Melanie Scarborough: Yes, we scan ... but we shouldn’t
By: Melanie Scarborough
Examiner Columnist
June 16, 2008
WASHINGTON — W hy don’t we just be honest enough to repeal the Fourth Amendment — "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches" — if we are willing to live in a society where unreasonable searches are routine? The right to be secure in your person is going right out the window as we enter the age of virtual strip searches.
With no public debate, the TSA is installing at airports around the country backscatter technology that allow screeners to see through travelers’ clothes. Although agency spokesmen have described the image produced as little more than a "chalk outline" and too fuzzy to expose anatomical details, that clearly is untrue. James Schear, the TSA security director at BWI airport, said the images are so detailed "you can actually see the sweat on someone’s back."
Yet this incredible invasion of passengers’ privacy does little to enhance security. Although the scanners can reveal some hidden weapons, they can’t see beneath body folds or inside body cavities — nor can they see through plastic or rubber materials that resemble skin. Determined miscreants could use any number of methods to hide objects from detection.
For now, travelers can opt for a pat-down instead; but, of course, that will not last. Not only will every air traveler soon be required to undergo this virtual strip search; body-scanning machines will begin to replace metal detectors at other locations. Already, body scanners are in use at some courthouses, jails, embassies, and border checkpoints.
And that’s just the places we know about. American Science & Engineering Inc., a manufacturer of backscatter products, counts dozens of federal agencies among its customers. Included in the equipment it supplies the government are Z-Backscatter vans (ZBVs), which — disguised as ordinary delivery vehicles — allow government agents to conduct drive-by imaging of vehicles and objects. Alternatively, agents can park the van and X-ray cars and objects that pass by.
How can Americans claim any constitutional right to be "secure in their persons and effects" if they can’t even drive their own cars or walk down the street without being unknowingly X-rayed? And while the TSA claims that its machines immediately delete the pictures of naked travelers, AS&E boasts that the software in backscatter vans can "manipulate, enhance, and save" the images it collects.
One of the most troubling aspects of this technology is the absence of oversight. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff has said he is tired of the "endess debate" about privacy. Well, tough. Privacy is a bulwark of freedom; Chertoff should not be allowed to simply declare it a pointless impediment to his agenda.
And what about agencies such as the Secret Service that operate with virtually no accountability? Is there any reason to believe Secret Service agents are not employing backscatter technology with the same zeal they employ facial-recognition technology at the Super Bowl, for instance? Is any member of Congress monitoring that?
Since Chertoff has dismissed such concerns as "hand-wringing," it is difficult to believe that stringent privacy protection ranks high on his list of priorities.
The salient fact is that terrorists have been unable to commandeer American planes since Sept. 11, 2001. That means the procedures already in place — metal detectors, passenger screening and physical inspections — are working. They do not guarantee security, but nothing ever will, and subjecting every air traveler to a virtual strip search is unnecessarily extreme.
It is also absurd, in light of this: Last September, four senators — including Barack Obama — sent a letter to the TSA criticizing the agency for subjecting some turban-wearing travelers to secondary screening and pat-downs. Because Sikhs consider the turban a religious symbol, they object to the "unwanted touching" of their headwear.
So Obama and his illustrious colleagues believe that an Arab man shouldn’t be subjected to the humiliation of having a stranger touch his headdress, but women and children should have to submit to examination of their naked bodies?
Since the 9/11 attacks, Americans have proven depressingly compliant in forfeiting their freedom for a false sense of security. But surely even the most sheeplike will consider body scanning beyond the pale. If subjecting innocent citizens to electronic stripping doesn’t define unreasonable search, what does?
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