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Comment by shALKE | Hacker News Reader

They already do this in some airports in Germany, rather then the classic metal detector crap.

Several countries now use these scanners. The particular issue (and change) here is about whether people have the right to opt out of passing through them and be screened by an alternative method. In the U.S., that was the case until just now.

According to European law, it should also the case throughout the European Union.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:320...

Policies in the U.K. were also changed last year to allow passengers to opt out, which wasn't permitted before.

The descriptions of passenger screening on the TSA website haven't changed to reflect policy change. Maybe they expect it to be used extremely rarely?

I'd like to write to my Congressional representatives about this, although it's a bit difficult for me to imagine that Sen. Feinstein will be on my side of the issue.

Legally speaking, it's optional to go through those. I exercise my right to opt out every time I fly, and the variation in response among airports is quite spectacular. CGN has posters telling you how to opt out, and a dedicated optout lane (Terminal 2 at least). DUS wants to see ID and tries to intimidate you into conforming.

I didn't notice the flyer, will check it out in 2 days when i flight out :)

Some gates don't have metal detectors anymore it seems that they are being phased out slowly but surely. And in some cases even if you have the option to opt out you might not even know that you are in a body scanner line as some lines might start where the scanner isn't visible yet. The problem in my opinion is that body scanners are considerably less effective than metal detectors.

A personal experience from going through on in Germany is that it flagged the passport and boarding pass that i had in my breast pocket which lead to the guy patting my chest like he was a 15 year old getting to 2nd base. The scanner however had no objection to my key chain which I have had a leatherman micra on which technically has a knife (its only 4cm long and is legal to carry even on air travel or at least it was never flagged for me).

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