A priviledge we pay for. I can see a lot of airlines losing a lot of profits out of this and with less profitable airlines, operators such as BAA will lose money. At which point the scanners will come out of airports.

You are mistaking private enterprise with public service mentality.

Airlines are profit making private enterprises. They charge what they like, and they fly whom they like.

Refusing to meet any of their conditions is sufficient to refuse entry.

Then it would be welcome to Big Brother.

What's next? RFID chip implants hooked up to GPS and our bank accounts so that no matter what we do or where we go we are constantly tracked and monitored.

The only thing to fear is fear itself. In all reality we have more chance of being in a car accident than ever being involved in a terrorist attack.

Sorry mate, that’s garbage. I did some customer modelling for a well known airline a few years ago, to try to make routes more profitable.

The number one reason on airline selection was safety – both crashing and being hijacked or blown up. Not food, not service, not pretty hostesses, number one was not having some loonie with exploding trousers sitting on the plane.

infringed liberties or potentialy dead passengers
which way do you think they will go?

You are correct - that why we introduced driving tests, speed limits, airbags, seatbelts and a host of other restrictive legislation that impedes our freedom of choice.

The choice with car crashes is simple. Obey the rules or don’t drive. The same applies to flying.

Given your logic 10 year old drunks would be driving Mad Max lookalike vehicles on the pavements.

There's a night club in Melbourne (Chasers) that already uses facial recognition to recognise and record punters faces.

I never said airport safety should be relaxed. But will body scanners improve safety? For example, the detroit bomb suspect would probably have got through a bodyscanner.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...m-1856175.html

Yes but that's a club with a history of violent events.

What ever happened to that Indian actor who claimed to have the security people go up to him and asked him to autograph his photo?

He got blown up on a bus

Who were surveyed? A government funded focus group?

If safety is of such paramount importance, why was it then that the "Christmas Day Bomber" was already on the no-fly list, was known by the CIA he was traveling beforehand, was spotted by airport security and was permitted to fly anyway?

I'd agree that this is nothing except a very expensive operation in terms of equipment and training to provide the traveling public with a sense of security. It also speeds up processing times The reality is that would be terrorists/drug smugglers would bypass this check since the technology is widely publicised.

Largely I couldn't care less and to be honest given the choice of some fat balding airport security bloke putting his hands down my pants or this, I'll take the body scan.

The reason we have this situation is because blowing up an airliner is spectacular in the eye of the terrorist - a lot of people all in one place, one time, even if there was a warning what can you do? It creates horror same as the London bombings a few years ago. So until they find something else to use then we are just going to have to live with it and accept the extra security searches or not fly.

It is a pain - I remember queing at LHR one Friday night for 1.5 hours to get through security but if it means I'm safer then so be it especially as the OP said that they are now internally carrying explosives. However, the scanners are only as good as the operators and we've all watched the operator and thought is he really concentrating on the job in hand and that was one of the problems with the 9/11 situation as scanner operators in the US are paid pittance so you get bad staff. If they really want to be on top of the game then yes you need more checks on the passenger lists and good scanner operators or scanners who can set off an alarm to back up the operator or be sniffed by a Beagle!

It must be hard for the innocent middle eastern person these days but then it is no different to being Irish when the IRA were in full swing. I have a friend with an Irish surname who was always being pulled over so now it's just a different culture.

I'm not too concerned about my civil liberties - I'm more concerned with getting from A to B and still being in one piece!

If they were serious about car safety, they we would have driver training that actually teaches people how to drive rather than just accelerate forward and reverse. Right now it is pay your money and we will give you a licence.

My logic never mentions anything about 10 year old drunks and Mad Max lookalike cars. Let's face it, that's ridiculous.

Most of the speeding legislation at the moment is more concerned with raising revenue rather than actually combating speeding and road safety. That's the reason why you will find speeding cameras in areas which never have accidents.