This falls under one of those ‘bad idea’ categories…
The department of raping and pillaging your rights…err…I mean homeland security. has decided that it didn’t go far enough into humiliating the public when it allowed TSA screeners to fondle and grope any woman they wanted to. Now.. they’ve decided to give TSA screeners the ability to see what they were fondling before.
According to this article, Homeland Insecurity is getting ready to begin trials of a xray machine that only xrays through clothes.. not all the way down to your bones like a normal xray.
From the article:
“Well, you’ll see basically everything,” said Bill Scannell, a privacy advocate and technology consultant. “It shows nipples. It shows the clear outline of genitals.”
Great…so now the TSA screeners get to stare at your genitals.. I’m sure the parents of teenage (or younger) girls are really going to be happy with that. I wonder if whatever whackjob at homeland thought this would be a good idea, would still feel that way if he knew that the machines that are scanned, allow the scanner to save the picture to disc, and can then be viewed on any computer? If so, is he really comfortable with the TSA guys seeing his wife/daughter/mother/girlfriend naked? and then saving that picture…for use later..and maybe uploading it to the internet?
Several of the comments on the Cnet article bring up good points.. why not just skip the xray machine and require everyone to be nude once they arrive at the airport? it accomplishes the exact same thing that this does.
And since looking at pictures of naked children can be considered child porn.. are there going to be police standing by, to arrest every TSA that looks at the naked children that they scan?
In short.. now would be a good time to write to your congressperson, the president, the department of homeland insecurity..and tell them that this is a very bad idea.. and that they should do everything they can to NOT allow this to happen..
As for me? as soon as these are in Airports.. I’m going to insist on hand wanding, I will not go through the naked machine, nor will I allow Janice to go through (IF the TSA wants to see us naked..they can pay us) if they won’t handwand..I won’t fly anymore..