Digital Strip Searches For Every Airline Passenger?

(MoneyWatch)  Caution: Images may be too graphic for sensitive viewers
Bomb scares have a way of making even the most liberal-leaning legislators green-light laws that trample on the Bill of Rights. Since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to detonate an explosive on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 (albeit unsuccessfully and burning himself in the process) on Christmas Day, I think everyone watching knew that the simplicity of taking off one's shoes and being patted down were a thing of the past.

So what possible intrusive measure could the Transportation Security Administration institute now? Strip searches? Well, yes, at least digitally. Aside from the privacy laws violated, implementing these body scanners which see through clothing will take time -- a lot of time --- and money. So far about 150 of these machines will be sent off to airports near you (or not, depending if you don't live near a larger metro airport) for use in 2010. They have the ability to see beneath someone's clothes in color or black and white and are supposedly still optional for passengers who don't want their naked bodies seen by a lone TSA worker in cubicle. However, many airport and government officials, including the TSA are pushing for wider use.

The problem with the new search techniques, aside from Constitutionally, is that all security measures implemented by the TSA have yielded nothing -- precisely because of its knee-jerk reaction to every bomb threat or scare. The only true way to stop terrorists is greater intelligence. Using the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment to weed out possible threats from everyday people could help, but so could employing people that are actually security-trained versus federal baggage handlers.

Some worry this will lead to ethnic profiling or lawsuits, but the digital body scanners have already led to a lawsuit against the Department of Justice by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. A bill also is in Congress to fight the scanners as a violation of our civil rights.

Can't we see the alleged bomb attack for what it was -- failed? Perhaps we should see the world as it is -- that there are some risks to flying internationally but they are very, very small. Personally, I'm not willing to take my clothes off to minimize an already tiny risk. Are you?