by Eric Dondero

And so it begins... A Fatwa was issued last month worldwide directing all Muslims to resist the body scanner at airports. And we've just had the first test case, at an airport in the United Kingdom.

From The Times On-line, March 3:

A Muslim woman was barred from boarding a flight after she refused to undergo a full body scan for religious reasons.

The passenger was passing through security at Manchester Airport when she was selected at random for a full-body scanner.

She was warned that she would be stopped from boarding the plane but she decided to forfeit her ticket to Pakistan rather than submit to the scan. Her female travelling companion also declined to step into the scanner, citing “medical reasons” for her refusal.

The pair were attempting to fly to Islamabad in Pakistan.

The scanners have been in use for one month at Manchester and London Heathrow. The pair are the very first to refuse the use of the search method.

The Times goes on to explain:

The X-ray machines allow security officials to check for concealed weapons but they also afford clear outlines of passengers’ genitals. They are due to be introduced in all airports by the end of the year.

Leftist civil liberties groups are fiercely rejecting the scanners. Yet pro-civil liberties groups on the Right see this as a right of American and British passengers to be safe and secure from the threat of Islamic Terrorism.

From the aptly named blog Bare Naked Islam:

It isn't Islamaphobia when they are trying to kill you!

It’s about time the Brits got tough on Muslims... We should demand body scanners in every public building in America.

I side with the pro-security civil liberties advocates on this. From a libertarian view, such security measures are entirely consistent with a personal liberty standpoint. These are public, not private facilities. If the government in the UK were directing private facilities to install scanners, that would be an entirely different situation. After all, the women do have alternative and one might say "more traditional" means of transportation to Islamabad, such as the train, bus or even carriage.