Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns, and Money links to a blog post asking travelers to direct their frustration over the new full body image scanners vs full body search "choice" not at TSA workers but at TSA administrators. Sounds reasonable, but then all hell breaks loose in the comments, where "fascism" and "Good Germans" are tossed around casually, and even Niemöller's poem makes an appearance ("first they came for our shoes ....")
So what are we to make of the new scanners? The whole thing seems to me to be "security theater," that is, an excuse to try out an array of social and electronic control mechanisms under the guise of making us "safer." I don't know about the safety, but it is surely a good way of inducing obedience and docility in the population. Or maybe it amplifies paranoia and rage, which can also have their uses. Not that I'm blaming the TSA alone for the Tea Party, but ...
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