EU committee warns against use of body scanners

European Economic and Social Committee highlights human rights and health issues

V3.co.uk | Feb 18, 2011

by Dan Worth

The European Commission is too focused on using body scanners in airports, and is ignoring potential issues around human rights and health risks, according to a group of politicians.

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) said that the EC is failing to give enough thought to more traditional methods of combating terrorism in favour of installing the body scanner devices.

“The EC is focused too much on technology, and erroneously downplays the importance of enhanced intelligence-sharing and human factor analysis,” said the EESC’s Bernardo Hernández Bataller.

The EESC fears that body scanners represent an invasion of privacy, and infringe on fundamental rights if images are not properly stored, printed or disseminated.

The group cited a case in Florida when 35,000 images from body scanners were retained by security agents and posted on the internet.

The EESC also pointed out that there is no conclusive proof that scanners do not pose a health risk, and that specific rules are needed to govern how vulnerable passengers such as pregnant women, children and the disabled use the technology.

Furthermore, the EESC criticised the EC’s move to change the term ‘body scanners’ to ‘security scanners’, which it claimed is designed to make the technology more “politically attractive”.

The use of body scanning technology has grown since a terrorist attempted to blow up an aircraft on its way to Detroit on 25 December 2009.

Many organisations have since voiced concerns about the technology. A Civil Liberties Committee of MEPs argued last year that body scanners should not become the “religion of counter-terrorism”.

However, research conducted by Unisys in April 2010 found that 90 per cent of UK citizens are willing to undergo full electronic body scans at airports to ensure a safe flight.

Climate skeptic attacked by smear campaign intended to destroy his reputation

Johnny Ball claims his bookings have dried up after being abused by environmental campaigners. Photo: PA

Johnny Ball ‘abused by environmentalists’ over climate change denial

Veteran children’s television presenter Johnny Ball claimed today his career was being wrecked by environmentalists.

Telegraph | Feb 18, 2011

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor

The 72-year-old said he had been subjected to a malicious harassment campaign after dismissing climate change as “alarmist nonsense”.

Mr Ball, who has built up a prolific public speaking career over the last decade, said his bookings had plummeted by around 90 per cent following abuse from environmental extremists.

In an interview, he told how websites had been set up in his name featuring pornographic images and a blogger wrote that he should “not be allowed near children”.

One imposter also attempted to cancel Mr Ball’s booking at a training day for maths teachers in Northampton next month, he said.

Police are now investigating the claims.

Mr Ball, who visits up to 100 schools, science festivals and teacher training events each year, told the Times Educational Supplement that the smears were a “criminal act aimed directly to damage me and my career”.

“Since notifying the police of these acts aimed at damaging my name and reputation, the offensive web links have quite amazingly disappeared,” he said.

“People have every right to make up their own minds on my stance on many issues regarding children.

“But to deliberately smear my name in ways that are clearly criminal is so very disappointing. I would hope it is not the way fair and sensible debate is going in this far more open, modern society.”

Mr Ball, father of TV and radio presenter Zoë, rose to fame in the 1970s and 1980s presenting science and technology programmes including Think of a Number, Johnny Ball Reveals All and Think Again.

He has also written books on maths, produced five educational stage musicals and regularly addresses groups of children and teachers.

But Mr Ball claimed his public speaking appearances have dried up following controversy over comments he made in 2009.

Addressing a science conference in central London, he said spiders’ flatulence was more damaging to the environment than fossil fuels and criticised the “bad science” of global warming. Mr Ball was reportedly booed off stage following the comments.

He previously spoke on the issue in other lectures in Edinburgh and Manchester.

“The reason I take this stance is because several films have been introduced into schools which imply that the earth may not be able to sustain human life as we know it, in around 39 years’ time, which is unscientific, alarmist nonsense,” he told the TES.

“Of course mankind is a great burden on the earth, but at every turn we are learning to manage and better control our impact and the damage we do.

“However, my main concern is that the alarmism is actually frightening schoolchildren to an alarming degree.”

Scientists: Out-of-body experiences are products of confused minds

People close to death have described how they have floated from their bodies and looked back at themselves Photo: ALAMY

AAAS: Out-of-body experiences are just the product of a confused mind

Out-of-body experiences are not “spiritual” phenomenon but tricks played by a confused mind, claim scientists who fooled people into thinking they inhabited the body of a virtual human.

Telegraph | Feb 18, 2011

By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent in Washington

Throughout history people have described how they have floated from their bodies and looked back at themselves, often when close to death or on the operating table.

The accounts have been so vivid that they are often cited as proof of the existence of the soul or Heaven.

But scientists now claim they have dispelled this myth by artificially creating an out-of-body experience using computers and cameras.

They believe the feeling of detachment occurs when the brain becomes confused by conflict between the senses – and is not proof of any “spiritual dimension” to existence.

Professor Olaf Blanke and his team at University of Geneva said they had “immersed” volunteers into the body of an avatar – a computer generated version of themselves.

Volunteers were asked to wear virtual reality goggles and then stand in front of a camera.

The subjects saw the cameras view of their back on screens in the goggles, computer enhanced to create a 3D virtual version or avatar.

When their back was stroked with a pen so was the virtual avatar in front of them, making them think that the virtual body was in fact their own.

In this way people became confused about their real and the virtual self – even though they were effectively two metres apart from each other.

