Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Airport Body Scanners

There has been a lot of talk about these new full body scanners at the airports lately so I thought I'd throw out my two cents.  Now, I don't travel by air much, in fact, the last time I flew was in 2005 when we went to Saint Maarten.  In an attempt to keep this post as short as possible I'll refrain from voicing my disgruntlement of lost luggage, late flights, cramped flights, damaged luggage, rude crews and all the other horrors associated with flying and just focus on the scanners.
Now first, I think these scanners were supposed to be in answer to a supposed call to make flying safer after 9-11.  Well, here's problem number 1.  The scanners don't scan past your outer body, ask any law enforcement officer, people will shove anything and everything into any orifice to get past a pat down or scanner, in this case.  These scanners are not designed to scan the orifices of the body, just under your clothing and in your pockets; that's pretty useless to someone wanting to blow up a plane. 
Problem number 2, the planes on 9-11 were all, or at least mostly, over taken using box cutters or small pocket knives, not bombs or guns.  The only thing that will stop another 9-11 is the people on the planes, not the supposed technology in the airports.  The people in the planes know what happened on 9-11, the people on the planes are not going to sit and let that happen again, they will take back the planes down to the last person, I think terrorists know this and I think THAT is why there hasn't been another attempt like it, NOT that TSA is in place or Homeland Security raises the threat level to red or orange. 
Problem number 3, Scanning or patting down children is unacceptable I don't care who you are or what your reasoning is and I would NOT allow it to happen to my children.  I have been a police officer and I know the procedure of patting someone down and I would still not allow someone to put their hand on my child just to get on a plane and no way is someone looking at a scanned image of my child either.  How many times are teachers or daycare workers or preachers or other workers arrested even AFTER they passed a background check for child related offenses, I will not allow some potential pervert to be looking at my child, ever.
Problem number 4...the terrorists have won.  Our rights have been infringed upon, our personal privacy has been stomped into nonexistence, we cannot fly unless we consent to someone looking at our essentially nude body or someone touching our private parts and that is unacceptable. 
I, my friends, will not be flying any time soon if I can at all help it, which I can so I will chose to take to the roads instead.

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