The following is from a blog reader and frequent flyer who wishes to remain anonymous.
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“Male, anomaly, right thigh.”
“Female, anomaly, right arm”
“Male, clear.”
It’s just after 6 AM. I’m sitting at a gate at Boston’s Logan airport. I had noticed a long line at the checkpoint, and saw that it was because they were using the porno scanners. As a frequent traveler who lives in the Boston area, I know Logan. I went to another checkpoint where I walked through the magnetometer without incident, then made my circuitous way back to my flight’s gate.
I hadn’t realized when I took my seat at the gate that the black cloth surrounding the area next to me held the TSA voyeur ogling the images from the porno scanner.
“Male, anomaly, lower back.”
“Female, anomaly, groin.”
“Male, clear.”
This went on for several minutes, at a rate of about 4 per minute. The porno scanners are much slower than magnetometers. They aren’t any better at detecting explosives or bomb-making parts, as several critics have demonstrated. So why is the TSA so determined to force these extremely expensive, dangerous, humiliating x-ray machines upon us? It can’t be because of the fool who scorched his privates last Christmas; these machines have been in development for many years.
Economists will explain that the TSA is a monopoly, and monopolies always raise the price and lower the quality of goods and services. Raising the price means slower scans and longer lines. But it also means that the TSA will have a perfect excuse to demand larger budgets and more workers to deal with the intolerable lines they create once the porno scanners are in widespread use. It’s a perfectly understandable, rational decision for a tax-feeding bureaucracy immune to competition.
Besides, certain perverts think it is fun to look at naked people.
“Male, anomaly, groin.”
I hear a door open, and soon there is another voice in the room. They talk quietly and I can’t hear what they are saying.
“Female, anomaly, right breast.”
“Female, clear.”
“Male, clear.”
“Male, anomaly, right torso.”
“Female, anomaly, abdomen.”
The two suddenly erupt in laughter. I don’t know the joke, but it is all too easy to imagine what they find amusing.
The litany goes on, and I’m left to contemplate the dying Republic and the loss of any pretense of freedom, dignity, or basic decency. The contempt of the government for its victims is obvious. There is no reason to think that strip searches will stay confined to airports.
The operating procedure for the porno scanners make it clear that control, not security, is the overriding concern. If a TSA agent decides to send you through the magnetometer, usually but not always because the porno scanner is occupied, you can walk through with no further action required. But if you choose the magnetometer, or “opt out” in TSA parlance, you are punished by shouting and being made the center of attention, then subjected to a humiliating public groping.
The procedure is designed to punish those who do not meekly submit to any and every whim of people wearing government-issued costumes. It has nothing to do with security.
Listening, I realize that the TSA voyeurs are not looking for potential threats to aircraft safety. They search for “anomalies.” They are looking for anyone and anything that is different. Colostomy bags, breast prostheses, catheters, money belts, covered piercings, deformities of all kinds, the list of intimate things that many of us conceal beneath clothing is very long, while the list of things truly dangerous to aircraft is short.
The drill is to first identify the sex of the victim by looking at their naked image. This takes some careful scrutiny when the victim is a young child. But the porno scanners are up to the task, the image is so clear the voyeurs can tell if males are circumcised.
When you submit to a porno scan, you can be quite certain that your sex organs are the first thing the voyeur examines. Then the rest of your body is scrutinized for as long as the jaded voyeur finds it pleasurable. Those with unusual or particularly attractive physiques will be given especially careful scrutiny, with the most interesting images captured on cell phones or other devices, including the scanner itself. You will be free to go only if the pervert in the dark room fails to find anything at all different about your body.
