Full-body scans rolled out at all Australian airports with new 'no scan, no fly' law

Wednesday, February 08, 2012 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: Australia, body scanners, airport

(NaturalNews) It appears as though Australia is now competing with the U.S. for the "most authoritarian government in the 'free world'" award, as officials down under have now passed new rules mandating that all air travelers be forced to go through naked body scanners before being allowed to fly. Except unlike in the U.S., Australian travelers will not have the option to "opt out" and receive a full-body pat down instead.

The Daily Telegraph reports that the new rules have been introduced into Australia's Federal Parliament, and provision a $28 million overhaul that includes adding naked body scanners to all the nation's airports beginning in July. The machines are produced by L-3 Communications, which also produces them for airports in the U.S.

Trials on the machines began last summer at airports in Sydney and Melbourne, where air travelers had the option to test the machines. At that time, the machines were found to create many false detections, including detecting ordinary perspiration as if it was a deadly weapon to be used for committing an act of terrorism (http://www.theaustralian.com.au).

In order to mandate the scanners' use, Australia's aviation security laws had to be amended to fix a "loophole" that allowed travelers to opt out of having to go through the scanners, and instead choose to be molested with a full-body pat down. And just like in the U.S., the new machines have never been proven safe, as they emit damaging levels of radiation that can cause DNA damage and cancer.

Both millimeter wave and backscatter x-ray, the two types of naked body scanners currently in use throughout the U.S. and now Australia, are linked to causing serious health problems. Backscatter x-ray scanners emit cancer-causing ionizing radiation that also damages reproductive function (https://www.naturalnews.com/030607_naked_body_scanners_radiation.html), while millimeter wave scanners emit terahertz radiation that literally "unzips" and destroys DNA (http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24331/).

While the justifications for these machines includes their supposed ability to improve security, they have been found time and time again to do a horrible job at detecting home-made explosives and other non-metallic weapons, which is the whole reason they were purportedly brought into airports in the first place (http://www.theaustralian.com.au).

In the U.S., use of the machines under the umbrella of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is not even constitutionally justified, as mandates that subject air travelers to invasive screenings and pat downs clearly violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (https://www.naturalnews.com/030381_naked_body_scanners_TSA.html).

Sources for this article include:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au