Full-body scanners are being tested in a variety of airports. I didn’t get the pleasure of using one on my recent trip to Japan, unfortunately, so I can’t provide a first-hand account of what it’s like. I suspect it’s quite unremarkable to walk through one of these. That won’t stop people from being outraged over the fact that some TSA goon sitting in a sterile room somewhere where he can’t see the individual walking through the scanner gets to drool over grainy black-and-white images of everyone’s naughty bits!
The BBC brings word that the scanner is being tested in Manchester airport, and that reaction from the public is mixed, at best. Never mind the fact that the scanners allow travelers to pass through without removing their coats or shoes, dramatically speeding up a horribly inefficient process. The scanners show you naked!
But the full body scans will also show up breast enlargements, body piercings and a clear black-and-white outline of passengers’ genitals.
The spokespeople for the manufacturers and various security entities all assure us that the images cannot be stored. Yeah, right. If there’s one thing we know, it’s that a distressingly large number of human beings will do darn near anything to look at nekkid pictures of other human beings. I can envision a whole new fetish springing up around black market rips of security scanner images. Start registering domains now, gang!
The good news is that you can show your junk to the TSA goons up to five thousand times per year before you need to worry about the radiation you’re subjecting said junk to.