Prof Blanke, who presented his findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in Washington, said: “Through vision and touch they lost themselves.

“They start thinking that the avatar is their own body. We created a partial out-of-body experience.

“We were able to dissociate touch and vision and make people think that their body was two metres in front of them.”

He said by inducing the out-of-body experience it proved it was more like a brain malfunction when sight, touch and balance become confused.

Dr Blanke said: “Instead of it being a spiritual thing, it is the brain being confused. Why do we think that it is spiritual when we don’t think a phantom limb when one is lost is an example of the paranormal.”

To take the research further they used sensors connected to the skull to find the areas of the brain most involved in deciding where it belongs.

These were found to be temporo-parietal and frontal regions – parts at the front and right side of the brain responsible for integrating touch and vision.

If these were damaged or somehow short-circuited it could account for the feeling of floating above your body often associated with an out-of-body experiences.

Aside from explaining out-of-body experiences, the work could have more commercial applications, said the researcher.

The technique could be used to make computer games even more exciting or projecting people into robot soldiers or surgeons.

They could even be used to treat eating disorders linked with a flawed body image, such as anorexia.

Out-of-body experiences most often occur during sleep or waking as well as through drug use, trauma and under anaesthetic.

They effect around one in 10 of the population.

People get power to take CCTV camera abusers to court

Town halls risk legal action if they expand their CCTV schemes without proper public consultation Photo: PA

Victims of intrusive CCTV will get the right to take councils to court for the first time under new powers to reign in state surveillance, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Telegraph | Feb 10, 2011

By Tom Whitehead, and James Kirkup

Any member of the public will be able to refer a local authority for judicial review if they can argue their cameras were set up or are being used inappropriately.

It means town halls risk legal action if they expand their CCTV schemes without proper public consultation or have cameras intruding on someone’s privacy such as constantly pointing at private homes.

The move is part of the biggest reform of civil liberties in more than 300 years to be unveiled today.

The Protection of Freedoms Bill contains a raft of measures to row back is seen as widespread intrusions of privacy, many introduced by the last Government.

They include tearing up the controversial anti-paedophile vetting scheme, making it a criminal offence to wheel-clamp vehicles on private land, a dramatic restriction on the storing of the DNA of innocent people and a scaling back of state powers to snoop on people.

A major culling of the hundreds of different powers available to officials to enter a home and a ban on schools fingerprinting children without their parent’s consent are also expected.

There will also be a new law allowing homosexuals who were convicted for having consensual sex with anyone over the age of 16 when it was illegal to have their criminal record wiped clean.

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, said the bill is an unprecedented move to restore personal liberties and will put “the brakes on the surveillance state”.

Writing for the Daily Telegraph, the Deputy Prime Minister said: “Freedom is back in fashion. While our predecessors took it away, we will give it back.”

The UK is the one of the most watched countries in the world with more than four million public or privately-owned CCTV cameras – one for every 14 people.

Despite that police have admitted as few as one crime is solved for every 1,000 cameras.

Five years ago, the Information Commissioner warned the country could be “sleepwalking into a surveillance society” but the level of monitoring has continued regardless.

Under new measures to curb the relentless march, the Coalition will today propose introducing a statutory code of conduct for the use of CCTV and the automated number plate recognition cameras – the vast network of cameras can record the details of millions of vehicles on the road every year.

The code is expected to cover issues such as ensuring schemes under go full and proper public consultation before being set up and cameras are used appropriately.

A new Security Camera Commissioner will be created who will ensure public bodies abide by the code and name and shame any private organisations who are using their cameras inappropriately. The Commissioner will report annually to Parliament.

Crucially, under the regime any member of the public has the power to apply for a judicial review of any authority they believe is breaching the code.

A judicial review means the courts would decide whether the organisation has acted appropriately, or even lawfully, and can order action to redress the problem if necessary.

Last year, West Midlands police apologised for a controversial CCTV scheme that saw more than 200 surveillance cameras installed to spy on potential extremists in two largely Muslim neighbourhoods.

The cameras, a combination of number plate recognition units and CCTV, were financed under a counter-terrorism initiative but were marketed to locals as a general crime prevention measure.

A Whitehall source said: “CCTV is a valuable crime fighting tool, but it is not acceptable that surveillance cameras are used without a proper regulatory framework.

“Our code of practice will help ensure the use of CCTV by local authorities and the police is proportionate and best serves the purpose for which it was designed – cutting crime.”

Mr Clegg said today’s bill is an “unprecedented piece of legislation to roll back the power of the state”.

The Coalition will “leave no stone unturned” in the drive to get the State out of people’s private affairs and that 2011 will be “the year the Coalition Government gives people their freedom back”, he said.

David Green, director of the think-tank Civitas, said it was the largest redress of civil liberties since the 1689 Bill of Rights.

That legislation laid down powers of sovereign, set out the rights of Parliament and rules for freedom of speech in Parliament, made a requirement to hold regular elections, ensured no royal interference with the law or royal interference in the freedom of people to have arms, made only civil courts legal, not Church courts, and said no excessive bail or “cruel and unusual” punishments may be imposed.

Mr Green said: “It is not an exaggeration to say this ranks among the more defining documents of liberty and protection of rights.”

But Isabella Sankey, Policy Director for Liberty, said: “While ambitiously titled the Freedom Bill, this measure will most likely focus on personal privacy.”