The Fear Profiteers
OXFORD - Just when it seemed that America's "Homeland Security state" could not get more surreal, the United States Transportation Security Administration has rolled out a costly Scylla and Charybdis at major airports: either you accept dangerous doses of radiation and high-resolution imaging of your naked body, or, worried about the health risks of cumulative radiation, you opt out of the new full-body x-ray machines (rapidly dubbed "porno-scanners").
But if you opt out, you are now subjected, as I was last week, to an extraordinarily sexualized and invasive "pat-down" by TSA officials. "I will now touch your private parts," a very uncomfortable female TSA official said to me when I flew out of New York's Kennedy Airport. And, sure enough, I experienced the invasive touching of genitals and breasts that is now standard policy for US travelers.
Continue reading at Project Syndicate.
This article appeared on December 2nd, 2010 on The Huffington Post.
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Naomi Wolf is the author of The End of America. |
