This airport security “opt-out day” idea is idiotic

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It’s hard to know where to start with this idiocy. The body scanners aren’t dangerous. Their safety has been certified by the Food and Drug Administration, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and other scientific reviewers. You get more radiation from being at flying altitude for two minutes than you do from a scan.

Second, a “virtual strip search” is nothing like a real one. According to We Won’t Fly, the fact that airport scans “are automated and mechanical in no way changes the fact that when a government agent looks beneath your clothing you are being strip searched.” Are you kidding? It changes everything. In an airport scan, the only person who sees your naked body (it looks like this on the viewing screen) is an officer in a room away from where you’re standing. He or she never sees your face and has no idea whose body is on the screen. Conversely, the officer who’s standing in front of you, awaiting word that you’ve passed the scan, never sees you naked. This separation of your identity from your nude image is what protects your privacy. In a pat-down, there’s no separation. The same officer who looks you in the eye slides his hand up your groin.