Recently I’ve come across a string of disturbing news reports regarding the TSAs new policy that forces airline passengers to choose between the invasive backscatter imaging scanners or a full body rub/pat down that includes thorough check of sensitive areas. The backscatter scanners require the passenger to raise their arms and spread their legs while the attendent is able to see a black and white image of their nude form in disturbing and embarrassing detail, as seen in this article if you click to enlarge the included images to their full size. I guess compared to the new option of having TSA do a fully invasive rub down of your entire body including the sensitive bits, then it doesn’t sound too bad. The primary concern to me, above the fact that all of this is merely security theater and that it won’t truly benefit our national security, is that the TSA checkpoint looks more like an entrance to a prison than to an airport and moreover travelers are treated as if they were prisoners even when they’ve done nothing wrong.
The full body scanner amounts to a a strip search, and despite TSA’s objections, it has the potential to cause the same psychological effects on many of it’s victims as a strip search. For someone that’s committed no crime and just wants to travel to see their family, I would say that it crosses the line to have them remove their shoes, jacket, belt, anything from their pockets, then ask them to step into a machine to raise their arms and keep their legs apart while some person in another room examines a detailed image of their body through their clothes. The experience of being inspected, patted or rubbed down, and your belongings searched through in front of your family, friends is extremely degrading in my opinion and has the potential for very real psychological impact. This psychological impact is intentional in the prison system, but in a place where upstanding citizens are merely traveling for work or to see their family, it’s gone beyond good security into a police state mindset.
I’ll close with this: There’s a grass roots movement to stand up against this type of treatment called “Fly With Dignity” (http://flywithdignity.org/). And there you can sign the petition and send it to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and TSA. The following is the message I attached to my petition signature:
It is a sad day in American history when our leaders choose to use national security as a pretext for the forced relinquishment of God-given and unalienable rights. This includes among other enumerated and unenumerated rights, the right as a citizen to be treated with decency, respect and trust, until we have given cause to have violated that trust by our own actions. By allowing foreign and non-state terrorists to coerce our nation’s leaders into continually increasing the invasiveness of inspections and law enforcement of law-abiding citizens who have done no wrong, we are giving them the power to permanently shape our government in an extremely negative and detrimental way. I have traveled many times in the past ten years, and have never been in fear of a terrorist attack on my flight, but I have always been afraid without exception when I enter the TSA screening area, not because I have something to hide, but because I am consistently treated with disrespect as if I’ve already committed a crime and must prove myself innocent while being verbally and physically degraded in front of my peers. But more than fear, I feel sadness because I can see where this is heading and if we don’t change course soon, it will be a very sad future indeed.