A Financial Times and Harris Interactive online poll finds that the majority of Americans, Brits, Italians, French and Germans would bring on body scanners with X-rays in airports, while Spaniards and Chinese are less enthusiastic.
The online poll of 7,256 adults, aged 16-64, was conducted Feb. 3-10 and posed the following question:
“Following the failed attempt to explode a bomb on a plane in America on Christmas day, certain measures to increase not only airline security, but also security measures in other locations, are being discussed. How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements about these measures? Body scanner that X-ray the full body should be introduced at airports.”
Here are the tallies by countries for respondents who strongly agreed or somewhat agreed about the introduction of what some call naked scanners:
- United States, 64%
- Great Britain, 62%
- France, 58%
- Italy, 58%
- Spain, 46%
- Germany, 53%
- China 44%
Harris Interactive says the data were weighted to reflect the adult populations of the surveyed countries.
One wonders if the results would have been skewed higher or lower if the survey specifically engaged business and leisure travelers.
Thanks to corporate media hype, people have become so brainwashed by the jacked up fear of the bogeyman that they are willing to accept all kinds of intrusive nonsense. What’s next, public fully-nude cavity searches broadcast on CSPAN?
Yes! Webcast!
Robert: What worries me about the scanners is the X-rays. I can’t believe that repeatedly going through machines with X-rays will do anyone much good. And, I don’t believe all the verbiage about “safe levels.”