‘Naked scanners’: Lobbyists join the war on terror

Brandi Roberson, training instructor for TSA, looks at a scanned image of an anonymous volunteer on her computer at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Wash. (AP Photo/The Seattle Times, Mike Siegel)

The degradations of passing through full-body scanners that provide naked pictures of you to Transportation Security Administration agents may not mean that the terrorists have won — but they do mark victories for a few politically connected high-tech companies and their revolving-door lobbyists.
Many experts and critics suspect that the full-body “naked scanners” recently deployed at U.S. airports do little to make us more secure, and a lot to make us angry, embarrassed and late. For instance, the scanners can’t see through skin, and so weapons or explosives can be hidden safely in body cavities.
But this is government we’re talking about. A program or product doesn’t need to be effective, it only needs to have a good lobby. And the naked-scanner lobby is small but well-connected. Read more.