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The explosion of concern about body scanners and pat-downs is leaving me with mixed emotions. I'm against them, of course, because I'm against security theater. They're guarding against a kind of threat (underwear bomb) that didn't work in the first place. We can't guarantee 100% safety of any kind, and we need to face that like adults and have a reasoned cost-benefit discussion. Even if we make air travel compeltely safe from terrorists, they'll just attack someplace else.
I went through one last month. It was a bit weird to think about, but then I shrugged it off. And I once had a fairly intrusive pat-down, which was mostly only embarrassing because it turned out to be the foil wrapper on a forgotten condom which set off the metal detector in the first place. But this isn't the kind of thing I can judge just on my own reactions. The descriptions of what the process feels like to sexual assault victims is what we need to be thinking about here. And the anecdotal evidence that the pat-downs are being used in a punitive way is pretty clear at this point. The idea that we have a governmental agency with a policy of committing minor sexual assaults in order to coerce people into using expensive (profitable for lobbyists!), privacy-intruding devices that serve little practical purpose is obscene. And the video of a little kid being screened... that was pretty horrible.
But the backlash also feels very fake in many ways. The health risks of the scanners are (predictably) being blown up far out of proportion. If you don't like ionizing radiation, you shouldn't be flying in the first place. And despite the very real mental trauma concerns, all the attention is being focused on self-righteous "don't touch my junk" guy. The crypto-homophobic side to all of it is very off-putting. Hardly the first time society has sent the message "sexual assault is pretty bad, we guess, unless it's male-on-male, then it's the worst thing ever omg", but still. Ew.
I'm also very uncomfortable with some of the suggested reactions, like wearing a kilt commando style or faking an orgasm. I don't think turning something that might be sexual assault into definite sexual assault in the other direction is morally defensible. That's all thi is, trying to guarantee that the agent is sexually uncomfortable or humiliated. Ugh. And, again, there is a lot of homophobic undertones here. "Ha, I'll make that guy touch *balls*, what could be worse than that?" I like the idea of mass opting out of the scanners, to just overwhelm them with numbers, but there can't be anything punitive about action taken. In the end, most of the agents are just poor schmucks with crappy jobs dealing with incredibly entitled people all day. Some (probably well above background rates, as with any position of power) are power-hungry jerks, but not all.
More fundamentally, if we're committing ourselves to the path of adding new security procedures against every possible threat, no matter what the cost or side-effects, we need to be very clear about where that leads. There has already been at least one unsuccessful suicide bombing attempt (well, the suicide part worked, anyway) with rectal explosives. The only way to screen for those would be full x-ray screening and cavity searches. I'd ask if we're prepared for that, but I sadly think we kind of are. Ten years ago, no, the idea would have been preposterous and Orwellian. But so would banning liquids, requiring shoes and belts be removed for the screening, strong-arming people into creepy nude pics and federal agents feeling up little kids.
I went through one last month. It was a bit weird to think about, but then I shrugged it off. And I once had a fairly intrusive pat-down, which was mostly only embarrassing because it turned out to be the foil wrapper on a forgotten condom which set off the metal detector in the first place. But this isn't the kind of thing I can judge just on my own reactions. The descriptions of what the process feels like to sexual assault victims is what we need to be thinking about here. And the anecdotal evidence that the pat-downs are being used in a punitive way is pretty clear at this point. The idea that we have a governmental agency with a policy of committing minor sexual assaults in order to coerce people into using expensive (profitable for lobbyists!), privacy-intruding devices that serve little practical purpose is obscene. And the video of a little kid being screened... that was pretty horrible.
But the backlash also feels very fake in many ways. The health risks of the scanners are (predictably) being blown up far out of proportion. If you don't like ionizing radiation, you shouldn't be flying in the first place. And despite the very real mental trauma concerns, all the attention is being focused on self-righteous "don't touch my junk" guy. The crypto-homophobic side to all of it is very off-putting. Hardly the first time society has sent the message "sexual assault is pretty bad, we guess, unless it's male-on-male, then it's the worst thing ever omg", but still. Ew.
I'm also very uncomfortable with some of the suggested reactions, like wearing a kilt commando style or faking an orgasm. I don't think turning something that might be sexual assault into definite sexual assault in the other direction is morally defensible. That's all thi is, trying to guarantee that the agent is sexually uncomfortable or humiliated. Ugh. And, again, there is a lot of homophobic undertones here. "Ha, I'll make that guy touch *balls*, what could be worse than that?" I like the idea of mass opting out of the scanners, to just overwhelm them with numbers, but there can't be anything punitive about action taken. In the end, most of the agents are just poor schmucks with crappy jobs dealing with incredibly entitled people all day. Some (probably well above background rates, as with any position of power) are power-hungry jerks, but not all.
More fundamentally, if we're committing ourselves to the path of adding new security procedures against every possible threat, no matter what the cost or side-effects, we need to be very clear about where that leads. There has already been at least one unsuccessful suicide bombing attempt (well, the suicide part worked, anyway) with rectal explosives. The only way to screen for those would be full x-ray screening and cavity searches. I'd ask if we're prepared for that, but I sadly think we kind of are. Ten years ago, no, the idea would have been preposterous and Orwellian. But so would banning liquids, requiring shoes and belts be removed for the screening, strong-arming people into creepy nude pics and federal agents feeling up little kids.
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So I would assume the agents have been told not to make personal comments. Which doesn't say it would never happen, of course, just that I don't consider it inevitable.
(The times I've been patted down at the airport previously - I can't remember if it was twice or just once - it was all done very politely and wasn't a problem for me at all. But this was pre 'enhanced' procedure, and not being done in a punitive fashion.)
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