Thursday, January 07, 2010

Lt. Gov. and I Agree on Body Scanners

I was pleased to see that the Lt. Gov. of Alaska and I are in complete agreement on body scans for most passengers as an approach to security at airports.  I suspect on most other issues we aren't nearly so closely aligned.  Craig Campbell presents the position much more clearly and persuasively than I did in the previous post.   Some quotes from his piece in today's Anchorage Daily News:


While serving as Alaska's commissioner of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, which oversees state Homeland Security, I questioned the use of full body scanners at airport security checkpoints. I quickly determined their use was an excessive and unnecessary invasion of personal privacy. . .
 Full body scanners create graphic images of our bodies that, as the ACLU pointed out, are "pictures of virtually naked bodies that reveal not only sexual organs but also intimate medical details such as colostomy bags and mastectomy scars." Full body scanners amount to a visual strip search by depicting a naked electronic image viewed by a federal agent.
We are told that the images will be immediately deleted from the system after the passenger exits security. Really, we already know that e-mails are not eliminated when deleted from computers and that these images can be reconstituted. . .
 We can achieve safety without infringing on personal liberties. Abdulmutallab's explosives would have been detected if existing security procedures, already in place, had been fully utilized. We don't need knee-jerk reactions that deprive Americans of yet another civil liberty in the name of security to ensure air travel is safe.
I hope the Anonynous commenter in the previous post reads this whole piece by a man who oversaw Homeland Security in Alaska. 



3 comments:

  1. ...and the US President just finished his television address and it appears he may still be calling for 'enhanced imaging technologies' to be used in airports, domestic and foreign.

    This is not at all over. Perhaps it is time to remind our president that there at times when it is appropriate to resist change rather than be it.

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  2. My husband had a diffibulaor and pacemacker implanted, he can not go threw the X-RAY. He has to have a pat-down and they seldom tell him to show his card. What is going to happen when one of these terrorist has something implanted and only has a pat-down with a fake card or fake doctors letter? My husband also is disbitic and takes insulin and needles in his carry on with a doctors note, whats to stop a terrorist from saying he is a diabetic with a fake doctors letter? Something to think about.

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  3. Sorry for some of the spelling, I didn't spell check and I have a cat bugging me.

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