For most of my adult life, I haven't been particularly prudish about what I wear. In fact, as a late-20s-something I modeled a pretty skimpy swimsuit at a mixed-company fashion show, and as a mid-lifer living in Southern California was a backyard sunbather wearing equally brief attire. And, while not immune from the sags and bags of age creep, things for now remain in pretty fair shape considering the mileage and years.
But I have become increasingly conservative about keeping more and more of me under wraps. No more short shorts, plunging necklines or strapless tops. And the last swimsuit I bought has a skirt on it like the kind old women wore when I was a kid. (I wore this suit a few of times to the pool at the hotel where I lived when working in Indonesia a couple of years ago. Sure felt weird having all that fabric ballooning out around me as I descended into the water, but it did cover up some less eye-appealing areas.)
Maybe that's why I recoil and mentally hug protective arms around myself at the idea of an airport virtual strip search or intimate body probe. I travel a fair amount -- maybe a dozen or so times a year by air -- and have been wanded a couple of times and patted down once when I set off the magnetometer. That was, "patted," not "probed" or "felt up" and didn't feel like I was being molested.
But when the body scanners and "advanced pat downs" became policy earlier this year, I swore off flying -- at least for the time being. (I felt safe doing so since I didn't have any flights scheduled or trips on the horizon that would require air travel.)
As public ire has spiked with the increasingly intrusive and privacy-invading procedures, I've come down pretty much on the side of the "If you touch my junk" dude in San Diego and others who have raged over what seems to be outrageously intrusive "patting."
Anecdotes such as the man with a bladder problem whose urostomy bag was punctured in a too-aggresive search leaving him to travel in his urine-soaked clothing, and the woman who was told to remove her post-cancer surgery prothetic breast were bad enough. Then there was the account I read a couple of days ago about a woman who had her panty liner examined.
On the other side are those who think safety should come first and are glad for the peace of mind that a plane they're on won't be blown up.
But just how effective are these new TSA measures? Some reports say not only are they not particularly effective -- that the underwear bomber's device wouldn't have been detected -- but that they are used only at U.S. airports. (A few years after U.S. airport security started requiring passenger-shoe removal in reaction to the so-called "shoe-bomber," I went through security at an airport in Germany. As I reached down to take my shoes off, the guard said, "You do not need do that. You are not in the U.S.")
Another recent report pointed out that intelligence agents and observant passengers, not TSA guards, have detected the few wanna-be bombers that have surfaced in this country since 9/11.
While the loss of 2,973 lives in the 9/11 attacks was horrific and tragic, that number pales in comparison to the 42,196 lives reflected in traffic-fatality statistics that same year. Of those, 17,400 were alcohol related.
As great as the loss of 2,973 lives on 9/11 was, not one life has been lost in the U.S. in a terrorist attack since then. Yet 327,433 mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, husbands, wives and other loved ones have been killed in traffic collisions since then (through 2009). Those lives were just as precious, just as loved and are just as missed as those lost on 9/11. And approximately 40 percent of those traffic deaths were alcohol related. Yet, the U.S. government has undertaken nothing that even begins to approximate the scale of attention, effort, expense and manpower, or created the degree of public consternation that 9/11 prompted.
Why is that? Because the 9/11 deaths occurred enmass? Because they were perpetrated by foreigners, or even worse, by Arabs? Because driving is an "inalienable" right? (Well, isn't flying, too?) Because when we drive, we feel like we're more in control? (Really?)
Why, given the enormity of carnage caused on the nation's highways and byways by alcohol-related traffic collisions alone, aren't we taking similar preventative measures as the TSA is doing to avert death-by-terrorist in the skies?
A parallel would be for every driver to be subjected to a sobriety test every time we get in our cars and prepare to enter a public roadway, and to have our cell phones, PDA's and other attention-distracting devices confiscated.
Ridiculous? Impractical? Too expensive? Unreasonable search and seizure?
No more, to my mind, than what's happening in our airports in reaction to what is a fraction of American air-travel deaths compared to those that occur on the ground.
But, shouldn't the U.S. government undertake measures to mitigate air-travel attacks? Certainly. What I question is the effectiveness, cost and practicality of the escalation of inspecting each individual passenger, particularly since each escalation is reactive, not proactive and when the U.S. is the only country doing so. Perhaps America should swallow some of its national huberis and seriously examine effective measures other countries have adoped.
I also question the great focus on -- and harassment of -- people who travel by air, when non-passenger-related cargo (i.e. other than checked passenger luggage) that's loaded onto the same planes as passengers is not similarly inspected.
Too costly. Not feasible. Those are two of the reasons I've heard. My suspicion is it's because, for the most part, that cargo is shipped by companies and corporations and the government is loathe to inconvenience or rile the moneyed business sector.
Money can generally be found at the root of most, if not all, political and business decisions. "Follow the money" used to be an axiom of good jounalism, which seems to have become as antiquated as shoe buttons. If that were still practiced, someone would have reported weeks, if not months, ago on how much former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff has benefitted financially from the sale of the so-called "full-body scanners" for U.S. airport use. Upwards of 1,000 are reportedly projected to be bought and installed. Rapiscan, a maker of these scanners, is a client of Chertoff's Chertoff Group, which has been touring the country, championing Rapiscan scanners.
Someone recently coined the term "security theater" for what we've seen happening in the airport-security arena. The measures might not be particularly effective, but they do make the government look like it is doing something, and it's certainly enhancing the bottom line of at least one segment of corporate America.
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