Now, I’m a private person: I swim in a t-shirt, for God’s sake. So the adoption of full-body scanners by the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) is personally appalling to me and mustn’t be allowed to be implemented. The choice between a major invasion of privacy either by touch or by sight is a false choice. I try to be high minded, to keep “balls” out of my copy, but the TSA’s adoption of Advanced Imaging Technology is a new low and has forced my scrawling hand.
What can these body scanners do? Consider the use of them a “virtual strip search.” If the makers of these scanners were to program the machines to display resulting scans, not in green or blue, but, in the same hue as your visible skin, the images would be a near artist rendering of you without clothes.
There are reports that scanners can pick up sweat on one’s back. Conservative pundit Andrea Tantaros claims she can tell by looking at the body scans whether or not a man is circumcised. I’ve noticed, with the way they make the scrutinized stand, you can, from the rear image, see a man’s scrotum hang, just past his nearly crystal-clear buttocks. Lovely, isn’t it?
Don’t want to go through the scanners? The TSA has adopted an atrocious new form of pat down; TSA officials will now feel the breast and groin areas of those who opt out of the body scan, repeating the offensive gesture multiple times.
How would a screener know, by touch but not sight, what an explosive feels like, if the bomb is fused to the groin? Any passenger who refuses both is subject to arrest and an $11,000 fine.
Whether you agree or are ambivalent toward the TSA’s new tools, the measures don’t make us safer; they’re merely reactions to previous threats. The TSA was created in the wake of the September 11 attacks; in December of the same year, flunky Richard Reid attempted to light his shoebomb while aboard an international flight; the future and forever ward of the United States Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab failed to detonate his diaper bomb over the skies of Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009.
In reaction to 9/11, G.W. Bush federalized the TSA, taking control of airport security screening; after Reid failed, we were required to take off and x-ray our shoes; it is believed that the adoption of the body scanners is in reaction to the attempted Christmas Day Bombing.
A “slippery slope,” ladies and gentlemen, is an informal fallacy, unless, in my mind, there is no moderating force to “slow the slipping” (“Obamacare” for example, although egregious in the eyes of most conservatives won’t lead to Soviet-style tyranny because the Republicans will fight, debate and demagogue against it with every breath within their bodies; try to stifle the Right Wing’s democratic rights and outlets, then it’s revolution). The TSA has been overzealous and unwavering in its security escalations.
The Middle East now serves as the terrorists’ proving grounds in this “War on Terror.” What’s successful in the minor leagues will be brought to the majors: the West, especially the United States. While our terrorist enemies may be incompetent, they are not stupid. They have toyed with implanting explosives in animals (Devout Muslims already don’t like dogs); they have attempted to plant bombs inside their body cavities; they’re not even above blowing up their own sons and daughters in order to destroy Westerners (if Jihadis are known for anything, it’s family values). Just imagine what measures the TSA will develop to combat these new threats.
Yet, after receiving this intelligence and knowing this to be fact, the U.S. Government is totally unthinking in regards to airport security policy. The federal government is riddled with political correctness that puts Americans in corporeal jeopardy. The TSA have exempted children 12 and under from the “more intrusive pat down” (a weasel worded-euphemism for government sanctioned sexual assault), knowing that terrorists would use children in their strategy.
CAIR, the Muslim advocacy organization, has advised Hijab wearers to inform TSA officials to pat down only the head and neck of female Muslims. The PC elephant in the room is that Muslim terrorists are the reason for the ever-increasing security. It’s undoubtedly true that the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists; but it’s conversely true that all “War of Terror” terrorists are Muslims, and any system that exempts self-identified Muslim from scrutiny is faulty.
An airport security scheme that doesn’t proactively profile the traveling public is blind, bloated, and corrupt. While the rest of the World is using bomb-sniffing dogs to detect explosives, the TSA has adopted the wildly expensive and marginally successful body scanners (if you see a body scan with someone concealing a weapon, it is guaranteed to be a company demonstration). Each machine costs taxpayers $30 million; their adoption was heavily lobbied by defense industry profiteers; woefully among them, in a stark case of conflict of interest, was former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
The TSA Administrator John Pistole has been utterly blasé to the concerns of pilots and flight attendants, who will now be subjected to repeated security passes. If we can’t trust the individuals who operate the airplane, it’s time to close up shop. It’s unknown what health effects the radiation emitted from the scanner will have on individuals. Frequent fliers are worried about the ramifications of repeated screenings. When I had an X-ray on my leg, I was given a lead codpiece to protect my gonads; no such protection is given to the scrutinized.
Can we, please, not radiate, sterilize, and give cancer to the populace?
A superior system is the Israeli airline El Al’s. If we adopted such a system, every passenger would be scrutinized, but not all to the same degree. We have a profile of a terrorist, and those passengers that exhibit similar attributes would trigger red flags. Flagged individuals would be examined further, but the great majority of fliers would pass without the current indignities forced upon them. This system is smart and targeted and would reduce the risk of terrorism, nearly to nil.
Compare a profiling system to our current scheme: the security measures serve to dissuade terrorists from using the tactics of the past, but it provides no security for the future; in this way, the sense of security is in fact an illusion. If you were to look at a man sharing a profile of a terrorist, there’s no way you can know that he won’t harm the flight. It isn’t comforting to think that you may be traveling with a rehearsing terrorist, and we know they rehearse before attacking. In this way, the TSA is punishing innocent travelers. They are conducting virtual strip searches without probable cause, and without regard to our safety or privacy. We aren’t safe.
The government cannot take away my liberty because another gives theirs away. Wrong is wrong, and an innocent traveler mustn’t be made to be violated by the duo of Peeping Tom and Groping Gary. At least when the towel guy or gal sees your shortcomings in the locker room, it’s your discretion to drop trou and drop that towel. There but by the grace of God and Andy the Underachiever, on the Body Scanner, do your privates stay private. It’s the same rules as a strip club, Andy: leave your camera phones at home. The TSA had promised that they wouldn’t store body scan images, but it was revealed that their order contract demands image storing capability.
Part of me says to give the TSA screeners a pass; aren’t they only a pawn in their game? Let us not be rude to those raping us; they are from the government, right? No, an excuse for atrocity against human rights is not exculpating. They have a moral obligation to oppose these offensive measures. Does it comfort me to know that you will be violated by members of the same sex? Not in this post-modern age; an age that has, thankfully, started to become more accepting of homosexuals.
One can’t assume that the screener is heterosexual, and it’s insensitive to assume that the LGBT community would be comforted by this.
The TSA has hinted, like a benevolent dictator, that they might relax their ban on liquids. My friends, DO NOT look forward to this: with the one hand that will allow you to bring a bottle of All-American Coca-Cola onto a domestic flight, the other will lodge itself up your anal cavity. This is the logical next step in the future of airport security.
So, I guess this is the Brave New World. Fine, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. Nah, I won’t show you mine. What, don’t want to show me yours? What do you have to hide, a bomb? Why no, President Obama, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and TSA Administrator Pistole; we merely wish the dignity of shielding our private parts, and you can be damned for asking this of us. Alas, if they were only asking.
Benjamin Franklin, an American demigod if there ever was one, famously said, “Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.” The America of 2010 has neither liberty nor security, and we, objectors, must unite and fight for a better system.
Please email me your comments or questions to wrighmk@mail.uc.edu.