If the person making the demand can function without a brain, so can you!
Seriously, I find it very hard to believe that anyone jumped in
on the side of this kind of treatment. If it were
purely a matter of privacy and aversion to being seen naked, AND if there was a real, demonstrable chance of a 9/11 style attack being averted by the technology... I might be able to convince myself to accept the terahertz scan that sees through clothing. if that were all it was.
Except none of those conditions apply. No one has shown any satisfactory evidence that a 9/11 style attack is likely to be stopped by terahertz scanners, or that if it could, it could not ALSO be stopped by other, less intrusive technologies (such as metal detectors).*
And it's NOT just a matter of privacy and aversion to being seen naked. A large fraction of American citizens, who have the same rights as any of the rest of us, have medical conditions that absolutely require the wearing of devices that are either delicate and prone to being damaged when groped (like urostomy bags), impossible to inspect to the TSA's satisfaction (like Mr. Broomstick's prosthetic leg bones), or are of such a sensitive nature that having them examined causes tremendous mental distress (such as prosthetic breasts).
There's also the separate issue of transsexuals, closely related to the last point,
also subject to massive humiliation in this context. And transsexuals have good reasons to believe, based on pure statistics, that they may be injured or killed if they are outed as such. For them it isn't
just humiliation; there is a literal risk to life and limb that comes from having their genitals examined in public or semi-public environments.
All these people will be expected to pass through the airport scanners, and under current TSA rules none of them can fly without taking a massive risk of being subjected to injury, infection, profound humiliation, or simply being barred from the plane because they can't rip open their own leg to show you their metal bones.
And I agree with Alyrium and Broomstick: this is blatant discrimination against epople with medical conditions of these types. And I can't for the life of me understand where people like Chardok or Ossus come from in saying otherwise.
*Seriously, the TSA tends to move the goalposts here.
One possibility is that we're trying to defend against another 9/11 attack? That would justify a lot of security, but would also require a much more organized, heavily equipped, and well-planned enemy. Which means that it would be easier to detect the weapons if effective weapons are used... and that the incremental benefit of more security drops because the enemy will be better at finding ways to evade it if 'stealthy' weapons are used. To hijack a plane with an Uzi you need to get the Uzi through security; to hijack a plane with a ceramic folding knife... well, if you can do that, you can probably do it whether they do a terahertz scan and grope your crotch or not.
So that would justify lots of detectors and searches, but also makes such an extensive outlay less necessary- if they're smart enough to fool the FBI and the metal detector, they're probably smart enough to fool the terahertz scanner; adding that extra layer at the airport doesn't change the outcome significantly.
The other possibility is that we're trying to defend against random idiots who think smuggling a few ounces of detcord in their underwear makes them a hero. That's harder to detect and prevent, so more security would theoretically be
required... but it also poses less of a threat, which means less security is justified. There's no reason why we should have to consent to having our groins thumped in order to keep random idiots from
conspiring to set their genitals on fire on an airplane.
If we're worried about small scale terrorist attackers, we would need more detectors and searches to stop them... but the small attacks don't present enough of a threat to justify the sacrifice.
So which is it? Are we trying to prevent 9/11, which requires
less security provisions but gives the TSA an unquestionable writ to enforce those provisions? Or are we trying to stop the next Underwear Bomber, which would require more security provisions but make it impossible to justify them?
