PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

Anyone who has read the TerryReport more than once generally knows we are on a campaign against highly invasive searches on law abiding citizens who have committed no crime, other than going to the airport to take a flight (which is kind of a new crime, it seems, in the eyes of some). The old saying that people who give up liberty in the search of security wind up with neither applies to this situation.

Brian Todd of CNN went to a demonstration of the most invasive tool, a giant flat panel X-Ray machine that scans the whole body, including genitals. The company that makes these big brother machines has devised some sort of blocking code that would obscure the so called “private area”, while the image would still be available on the machine.

In the case of Brian Todd, he was given a piece of metal to insert in his pants (was that cold or what?) so that we, the home viewer, would not have to be treated to a photo of “his boys”. Here’s a question: would the average person be allowed to insert the protective metal? Probably not. Wouldn’t that tend to defeat the purpose of the scan in the first place? Who says you can’t wear lead pants to the airport? I guess that would get a little warm during a few hours of flying.

Here is something to keep in mind the next time you go to the airport: you always have the right to refuse any screening technique and leave the airport. YOU ARE NOT UNDER ARREST, just because you have decided to board an aircraft. As a citizen, or even a non-citizen, you are still entitled to the protections of the Constitution. Once on board the aircraft, the situation changes considerably, but that is another story.

Here is the link to Brian Todd’s tour of the X-Ray scanners:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/12/28/todd.xray.scanners.cnn

As one who once toiled in the fields of daily journalism, just about everything I see in terms of news coverage is too timid these days. It is not that I want to see reporters taking their own stands on issues, it is, rather, that I would like to see, and read, things much more sharply drawn. Our Constitution protects us from “unreasonable search and seizures. What this means is that we have a presumptive right to move about our country in peace, without being randomly molested by police officers. In America, you can’t, or shouldn’t, be stopped on “suspicion” and forced to undergo a search. Yet, at the airport, this is the rule now rather than the exception. Everyone is under suspicion, which gives a vague feeling of equality about it, doesn’t it?

Why are we so worked up about safety in the air, anyway? We kill about 40,000 people on the roads every year, but there is no massive crackdown there, is there? Speeding ten to thirty miles an hour over the speed limit has become the rule on the Interstates. Someone who dares drive at only sixty miles an hour on I-95 on the east coast had better hunt for the slow lane and pray they don’t get run down like a tiny bug.

The vast majority of air travelers must, I would surmise, have some deep, lingering fears of flying in the first place, so that the whole terrorism scare increases that sense of worry to a state where they would tolerate almost anything “if it helps with our security”, as the saying goes. Here’s a warning, and a fact, to consider, dear travelers: the more you tolerate, the more they will impose. It is not hard to imagine some sort of device that locks you into your seat, only to be released when the flight attendants say it is okay. We aren’t that far from that kind of ridiculousness right now.

Doug Terry, 12.28.09

CONTACT THE TERRYREPORT

       HOME PAGE

end