Lie Back and Think of England

 Posted on November 22, 2010 in Uncategorized

LA Times Editorial Board to the public: "Shut up and be scanned." I kid you not. (Matt Welch at Reason has collated a list of other editorial boards publicly supporting TSA's new "Scan or Grope" policy.)

Aside from "scanners are safe" and "Scan or Grope keeps us safe," here's the LA TImes's analysis of the objections to Scan-or-Grope:

There's no bright line to indicate where our quest for security becomes intolerably invasive of our privacy, but we're still pretty sure the TSA hasn't yet crossed it. Although the pat-downs are seriously embarrassing, they're also usually voluntary - to avoid them, you just have to go through the scanner....So, it's reasonable to ask, what's next? Anal probes at the airport? It's safe to say that if the TSA gets to that point, it will have crossed the line, and it might be time to explore less invasive methods. Meanwhile, though, a full-body scan isn't a terribly high price to pay for a measure of peace of mind.

I understand that there are people willing to be scan-or-groped before getting on a plane. There are people who are not willing to have their belongings x-rayed before getting on a plane. The "line" where our quest for security becomes intolerably invasive of our privacy is extremely subjective.

Who is the LA Times Editorial Board to tell you where that line is? They can't even name a point at which the TSA will have gone too far: if the TSA starts probing our anuses, it "might be time to explore less invasive methods"?

"Might be"? "Explore"? For crying out loud, how far up your large intestine does the scope have to be for "might" to become "will definitely" and "explore" to become "institute"? I guess when you're statist apologists, you don't want to go on the record disapproving of anything the government might decide to do later.