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Airport ‘Security Measures’ and the Politics of Fear

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Remember the following scene from Paul Verhoeven’s “Total Recall”?

Based on a Philip K. Dick story, the Hollywood blockbuster was considered science fiction when it was released in 1990, but aspects of it continue to become a reality before our very eyes. 

The Canadian MSM has accordingly been buzzing today after it was revealed that 11 Canadian airports are likely to be equipped with 45 “body scanners” over the next 2 months to “comply with U.S. security protocols.”  In addition to waiting in long lines for over-priced flights operated by disgruntled employees who often ask you to undress and raise you arms so they can feel you up, travellers can now also look forward to having their bodies scanned!

According to an article in the Guardian, the same measures are likely to be implemented in the UK as well.  In response one aviation source argued that: 

This is just window dressing. The government is about to implement measures that will result in long queues at airports but will have no impact on security.

In the words of Literature Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing:

Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.

Do you feel safer?

Written by Jasmin

January 5, 2010 at 9:28 pm

Posted in Canada, Global War on Terror, UK

Tagged with , , ,

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3 Responses

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  1. Apparently in the proposed sequel the lead actor becomes a right wing politician leading the tenth largest economy on earth through a campaign engineered with a corrupt power corporation but it was found to be too unbelievable…

    RickB

    January 5, 2010 at 9:52 pm

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  2. Brought to you by the homeland security industry, where corporations like the Chertoff Group, one of the leading manufacturers of whole-body-imaging machines, Rapiscan Systems, could stand to make millions.

    The last big high-tech scam was a lemon (The airport scanner scam):

    In forecasting the fate of the full-body scanners, we can turn to recent history, which saw the rapid rise—and decline—of the previous “miracle” screening technology. In the years following 9/11, dozens of explosive trace portals (ETPs) were installed in airports across the country, at a cost of about $160,000 each. These “puffer” machines—so called because they blow air on passengers to dislodge explosive particles—were once celebrated as the “no-touch pat down.” But in a Denver test by CBS in 2007, a network employee was sprayed with explosives and then walked through the airport’s three puffers without any trouble. The machines also set off false alarms, and they frequently broke down, leading to sky-high maintenance costs.

    After spending more than $30 million on the puffer machines—most of them purchased from GE—the TSA announced earlier this year that it was suspending their use. Only about 25 percent of the machines were ever even deployed at US airports. A report last month from the Government Accountability Office found that the TSA had not adequately tested the puffers before buying them.

    Ann

    January 6, 2010 at 1:10 am

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  3. Allow me to plug one of my favorite thinkers who didn’t make the PULSE top-20 thinkers list, not even an honorable mention : (

    His name is Derrick Jensen, a radical environmentalist/anarcho-primitivist whose writings have been compared to Foucault and Camus. He co-wrote a great book that discusses this particular issue Ann brought up. The book is called (and I’m not kidding on this) “Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control.” Now the book is more important than ever. Check it out.

    http://is.gd/5Nvo6

    Christian Avard

    January 6, 2010 at 3:21 am

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