Strib Editorial Board: “Shame On You, Potential Victims”

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I’m not one of those conservatives who reflexively bashes government employees’ intelligence, motivations and personalities.  Some of my best friends – people I know, with brains and honorable motives – work at all levels of government, in all kinds of jobs.  Not a one of them went into government because it was the only job they could qualify for (well, mostly; there’s no real private-sector market for fighter pilots).

Government, itself?  That’s another story.  I believe in closely scrutinizing any government agency, especially those that aren’t directly involved with defending our nation’s security.

Apropos not much – but we’ll come back to it.

The Strib is shocked, shocked, in the wake of the alleged Abdulmutallab bombing attempt, that privacy-rights activists ever opposed full-body scanning at airports:

Even more troubling is the extent to which privacy activists have been able to influence the political debate and restrict the use of whole-body imaging scanners in U.S. airports. To rally the opposition, the term “virtual strip search” has been used, conjuring images of Transportation Security Administration TSA screeners huddled around computers ogling the most shapely passengers.

Right.  Because TSA employees are ascetic monks, immune to temptation.

That ridiculous scenario was too much for our elected officials, and the House overwhelming passed a nonbinding measure in June to prevent the scanners from being used for primary screening. The brainpower behind the amendment, rookie Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, referred to screened images as “TSA porn” and came up with this wonderful but ill-informed sound bite: “Nobody needs to see my wife and kids naked to secure an airplane.”

The Strib editorial board chides the privacy activists for their close-mindedness, in terms that stop just a little short of “why do Rebublicans hate airline passengers?”.

Now, I don’t have a huge problem with full-body scanning in and of itself, as a form of technology.  It’s what it represents – and what the Strib, and by extension the rest of the left and media, have seemed to embrace over the past eight years – that is the problem.

The implication on the part of the Strib is that we, the public, should shut up and undergo whatever indignity our betters decide is best for us, because that’s our betters’ job.  It puts all of the many burdens – inconvenience, implied suspicion, humiliation – on the travelling public. Of course, these measures are all, universally, reactive – which means that terroriosts will find a way around them (if they haven’t already); the scanning, with its intrusion and indignity, will also be useless.  Not that it’ll go away.

But the Strib has consistently opposed the measures that’d put the burden on the would-be terrorists; they opposed wiretapping Americans for whom there exists a reasonable suspicion.  When a group of citizens reacted with suspicion to a group of Muslin clerics whose behavior seemed, at this remove, stranger than Abdulmutallab’s, the Strib pilloried them, and those who defended them, as racists.  The Strib couldn’t possibly abide by the concept of “profiling” – focusing security’s efforts on those most likely to cause problems, 20-40 year old middle-to-upper-middle-class Muslim men – even though that’s precisely what Israel’s El Al, one of the biggest terrorism targets in the world, has done to make themselves perhaps the safest airline in the world.

In other words, the Strib is fine with measures that demean and degrade you, Joe and Jane Citizen, provided that they are utterly politically correct, and without regard to the fact that they are in the long run completely useless.

Thanks, Strib.  Same to you.

15 thoughts on “Strib Editorial Board: “Shame On You, Potential Victims””

  1. Since one guy tried to blow up his show, the TSA has inspected 12 billion shoes (do the math) and not a single shoe bomb has ever been found, let alone gotten on board. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to keep track of ONE guy that we KNEW was a nut, then to check 6 billion pairs of innocent unmentionables?

  2. rookie Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, referred to screened images as “TSA porn” and came up with this wonderful but ill-informed sound bite: “Nobody needs to see my wife and kids naked to secure an airplane.”
    Exactly what is ill-informed about that statement?
    You’d think that with the way the newspaper business is going the Strib would be able to find editors who could write.

  3. Exactly what is ill-informed about that statement?

    My guess is the scanners don’t show people “naked” in the way most people would think of naked.

  4. My guess is the scanners don’t show people “naked” in the way most people would think of naked.

    Agreed, I think people might find this CNN story informative and it provides pictures showing what a whole-body imaging scan actually reveals.

    http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/05/18/airport.security.body.scans/

    I don’t doubt the sincerity of those who fear that someday the technology could evolve to where it reveals a clear image of what a person looks like under their clothes or that such images could be stored (or transferred) without the knowledge or consent of the scannee.

