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2 Oct, 2011

Invasion of the body scanners – Comment is free – The Observer

We seem to have swallowed the security nightmare of airports without much fuss. Someone uttered the magic words “international terrorism” and we accepted (in traditional British manner: grumbling passivity) that we must now queue for several hours, remove shoes and belts, pick up a few verrucas from the airport floor, submit to any indignity suggested and abandon all hope of travelling with hand luggage only because shampoo and toothpaste have suddenly turned fatal: if we don’t surrender them at check-in and wait four hours to pick them up at the other end, PEOPLE WILL DIE.

Fine. I never liked flying anyway. But if that’s now going to happen at railway stations and on ordinary streets, delaying and degrading us without even a holiday at the end of it, should we not have a little chat first? Just to make sure this isn’t a massive assault on our civil liberty?

via Invasion of the body scanners | Victoria Coren | Comment is free | The Observer.