Airport Porn – Bigger, Broader, More Fully Packed

Voyager voyeurs vaunt very visible vectors! I’ve blogged about the technology… the intimate details… and the view from separate rooms “with a view” that special agents get to have… away from those pretty new full body scanners. Yum! Another Christmas bomber screening device. Whoa! They really do expose those hidden assets, and there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Sure travelers can object – and submit to an alternatively invasive examination – but here are more than a few of these expensive puppies sitting around, in “mothballs,” so to speak, ordered but sitting in government warehouses waiting to be deployed.

Apparently there’s about $757 billion left in the President’s stimulus package that has yet to emitted from government coffers – about $25 billion was allocated for those chi chi fully body scanners, but a bunch of them have not be placed in service. The February 23^rd LA Times: “Apparently, it took the Homeland Security Department seven months to order 150 of the scanners. Their California-based manufacturer, Rapiscan, says it has delivered more than 100 of the machines to the Transportation Security Administration, where they sit waiting… Maybe the delay is good news for privacy advocates, who still don't like those scanners.”

Like the Pope? The February 23^rd Travel.Aol.com noted: “Pope Benedict XVI spoke out against body scanners, insisting that ‘it is above all essential to protect and value the human person in their integrity.’… Speaking to an audience of 1,200 airport workers, the Pope acknowledged that airports were at the forefront of the terrorist threat, but added: ‘Even in this situation, one must never forget that respecting the primacy of the human person and attention to his or her needs does not make the service less efficient nor penalize economic management… For you this reality represents an even more task of complex organization and it is a labor that if often discreet and barely known, not always noted but which does not escape the eyes of God, who sees all of Man's work even those that are hidden.’”

Wanna see breast implants? Folks tell me that’s easy with these scanners. They’re currently in 19 American airports and scheduled to spread to most venues by the end of the year. Wonder if we can cut the deficit by selling tickets? Oops, some folks think these diabolical deviant devices actually cross the line on child pornography. Mainstream religion and anti-kiddie-porn advocates pitted against those who wish to protect our nation from terrorists?! What a dilemma?! How will we balance these interests?! Oh noooo!

Back on January 4^th, the British rag, the Guardian, reported: “The rapid introduction of full body scanners at British airports threatens to breach child protection laws which ban the creation of indecent images of children, the Guardian has learned… Privacy campaigners claim the images created by the machines are so graphic they amount to ‘virtual strip-searchin’ and have called for safeguards to protect the privacy of passengers involved… Ministers now face having to exempt under 18s from the scans or face the delays of introducing new legislation to ensure airport security staff do not commit offenses under child pornography laws… [They did exempt kids, by the way.] They also face demands from civil liberties groups for safeguards to ensure that images from the £80,000 scanners, including those of celebrities, do not end up on the internet. The Department for Transport confirmed that the ‘child porn’ problem was among the ‘legal and operational issues’ now under discussion in Whitehall [slang for the British government] after [PM] Gordon Brown's announcement [in early January] that he wanted to see their ‘gradual’ introduction at British airports.”

Sorry, gotta run, I’m missing some important Cialis and Viagra ads on the local news! Imagine describing any of this to a happy passenger getting on one of those first 707 passenger jet flights back in the 1950s?! No, really, imagine the conversation. Where would you start? With the guy who wore explosive underwear on a Christmas day flight? Hey… every once and while, ever think how completely the terrorists have totally won?!

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am shaking my head again.