INQUISITION NEWS: Do full body scanners violate right to privacy?

Minors in the U.K. are barred from undergoing full body scans. The scans violate the U.K.’s child pornography laws.

Do full body scanners violate right to privacy?

Posted by samantharoyce

COURTESY TSA

Many students are traveling during the holidays. They already have to look forward to long lines and time-consuming security checks.

Now, they will look forward to something else: full-body scanners that will peek under their clothing, using technology to essentially strip them naked.

Earlier this year, Rep. Phil Hart from Athol, Idaho, proposed bill HB 573 that would ban the scanners, called “whole-body imaging technology” in the bill. HB 573 passed in the Idaho House of Representatives but did not pass in the Senate.

The new scanners are causing an uproar among civil rights advocates and some religious communities.

“The government should enact procedures that pose the least threat to our civil liberties and are also proven to be effective,” the American Civil Liberties Union said Nov. 17. “Routine full body scanning, embarrassingly intimate patdowns and racial profiling do not fit those criteria.”

“I wouldn’t be comfortable with the scanners if I thought that they were a foolproof way of making sure nothing bad ever happened on an airplane again,” said Amanda Patchin, a graduate student of English literature from Boise. “It’s just too high a price to pay for security … We’ve gotten comfortable with having our freedoms infringed upon in the name of safety.”

The scanners are also a concern for people whose religion requires modesty and bodily privacy.

A British Muslim woman and her female friend traveling with her were prevented from boarding their flights at Manchester Airport in February 2010 after they refused to be scanned. The Muslim woman cited religious reasons for her refusal. The other woman cited medical reasons.

Muslims aren’t the only ones who are worried. Pope Benedict XVI recently expressed concern that the scanners may violate human dignity.

According to The Guardian, the pope said at a Vatican meeting that although detecting terrorists is important, “the primary asset to be safeguarded and treasured is the person, in his or her integrity.”

Feminists, the transgendered and the disabled are all worried about how these intimate body scans will affect them. Prosthetic limbs and other medical devices may show up as anomalies on the scanners. People with these items may have to undergo a detailed patdown in addition to being scanned.

Parents are also concerned about their children being scanned. Michelle Nemphos’s 12-year-old daughter was selected to undergo the scan while traveling with a friend’s family. She was not told she could opt out of the scan.

“Our daughter was scared and didn’t understand what was happening,” Nemphos told the St. Petersburg Times. “In essence they conducted a strip search on a 12-year-old girl without her parents present to advocate for her.”

Patchin is also uncomfortable with the thought of children undergoing these full body scans.

“I believe that the cutoff age (for being scanned) is something like 12,” Patchin said. “And I have two sons that are considerably younger than that. So if they were 12 years old I would not be comfortable with them being subjected to that either.”

Minors in the U.K. are barred from undergoing full body scans. The scans violate the U.K.’s child pornography laws.

In the U.S., scanners-as-pornography aren’t much of an issue yet. But in Nigeria, some security officials are using the scanners as an excuse to look at women’s near-naked bodies. This may be a concern for American students who will be traveling abroad during the holidays. Whether or not other countries face this problem is unknown.