Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had a plan: on Christmas Day, 2009, he was to blow up an airliner traveling from Amsterdam to New York. It did not go over so well. It was the failure of his device and the actions of a few passengers that foiled his plot. To the US government, that’s a problem.
The federal government constantly keeps tabs on the Transportation Safety Administration’s record of catching would-be terrorists. Agents test security on a daily basis by trying to sneak weapons and bomb making materials through airport checkpoints. Mostly, they are caught. “Mostly” is a problem.
Many believe this issue can be solved by implementing full-body scans of all air travelers. The strongest argument for the scans is that they make it much harder for someone to conceal dangerous materials in their underwear, and apparently, most people are okay with the body scans. Of course, that means the TSA would be virtually checking out your underwear every time you catch a flight. Again, this is a problem.
Some do take issue with the new scans. In the UK, they’ve found that the new scanners break child pornography laws. And, here in the US, some feel the technology violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unwarranted search and seizure. Not everyone is a terrorist, after all. The technology produces an image of the body in a kind of charcoal bas relief – not the most titillating picture, but enough to cause concern for some. The most concerned seem to be worried about the privacy of people who seem non-threatening – namely, grandmas and little girls since they don’t historically meet the profile of people that have made attacks. This of course could open up the argument of whether profiling is a good tactic of fighting terrorism.
What many people seem to be forgetting is the history of this argument. In 1972, in a response to a flurry of airplane hijackings, the Federal Aviation Administration required all carry-on luggage to be searched for weapons, and for all passengers to be scanned by a metal detector. Travelers argued the Fourth, but the courts upheld the procedures.
What seemed terribly invasive then became routine. Do you think full-body scans will become an easily accepted routine as well?
Posted by Tyler on January 11, 2009 at 4:05 pm.
