Quote of the day
“The terrorists have won.”
- Alex Deane, barrister and director of campaign group Big Brother Watch, responding to the news that passengers using Heathrow and Manchester airports have been told that they will no longer be allowed to board their flights if they refuse to submit to full-body scans. The advanced imaging technology (AIT) scanners went into operation at the two airports at noon yesterday, despite concerns expressed by civil liberties campaigners. Birmingham airport will follow suit later this month, ahead of a national rollout.
Deane is right. Again and again we see knee-jerk, arse-covering which has a huge effect on our ability to live reasonably normal lives.
Immediately after the two nutters drove their Range Rover into the entrance of Glasgow airport in their UNSUCCESSFUL effort to cause mayhem (‘Ah, but they could have been successful and children might have got hurt’), you couldn’t get to within a country mile of Manchester airport. So you’ve got families, with kids, heaving luggage, in the rain, for hundreds of metres, just in case more nutters do the same thing there. No consideration of such things as balance of risk or probabilities.
Where’s the common sense approach? What about stoicism or British grit?
Deane is right. The terrorists have won.
Have you seen Aberdeen airport lately? It is reminiscent of Beirut in its’ heyday. Or, for a more modern example, the Green Zone in Baghdad.
The terrorists DID win. They screw up the lives of hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis. Victory is theirs.
Let’s not pretend otherwise.
CR.
Yep! He’s right, and far more concise than me.