Full Body Scanners

Posted on | March 5, 2010 | 1 Comment

Here we go again, with the theater of airport security.  It seems that our dear friends at Homeland Security have purchased a large number of the full body imagers and are planning to roll them out to several US airports over the course of the next year.  Apparently Congress-toddler Chaffetz’s objections are being ignored on this one.  It’s sad to say, but personally, I have to agree with Jason on this one, yet for an entirely different reason.

Chaffetz has stated time and again that these scanners are an invasion of privacy.  This part is true.  However, he carries it to ridiculous extremes, worried that some horny TSA staffer is going to peek at his wife or daughter’s “naughty bits” through the use of this technology.  Maybe, just maybe, there is a TSA staffer out there that has an x-ray fetish, but really, is that the problem?

The real problem with these machines is what they represent:  another step down the path to the complete erosion of liberty in the name of false security.  I travel a bit, both for business and pleasure, and personally, I find the scanners to be a more convenient way to get through the security checkpoint.  There is a simple reason for that:  I have prosthetic knees and can’t get through the metal detectors without setting them off.  That invariably leads to a long wait in a plastic box and the joys of being escorted off to the side and put through a prison-style pat-down.  It becomes even more fun when the “officer” conducting the check is an idiot.  So when available, I’ve chosen to walk through the body scanner and save myself the time and excitement of the pat-down.

Here’s the rub, though, folks:  pat-downs and scanners are not going to increase your personal security when flying.  At what point did we become so stupid as to equate inconvenience with security?  Shoe bombers, underwear bombers, tampon bombers, hell, the list goes on.  Any terrorist willing to martyr themselves is going to find a way to blow something up.  It’s a simple fact of life.  The technology of security (read:  oppression) will never catch up to the ingenuity of the insanely desperate.  Does it really make you feel more secure to sacrifice your own time and liberty going through all of this BS?  Wake up America.  We can buy all the scanners in the world, we can train TSA staffers to be the very best security police on the planet, and it won’t make any difference at all.  These people are not keeping us more secure, they are merely making the sheep feel more comfortable in the exact same security environment that existed before 9/11.

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