk/breast-cancer-breast-health/treatment-side-effects/surgery/breast-prostheses/uk-airport-body-scanners/

"The purpose of the scanners is to be able to identify concealed weapons and prohibited items, but they will also reveal external breast prostheses, the type worn after a mastectomy operation.

The Department for Transport advises people wearing an external breast prosthesis to notify security staff before being scanned.

Although this may be awkward or embarrassing, it will mean you are less likely to be searched than if you have not declared it. It may also be helpful for you to carry a letter from the GP or breast specialist, confirming your situation, to help ease transit through security.

Upon seeing the external prosthesis on the scan, it is an individual decision by the member of security staff as to whether they conduct a body search. This means that wearing a breast prosthesis does not inevitably lead to a body search, but may do so."

 Are prostheses REALLY such a major security threat that this undignified and unsavory approach is justified...?     Very dubious about the body scanning thing in general, but this is an extra level of intrusive ick!

Can't help thinking of the foil wrapped cucumber scene in Spinal Tap tho...

Comments

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

Well, I was assuming that controlling and monitoring this was a given, though I didn't say so. Ceasing to do so would be an alternative, but I'm not sure what proportion of the population would support that, as it seems that it would go along with allowing potential terrorists to board plains relatively unchecked (other than no-fly lists).

Yes, we're all going to die, but I'd rather die in my bed of old age than die when an aircraft is blown up or flown into another high-rise office building. I'd love not to have to fly, since I don't particularly enjoy it, but it's not a viable option, at least not at the moment. I already avoid high buildings: I've never been keen on heights; 9/11 just reinforced that.

I would suggest that treating everyone with respect is the right thing to so. Not just in general behaviour, but how one refers to their religion, society etc. American's (for an easy example) obsession with "Free Speech" seems to be now centred around letting any-American shout their mouth off with any sort of rubbish or abusive statements, when it really should be ensuring that people are allowed to hold opinions and prevent abuse of those who hold different ones. The concept seems to have been inverted from its intended original meaning. I know this hacks off Muslims when Americans (to continue with the example) use the excuse of Free Speech to insult the Prophet Mohammed.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but free speech is far, far, far more important than not insulting some bloke who's been dead for 1400 years. Wanting to preserve free speech is not uniquely American, it is liberal and enlightened.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

I was specifically thinking about the USA's Free Speech constitutional amendment, rather than the more its more general place in liberal beliefs (etc.).

Thinking about the point regarding my example about insulting the Prophet Mohammed, it's not the insult to him as a person that't the problem, but the fact that when he is insulted every Muslim is also insulted.

I'm not saying that Free Speech isn't important, it is vitally important. What I am saying is that my Free Speech shouldn't cause your Free Speech to be restricted, and via versa.

That other point I was trying to make is that Free Speech is more about free thought, that empowering free insults, which is how it seems, to me at least, some people in the USA appear to think it means.

Free Speech is also about exercising restraint. Specifically restraint in how one exercises the modes of one's outward behaviour that are enabled through Free Speech. As an example, you and I might think the other is a moron, but provided each of us don't make a big issue of that belief in the face of the other then it isn't a particular problem. But if we don't exercise that restraint then things can get unpleasant.

[firin.livejournal.com]

I've heard it said before, here in the US, that freedom of speech should not constitute a freedom to insult.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

The point is though, that at some point there is a decision 'OK, we can't reasonably check this'. Safety is not the only factor at play here: if it were, given that we've had bombs on buses and underground, we'd be scanning the people going onto those.

If someone flies a plane into a building, then OK, the risk involved there is particularly high, because it becomes a very large flying bomb.

But body scanners don't look for stuff that would help people fly into buildings, do they? They look for explosives that will cause the plane to fall out of the air in an uncontrolled manner, probably into the sea.

Even compared with a bomb on a large plane, a bomb in a busy station, or in the queue at Heathrow on the way in to the body scanners would probably do just as much damage, but we try not to worry aboutthat because it's just not feasible.

There comes a point when you have to accept 'if terrorists decide to do this, we can't stop them'. The only question then is where that point occurs, and I'm inclined to think that scanning for explosive breast prosthesis is beyond my personal tipping point.