From the Chicago Tribune:
The new full-body imaging machines that will arrive at O’Hare this fall look through clothing to create an explicit silhouette of the traveler—showing shapes, folds of fat and other anatomical characteristics—to identify possible hidden objects.
Even though facial features are blurred to protect privacy, the images reveal breasts, buttocks and other private parts, prompting some civil liberties groups to call the machines an unacceptable intrusion.
That’s right — airport security personnel will now be looking at your naked body every time you want to board an airplane at O’Hare. Perhaps most frightening is this typical response:
“Why they would want a picture like that of me is beyond me,” said Mike Glidewell, 62, a Kansas man who was going through security last week at O’Hare. “But anything they want to do to keep me alive is fine with me.”
Anything? Really? How about only allowing you on the plane if you’re blindfolded and handcuffed? I mean, that would certainly be safer, wouldn’t it? Then any potential terrorist would also be bound and blindfolded, and thus wouldn’t be able to hijack the plane, right? Why would you object? It’ll keep you alive!
The sad thing is, people probably would accept it. I mean, if you had asked anyone ten or twenty years ago if they would submit to a virtual strip search for the privilege of riding an airplane, you probably would have been slapped, then ridiculed. But today, we just accept it as the price of security.
What was that famous quote? “Give me liberty or give me security”?
That is a tough call CJ. The funny thing is, many people wear clothing that is more revealing than a full-body imaging machine! I wonder if this magic machine comes in a goggle form?!
I guess I fail to see the problem with this. You just walk through a machine, right?
Just walk through a machine and have your body viewed by some stranger.
Anyone ever read the 4th amendment? Or how about the Franklin quote, “those who would sacrifice liberty for safety will lose both and deserve neither.”
I have to fly for work and so I put up with this, but the safety they offer is an illusion. How long would it take a motivated terrorist to infiltrate TSA?
Sounds slow and expensive. That’s what I don’t like.
The civil liberties “issue” seems odd. I don’t know why someone looking at my body is a form oppression or enslavement.
Wow, I think I’m glad I drive most everywhere I go… even if gas is $4.00 a gallon, I think I’d rather pay for the gas than have someone see what I look like nekked. It’s an airport, not a locker room.
I’m all for safety, I’m all for screening for terrorists, but surely it can be done without sacrificing our dignity.
This is just outrageous, but most flyers have been conditioned to act like sheep, so they will probably put up with it. Sixty years ago there would have been mass refusals to submit to such things.
What’s worse, once they are accepted at airports they are going to show up at other public buildings, then private buildings, then on street corners. Don’t laugh, look around at the number of cameras already observing you everywhere. Big Brother is here.