In the wake of the attempted bombing of a passenger airplane on Christmas Day, the Transportation Security Administration is going to expand the use of full body scanners. The scans are controversial because some consider them an invasion of privacy. The question of how revealing the images are has been part of the debate. At airports where the scanners are used, the TSA employees look at the images in a separate room so they don’t know which passengers they’re looking at.
Those on the other side of the debate argue that the scanners are necessary to find bombs like the one used on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit because it was hidden in the underwear of the suspect. Some point out that the TSA workers simply do not do a full pat down and that scanners are the only solution to catching these hidden explosives.
For more read NPR.org.
Editorial note: While the scanner issue is worth exploring, I believe the true failure here is that the intelligence community did not add up the obvious clues they had. They were warned by the father of the suspect weeks prior and the suspect bought a one way ticket in cash with no luggage. These indicators should be checked without question. Anyone who buys a one way ticket in cash should raise a flag and be further investigated.
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