Screaming About Screening

James Carafano / November 17, 2010

There is a lesson to be learned in the tempest against TSA: be careful what you ask for. After the underwear bomber tried to take down a Detroit-bound Christmas flight last year Congress and the citizenry lined up to cheer lead for deploying body scanners everywhere. Nobody paused to think if that was a wise response.

Non-metalic material hidden under clothes has always worried airport screeners. When someone dressed suspiciously there was only one option–an intrusive pat down. The scanner technology offered an option–a less intrusive way to check on the rare occasion when some one was sent to “secondary” screening (the more thorough going over some travelers get after, or instead of, the normal walk through the magnetometer). (more…)