Jeff's Commentary - 8/4 - TSA Scanners Coming to a Town Near You

There has been a lot of discussion again about the TSA adding body scanners to virtually every major airport in the US. The updated list includes airports in New York, Dallas, Washington, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle and Philadelphia. Body scanners penetrate clothing to provide a highly detailed image so accurate that critics have likened it to a virtual strip search.

I don’t know about you, but when I fly, I like to think that the knucklehead next to me doesn’t have a bomb in his shoe or something else explosive on or in their body parts that will make the airplane implode on impact of the device. And if that means I have to walk through a body scanner to have that protection on a flight, I’m ok with that. Plus, if this decreases the time it takes to get through the lines to get to the boarding area, I’m even more enthused to have these working.
Those 82 year old grandmothers need to stop being pulled out of line every time they go through the entrance and get buzzed for a detailed search because they have so many electronic body parts implanted in them. Scanners end that.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center is a Washington DC advocacy group who wants to pull the plug on all of the TSA body scanning programs. Those people who argue that body scanners violate the Fourth Amendment which prohibits “unreasonable” searches don’t get the fact that if you happen to be the unlucky person on a plane where an idiot has gotten through the current lackluster searches and blows you up, you are dead forever. So much for the Fourth Amendment if it’s you dead.

I’m all for showing off my fat ugly body parts to some scanner to insure my safety on a flight where my intent is to purely get from point A to point B safe and stay secure so I can hug my kids at the end of the day.

We puritanical US citizens often don’t get what the bad guys are doing out there and how they are constantly plotting and scheming to kill us every day. The TSA maintains that body scanning is designed to respect individual sensibilities regarding privacy, modesty and personal autonomy to the maximum extent possible, while still performing its crucial function of protecting all members of the public from potentially catastrophic events.

So by going through a body scan like they successfully have been doing in Israel for decades, without having one plane blow up or attempted to be blown up, I’m on board with the new technology. And if by chance, an image of you gets out into the general public because of being scanned and some perv puts it on-line, you’ll be famous for 15 seconds in a good or bad way and then life will go on…..but at least you’ll be alive.

So get over your modesty folks and realize that there is no second chances on a plane that blows. I want to know that the seat next to me or down some isle may have some nut in it, but at least they are not loaded.

I guess it comes down to if you don’t want to get scanned, don’t fly. I hear Amtrak is good.

Jeff