Editorial Boards to the Little People Complaining About the TSA: Bend Over and Take it Like a Man!
More evidence for Radley Balko's thesis that the media is more statist than liberal (and for my contention that the unsigned newspaper editorial should go the way of the dodo bird):
Shut up and be scanned
Whatever happened to the notion that we need to stick together to overcome extremists? U.S. soldiers are still dying for that cause in Iraq and Afghanistan on a regular basis. Under the circumstances, it seems a small sacrifice for the citizens back home to keep a stiff upper lip and voluntarily agree to measures that experts believe are needed
The new "enhanced" patdown by airport screeners has sparked an unfortunate backlash among some fliers and privacy advocates
Let's consider these searches the 21st-century equivalent of a WWII rationing card.
Polls show that most Americans accept the scanners. The public and Congress can also insist that the TSA improve its technology and procedures.
But it's never easy to balance liberty and security, and 9/11 showed the need for vigilance. As the British would say, let's not get our knickers in a twist—even if the twist shows up on the scanners.
Much of the outrage springs from ignorance: Protesters somehow think that the attendants around the machines are peeping Toms, staring salaciously at you, then your private parts. But the images taken by the scanners only show up in a separate room, there to be viewed by an inspector who has no idea who he or she is actually looking at.
B-b-but even if it isn't the indecency of it all, it's the principle of the thing, comes the bellowing from the would-be offendees. Well, yes — so, for the moment, you can stand, or bend over, on principle and suffer attendant indignities.
Would you rather board a flight with all passengers fully screened, or one for which they haven't?
If they're honest about it, the answer is obvious to even the most ardent civil libertarians.
TSA isn't at fault here, though. TSA is on our side. The underwear bomber and his allies and sympathizers, whoever they are, are the real culprits. […]
[M]odest traveler inconvenience is a reasonable price to pay for a little added peace of mind.
Extra baggage fees? That's altogether different.
