Has airport security gone too far?

The article I chose to discuss talks about airport security. It talks about how TSA is rolling out these ultra-revealing imagers across the country in an attempt to uncover hidden threats like the so-called underwear bomb found on a Detroit-bound flight last Christmas. What these scanners are able to do is see the passengers entire body nude. It is monitored by a person in a separate room where they are able to see the person virtually naked.

My issue with the article and with TSA is that I don’t think it is ethically right to strip people of their most private possession which is their body. I believe that with all the metal detectors, bag screenings, removing of the shoes, belts, watches, jewelry, that should be enough. If they want us to walk to the airport and travel naked then they should just come out and say it.

Today, 373 are installed in 68 U.S. airports. One thousand machines are supposed to be in place by the end of next year. And the Obama administration has requested 5,355 additional employees to man the scanners—at a cost of $219 million in the first year alone. The only alternative to the screenings will be a pat-down from a TSA worker, by the way, which they already do.

So my question is why go so far as to seeing people naked? Don’t people still have that right as to keep their body personal and not have some person in a distant room doing God knows what with these pictures. I think that being gawked at in the nude is not a fair price to pay just to go on a flight.

Shachtman, Noah. "Noah Shachtman: Has Airport Security Gone Too Far? - WSJ.com." Has Airport Security Gone Too Far? 17 Nov. 2010: 1. Business News & Financial News - The Wall Street Journal - Wsj.com. 17 Nov. 2010. Web. 12 Dec. 2011. .