US lawmakers favoured a compulsory full body scan of the passengers of all US-bound international flights so as to avoid the incident of a Nigerian national sneaking inside the plane with explosives.
"I would say right now we do need full-body scan, especially when you have countries like Nigeria, which have inadequate security, and you have passengers transiting in Amsterdam and coming here," Congressman Peter King told CBS news in an interview.
"There is a brief violation of privacy with the full-body scan, but on the other hand we can save thousands of lives," said King, a Republican Congressman, who is a Ranking Member of the House Committee of Homeland Security. Senator Joe Lieberman, Chairman of Senate Committee on Homeland Security, strongly favoured full-body scan.
"Three hundred people could have been killed and untold more on the ground in Michigan if this plane had crashed," Lieberman said referring to the explosive used by the Nigerian al Qaeda suspect in his attempt to blow up a US passenger plane on Christmas day.
"There have been privacy concerns expressed about the use of these whole body imaging devices, but I think those privacy concerns, have to fall in the face of the ability of these machines to detect material like this, explosive on this individual," he told Fox News in an interview.
{{/usCountry}}"There have been privacy concerns expressed about the use of these whole body imaging devices, but I think those privacy concerns, have to fall in the face of the ability of these machines to detect material like this, explosive on this individual," he told Fox News in an interview.
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