Privacy is an Illusion

I’m a very private, introverted person. I love living alone, in my little house in the middle of the woods.

At the same time, I can’t quite understand what all the fuss is about with regards to the full-body-imaging scans being considered as security measures at airports these days.  Granted, TSA has a horrible reputation for doing all sorts of nonsensical and basic-civil-rights-violating sorts of things, but when it comes to this, well . . . it seems like folks are raising a ruckus over something that really isn’t all that invasive at all.

The example scans I’ve seen don’t seem like anything anyone could find any prurient interest in. They might show a few folds of fat that might be a bit embarrassing, but really, we all give up a certain amount of privacy every day of our lives to ensure our own safety.  A large number of jobs in government and education require fingerprinting – those fingerprints going into an identification database. All of us deal with cameras recording us pretty much everywhere we might decide to go in public, often catching (and occasionally publicizing) rather embarrassing moments. An entire generation thinks nothing of exposing their innermost secrets on Facebook.

So what’s the fuss over some not-really-all-that-naked pictures? The images that I’ve seen from these machines don’t really seem to be all that violating. We saw more detailed nakedness on Rebecca Romijin Stamos as Mystique, in a PG-13 movie.  It’s certainly less invasive than having some random stranger cupping your privates in a pat-down — or worse, the dreaded strip-exam.

I guess it’s just something folks would have to decide – if they really would rather choose to not having these rather ken-and-barbie-ish images seen, instead of  another good safety check to make sure that they don’t get blown up.

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• New Airport Scanners Described As ‘Intrusive’ (npr.org)
• New TSA Rules (technologizer.com)
• Airline Security vs. Personal Privacy (abcnews.go.com)
• Naked images at Sea-Tac Airport? It’s for security (seattlepi.com)

Politics Civil and political rights, Privacy, Security, Transportation Security Administration