Ben Quinn
The Christian Science Monitor
January 27, 2010

[efoods]To borrow a phrase from counter-terrorist parlance, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s alleged plot to bring down a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day was a “game changer.”

As a reluctance to introduce body scanners at airports eases, two countries deploying them nationwide this month include Britain, reportedly a key setting for the Nigerian student’s radicalization, and the Netherlands, where Mr. Abdulmutallab passed through undetected before boarding a flight to the United States.

But ardent opposition to them – including in the ranks of Europe’s bureaucratic elite – may yet frustrate their international rollout. Beyond campaigners who worry about supposed health risks or view them as the digital equivalent of a strip search, many European aviation-security experts remain unconvinced of the cost benefits.

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