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US 'stopped Dutch installation of full body scanners

PeteEU said:
So wrong on so many levels. The objections about these scanners has been both locally and pan-European because of the privacy issues.. ironically the same issues that have stopped the implementation of the scanners in all US airports. The Tories and Lib Dems are just using this as an excuse to yet again attack the government and EU, when they know fully well that they too would have "delayed" the implementation because of the issue of privacy. It is ironic that they are now calling for the implementation of these scanners, and yet for the last 5+ years have not utter a word about it.. Why not push for the scanners after the London tube bombings? Or after 9/11? The technology is not "new" after all. Because there was serious and still are serious privacy issues. The Tories and Lib Dems are playing politics as usual.

In fact the "EU Bureaucracy" has been advocating moving along with the scanners along with the parliament, but the objections and delaying tactics of the member states has slowed down any implementation.. because of the privacy fears.



Source is highly biased and has many of its facts wrong, which has already been shown in this thread. Not to mention it would still have not stopped the crotch bomber.

For one, the article mentions nothing on why the scanners were not in place for US bound flights.. because the American's objected to it being used only for US flights.. due to.. privacy fears.

Also it fails to mention the little fact that other than the approval required by local government and the EU, there is an issue with that the airports in question in the UK are privately owned and it is them that have to bear the cost of the 100+k per scanner investment.

It is a typical anti-EU anti-Europe anti-establishment article by the Telegraph and should be taken in that context.
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From the BBC:
Last month, the EU Transport Commissioner, Antonio Tajani, told Euro MPs that further testing was required to determine how such scanners might be operated.[=Delay]

"It is the Commission's view that the application of imaging technology as means of security screening at airports must be optional and passengers must be given the choice between them and physical control by airport screeners," he told the European Parliament.
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BBC News - Dutch press EU to adopt passenger scanners

The Telegraph and the BBC, whether biased or not, have used facts in their articles, and have not made up a fake story here.
The EU is delaying it all because they haven't really stated yet whether or not they agree with the notion of the move, and whether or not to allow what they claim to be a "violation of the individual's right to privacy".

In the common modern Democracy, there is this thing called "The comparison between individual's rights".

This means, that whenever there is an argument that requires the abolishing/violation (or most likely, partial abolishing/violation) of one of the involved rights, the value with the bigger importance wins.
e.g., the police is allowed to breach into the house of a potential villain when there is a fear for the right to life of a person, violating this potential villain's rights in the process.
Why? Because the right to life is the most important right, and will be secured even when it means the violation of other, lesser rights.

Same goes for this case, the right to life overwhelms the right to privacy, and while everything should be done to minimize the damage to the right to privacy of the individuals, the right to life should be secured.
 
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Dezaad said:
Hmmm. I wonder why the Bush administration didn't want these scanners.
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Or we might wonder why the current administration wanted to continue this prevention policy.

We can spend our time criticizing the previous admin, or we can analyze the current one. The Bush admin received a lot of heat for ignoring or sitting on intel they inherited from the Clinton admin in the eight months prior to 9/11. Now our government is found to be repeating itself. Are we just giving it the benefit of the doubt until a specific Jihadist act of terror of satisfactory measure occurs?
 
Ya know, technology is great. But we've got to get back to the point where any people in a position to descriminate (in the true sense of the word) for security reasons are allowed to use profiling, common sense and gut judgement.
 
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