Whilst the TSA “Scan or be groped” problem is currently restricted to the US, I’ve stumbled across enough articles discussing the matter of late that it seemed worth having a bit of a round up. If only because I know enough people that fly out there regularly and just as likely either the US will demand we have similar procedures (there being no point in having such procedures if people can avoid them simply by flying into the country) or we’ll copy them anyway. Over at Samizdata there’s a decent bit of discussion on if the searches are reasonable and changes in attitudes. American commentary suggests that the TSA procedures are the real way to provoke a revolution and observe at the impact of a single failed bomb attempt:
“Is that not amazing, by the way? That a solitary “Christmas underwear bomber” has now changed the complexion of the entire country and inconvenienced tens of millions with a single failed attempt? Yes, all this groping is because of one guy, and he’s not even Justin Bieber. How incredible is that? Who says an individual can’t make a difference? Who says the terrorists haven’t already won?”
Over at Big Brother Watch there are reports of people resisting being searched and links to a mass opt-out of being scanned planned for yesterday – I haven’t been able to find any reports yet of how well that went. Individuals are also recording their own attempts to highlight the problem by trying to be nearest-to-naked a passenger has gotten at a TSA screening (NSFW – but contains some ace ideas for making the people searching you uncomfortable).
Of course all the official talk about this being to protect our safety it seems doesn’t seem to stand up well to scrutiny with some economists suggesting that if avoiding the TSA causes people to drive instead the death toll will increase – road travel being mile for mile still more dangerous than air travel. Then there’s the question of the safety of those scanners which may not actually be anywhere as near as safe as the TSA like to claim – especially for children and those with genetic risk factors.
But perhaps as others have suggested the whole point of this exercise is so that when they back off a bit we’ll all be terribly grateful that we “only” have to carry travel permits, and present our papers on demand.
Update: My attention has been drawn to an article looking at where the TSA might go next after all planes aren’t the only way to travel
