The uproar over body scanners and pat-downs

What happened

The new airport screening process underwent a trial by fire this week on the busiest travel day of the year, amid a backlash over new, full-body scanner machines. To guard against terrorists hiding plastic explosives, the Transportation Security Administration recently installed 385 full-body scanners in 68 of the nation’s biggest airports; the scanners use low-level radiation to create a black-and-white image of the contours of a traveler’s body under his or her clothes. Travelers who refuse the scanner must submit to a pat-down by a TSA employee of the same gender who feels for hidden bombs around genitals and breasts. A backlash against both the scanners and the pat-downs was fueled by a YouTube video of traveler John Tyner refusing a pat-down and telling TSA officers, “You touch my junk, and I’m going to have you arrested!”

But “National Opt-Out Day,” called for the day before Thanksgiving, largely fizzled. The vast majority of passengers were keener to get home than to protest. In response to the uproar in the media and on the Internet, and to some embarrassing incidents in which handicapped people and children were patted down, TSA administrator John Pistole said inspectors had been cautioned to be “as minimally invasive as possible.” But he said it was his agency’s job to keep aircraft secure, and that the use of scanners and pat-downs would continue.

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What the editorials said

These intrusive procedures are a clumsy response to the Underwear Bomber’s attempt to blow up a plane over Detroit last Christmas, said Investor’s Business Daily. But U.S. intelligence knew that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a dangerous Islamic radical, and he should never have been able to board a plane. Instead of putting 3-year-old girls and old ladies through “a peep show,” the Obama administration should do as the Israelis do—focus on screening out anyone deemed suspicious. “They profile, Mr. President, they profile.”

Ah, of course—it’s Obama’s fault, said The New York Times. Conservatives who once applauded the Bush administration’s wiretapping of phone calls and e-mails have now turned airport security into the “hand of big government, once again poking around where it shouldn’t go.” But “profiling” passengers by skin color or religion isn’t the answer. If terrorists see that blue-eyed white people “are exempt from screening, that’s exactly whom they will recruit.”

What the columnists said

“‘Don’t touch my junk’ is the anthem of the modern man,” said Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post. John Tyner became an Internet “folk hero” because everyone knows that airport security procedures are just “a national homage to political correctness.” We’ve put up with “ridiculously unnecessary” shoe removals and bans on shampoo and toothpaste because we’re “too cowed” to question “the absurd taboo against profiling.” With these intrusive measures, “you’ve gone too far, Big Bro’. The sleeping giant awakes.”

Be careful what you wish for, said Helene Cooper in The New York Times. Americans clamoring for the TSA to adopt Israel’s procedures should see how El Al actually handles security. Passengers are required to show up four hours before flight time to clear security. Some passengers have their handbags, wallets, and shoes confiscated, and they’re not returned until boarding. All passengers get asked who they are, why they are traveling, and what they’ll do when they arrive. If agents don’t like your answers, you get pulled aside and interrogated further. And Israel operates only two airports—not 450, like the U.S.

Let’s remember why we’re doing this, said Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post. Al Qaida is clever, ruthless, and adaptable, and preventing even a single fanatic from slipping past our defenses requires procedures that “seem capricious, intrusive, and sometimes just bizarre.” There is an alternative—accepting that every now and then, a plane will blow up. But “the economic and psychological damage” would be so great that we’ve demanded the TSA reduce the risk of terrorism to zero—or as close to zero as is humanly possible. So please, give those TSA inspectors a break.