    But for now I think comparing it to a “virtual strip search” seems a bit premature and given the advantages of this method over a physical search (which IMO is far more intrusive even if it’s just a pat down), IMO it would be more productive to focus on ensuring that technological and procedural safeguards remain in place to prevent abuses from happening.

  5. My guess is the scanners don’t show people “naked” in the way most people would think of naked.

    Not to flash my porn credentials or anything, but you’d be AMAZED what some people get turned on by. Mark my words, if full body scans become common place, roughly 40 million porn sites would crop up with names like fullbodyporn.com, MILFscans.com, animescans.com, etc.

    On the plus side, those sites might elbow out all those sites dedicated to girls taking pictures of themselves in a mirror with digital cameras.

  9. “In other words, the Strib is fine with measures that demean and degrade you, Joe and Jane Citizen, provided that they are utterly politically correct, and without regard to the fact that they are in the long run completely useless.”

    No, I don’t think you’re reading this right. They reflexively defend any Democrat and attempt to pummel any Republican. Why try to paint this as anything else.

    As to the defense of government workers:

    “Some of my best friends – people I know, with brains and honorable motives – work at all levels of government, in all kinds of jobs. Not a one of them went into government because it was the only job they could qualify for…”

    Isn’t that taking things to the other extreme? Surely some of them are craven seekers of sinecures.

  11. The reason I doubt giving TSA any new power will help is because I saw how it got its existing power, and how poorly it uses that.

    Originally, airlines did their own screening. Why not, the airline doesn’t want to lose a multi-million dollar asset plus pay all the victim lawsuits. Later, airlines banded together to hire it out, for the same incentives.

    After 911, we were told it was obvious that the airlines couldn’t do a good enough job. We needed to Federalize all the security workers. That would guarantee we’d have nothing but Jack Webb types manning the posts – trained, professional, eagle-eyed experts.

    Turns out these new crackerjack law enforcement officials are the same Somali refugees as before, just a different rent-a-cop badge. They don’t even need to have a high school diploma or speak fluent English! You’ve been there, you’ve seen them – these folks show the same level of competence and customer service as any other union government office.

    Now we want them to give us full-body scans? What the Hell, odds are nobody will be looking at them anyway, they’ll be too busy complainting to their co-workers about their boyfriends. Or if they are looking, they won’t recognize the significance of what they see.

    Oh sure, they’ll still pull people out of line “randomly” for increased scrutiny. But they’re careful not to document it, so there’s no way to prove whether they are targeting 50-year old fat white-male lawyers or 28-year old Muslim fanatics. In any other setting – say, DWI stops – that’d be first class evidence that the cops WERE profiling but were hiding the fact. Here, we’re not supposed to look at the man behind the curtain while he’s looking at you.

    Frankly, I don’t care if they look at my scan. When you’re hot, you’re hot. But can we please, please stop pretending this is anything other than a theatrical ritual that increases airline security not one bit?

    .

  12. EVERYONE (especially the Strib but that’s no surprise) misses the fact that the UndieBomber boarded the plane at an airport that HAS whole body scanners…..

    http://www.ladieslogic.com/component/content/article/52-media/303-the-blame-game.html

    …and he was never scanned at any point. They also conveniently miss the FACT that the CIA and the rest of the alphabet soup intelligence agencies knew about this guy and NEVER FLAGGED HIS VISA!!!!!

    Never mind the systemic failures in the current system (heck of a job Jannie) let’s blame this on a frosh Congresscritter from a Western state because well all these redstaters are ignorant jerks….right?????

    Cindy

  13. “But can we please, please stop pretending this is anything other than a theatrical ritual that increases airline security not one bit?”

    Bingo; give that man a cigar.

  15. “TSA screeners huddled around computers ogling the most shapely passengers”

    Sure a couple of shapely passengers, and thousands of, well, let’s say less shapely passengers, or hundreds of shapeless passengers, YUK…..

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