A couple years ago, there was a rumor that there were new types of glasses, one that can see through the clothing. Even though the rumor eventually turned out to be nothing more than a lie, people were, for some time, horrified at the idea of someone looking at their naked body. However, people now are seemingly rather willing to give themselves up to the eyes of others. Although the new body scanners at the airports are virtually stripping each passenger in front of the eyes of strangers, stats show that more than half the people are actually for the body scanners. However, body scanners are unethical, inefficient, and extravagant. Therefore, the body scanners should be removed from the airports.
In such diverse aspects, body scanners are unethical. For starters, it intrudes the privacy of one’s body. These body scanners lucidly depict the grooves and ridges of our body, the lines that we have under our clothes. These pictures are then given to total strangers who scrutinize it for ‘potential dangers’. As if this scrutinizing itself is not bad enough, there have been cases in which these pictures were leaked to websites. Even though the transportation safety association vows that they are doing everything to keep the privacy of people, TSA, in a courtroom, actually confessed that more than 3500 of the pictures taken by body scanners were stored and hundreds of them were leaked to the internet. Although some argue that the pictures are of low resolution, and that they don’t really show much, the resolution can be changed by a little tweak on the software. Another unethical aspect of the body scanners is that children have to go through them as well. It is rather ironic that the airport officials are taking pictures of naked teenagers when the government of those countries is actually trying to ban child porn. Third is the cultural sensitivity. In some cultures, it is deemed highly reprehensible for females to show even the parts of their body to anyone outside the family. For instance, many countries in Middle East still have hijabs. If it is the religious/cultural doctrine for a person not to be seen naked to another person, that wish should be granted. The fourth Amendment clearly states that people have the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. Body scanners are unreasonable. They are deeming every passenger as a potential terrorist- a very unreasonable guess indeed. Body scanners are unethical, so they should be removed from the airports.
Another thing is that these body scanners are inefficient. They are inaccurate, easy to avoid and time-consuming. According to ABC broadcast, these body scanners have been known to pick up sweats on the shirt as explosives. 49% of the times that the scanners find something, it is either malfunctioning or plain wrong. Simply put, they aren’t really accurate. Also, they are very easy to fool. These scanners can’t pick up things of low density. If a terrorist was to divide the bomb into many parts and wore it over his body, the scanners won’t pick the bomb up. It would let a terror simply pass through the scanner unnoticed. These scanners, also, can’t pick up things inside the body cavity. The CEO of the very company that manufactures these scanners admits so. Basically, if a terrorist wanted to smuggle knife through the body scanner, all he would need to do would be to just put the knife up his cavity and pass the scanner effortlessly. These scanners can also be fooled through wearing some layers of reflective foils. Fooling the scanner is a piece of cake. Another thing is that it takes so much more time than the conventional searches. Conventionally, it took about 3 seconds per each person to go through body search. With the new scanner, it takes 20~60 seconds per each person to take the test. Think about what this new scanner will do to the already crowded airport. Hundreds of people boarding hundreds of flights, all of them taking half a minute to go through the scanners- that is an enormous amount of time.
Finally, we have to think about the economic aspect of these scanners as well. These scanners are extremely expensive. By expensive I mean that it costs $150,000 per machine. They use up a lot of electricity, so it is expensive to maintain as well. Finally, since they are used so many times each day, they tend to get broken quite frequently. US government estimates that there are about hundred body scanners installed each year, and currently about five hundred of them are installed throughout the US alone. That is a lot of money. The world economy is not faring well these days, and most economists foresee that it will remain that way for some time to come. We need not squander our limited capital on things that we don’t need.
There is, admittedly, the need to protect the airports against possible terrorist attacks. We know that the threats of terror are very real. However, people also need to be more awake than status quo. They must be awake so that they do not willingly throw away every one of their rights at the first whisper of the word ‘terrorism’. There is an extent to which the government can intervene in the rights of the people to prevent terror, and with these body scanners they have crossed that line. Also, the protection of airport against terrorism can be done thorough other measures. Metal detectors have proven to be an effective tool for more than 10 years. It is, compared to body scanner, every way more efficient, economical, and ethical. The airport should not bother to waste their money on a scanner that is not as good as the one they had before. For these reasons, body scanners should be removed from the airports.
