You Can Touch My Junk Part Two

By T. Lee Humphrey
In You Can Touch My Junk part one I talked about the realities of the fully body scanner and tried to lower the language temperature by explaining that the MSM and anti-scanner crowd term naked picture didn’t really apply but to no avail. The MSM and more shockingly the right-wing of the MSM continues unabated in their attempt to portray these images as something that would be better suited to Playboy Magazine when in fact they are more akin to a faceless, featureless mannequin than anything else.

I should also point out that the reason I’m doing a part two is because of the response I received from You Can Touch My Junk, I obviously didn’t do a good enough job in explaining why it is I fully support these scanners and the practise of applying them universally as opposed to randomly or by using profiling. Those against the scanners are suggesting that we’re wasting our time by using them on Granny or the disabled or little children while pointing out the half a dozen or so cases where the TSA mishandled people (out of roughly 5 million people who’ve travelled during the same time) who refused to use the scanners or were selected for an enhanced pat down search while ignoring the benefits so let’s look at my personal experience with airport security and my opinion of why I believe the benefits far outweigh the negatives.

First my background in airport security, while I’ve worked on two airport projects as a security consultant (Ecuador and Russia) my experience primarily comes from travelling the world and I don’t mean the Western world I mean the developing world. I used a very cool Facebook application this morning to determine that I’ve been to 37% of the countries on the planet which was focused heavily in Africa, Europe, North America, Latin America and the Middle East. I’ve not travelled at all to the Far East or Australia. My African and Middle Eastern travel is all post 9-11 as is most of my travel to Latin America while the vast majority of my European travel was pre-9-11.

In April 2002 I travelled to Chad on behalf of a client, carrying with me a digital camera, GPS, Satellite Phone (laptop sized) and a laptop. It took me forever to get through security in Calgary, Canada my start point having to explain and turn on each item as well as demonstrate the functionality of each item. All these items were in my carry-on. My destination was Frankfurt where I changed planes and flew to Paris and then on to Chad. I never took the items out of my carry-on bag again. When I left Chad 100 days later I walked through a fake wooden metal detector and was then physically searched in a very cursory manner, however when the Air France plane landed their own security team got off the plane and carried out an additional multiple physical and wand search and inspection of carry-on luggage and you had to point out your checked luggage and hand it to a baggage handler under the supervision of an Air France security specialist (something I’d first done in Israel in 1986).

Over the years I’ve had my junk checked more times than not, when I’ve been getting on planes in the developing world as they have no other method of insuring that you’re not attempting to hid something in a place you’re hoping nobody would check. I currently reside in the Baghdad International Airport Free Zone and to get into the Free Zone from the rest of the country you have to pass through three inspections with the last one being a touch your junk inspection. I live there and move in and out of the zone up to twice daily yet each time, a very happy go lucky kid does his job and searches me fully even though he knows my face and I ask about his family each time. Why, because it’s the rules that everybody could potentially be a threat. The kid doesn’t know if I’ve had a change of heart and want to explode in the airport or if I’ve been threatened to bring something in or if my family is under threat or I’ve been paid, he does presumable know that he’s seen the enemy rapidly evolve and be willing to use anybody and every method they can think of to win.

In some countries you take your laptop out, in some you don’t, in some it’s belt off, watch off, jewellery off, shoes off etc, in some it isn’t. In some you’re screened coming into the airport, some you’re screened coming in and leaving. I won’t suggest that North America has the tougher standards or that Europe is easier or that even the developing world is the easiest but I will say that a common standard that ensures no weapons or explosives are getting on the plane is a good standard to achieve and boy would I be a happy travelling camper if it was the same in every airport.

Granny won’t attack us, no...but she might be forced or tricked into carrying something for somebody else, an elderly couple aged 64 and 65 were stopped before they could become suicide bombers a couple of years back. Disabled people shouldn’t be subjected to this treatment, right because disabled people can’t be our enemy or can’t be coerced like able bodied people. We’ve seen at least six mentally handicapped people successfully used as suicide bombers in Baghdad through trickery by al Qaeda. Nuns don’t need to be searched...I agree presuming we know they are actually nuns and not women dressed as nuns, do they get identifying tattoos or cards or something?

Listening to Mr. Hannity again today on his Fox News program you’d think this is the greatest invasion of civil liberties since the Social Security Card and the great data base that was to be collected and used against us and to track us. Maybe the pictures could be downloaded said a guest and since the TSA operator only makes $15 per hour they could make some extra cash my selling them to TMZ if celebrities come through...the ignorance that’s allowed on TV is overwhelming, I was sure Hannity had moved to MSNBC listening to this unchallenged drivel and nonsense so devoid of facts it had to be MSNBC but no it was my beloved Fair and Balanced Fox News...I expected better.

Our enemies recognized that we locked down metal detection, so they moved to liquids, we countered by limiting quantities, then they moved to liquids hidden on the body and we not only countered but we actually for the first time since 9-11 have gotten ahead of them, the fully body scanning machine that our scientists have created can identify any foreign object in any part of the body regardless of the material used. This means that plastic can be seen in cavities of the body that may be used to pack explosives (liquid or solid) so for once we’re forcing them away from the cabin of the passenger plane...although we still need to confirm that all checked luggage is receiving the same level of scrutiny to truly make passenger airline travel safe again. We also need to recognize that any flight emanating out of a location that doesn’t have this level of screening is vulnerable and those of us known to our enemies collectively as infidels remain a priority for execution. The underwear bomber began his journey in Amsterdam on a direct flight to the US. The level of screening for direct flights to North America must match the level of screening in North America and then be expanded out to include all of Europe or we’ll simply see more Europeans suffering instead of Americans but suffering is suffering.

Canada has purchased full body scanners and tested them and was getting ready to roll them out to match our American cousins but I highly doubt we’ll be seeing them anytime soon as the minority Conservative government will surely be gun shy after the greeting US so called US Conservatives have given this import device and that just provides our collective enemies with a great opportunity to fly to Canada and then into the US a nightmare scenario for all Canadians.

We also have to stop dismissing failed attempts and making light of them with cute names that imply they weren’t serious, like the underwear bomber. We pretend he wasn’t a serious threat and ignore the fact that the exact same bomb set up went off in Saudi Arabia a few weeks prior when a man walked into the office of a Saudi prince who is responsible for counter-terrorism operations and was able to detonate himself in the outer office killing several people after going through the traditional metal detector and a cursory pat down. Just because a device fails doesn’t mean it will every time and we finally have a quick, simple and easy method of detecting all foreign objects in or on the human body and we’re wailing and gnashing our teeth suggesting that the government is getting its jollies by taking naked photographs of people or joyfully groping them because they can.

As Conservatives we should be standing up for these machines and these measures because the one thing I thought we believed in above all others was the duty of the government to protect us from our enemies, not to impose health care or tax hikes or never ending levels of debt but surely to protect us, sparing no expense in doing so. We should also be supporting President Obama for putting politics and ginned up public outrage aside and listening to his experts in the area. Far too often we’ve rightly accused this President of not understanding national security or not having the junk to make the tough calls when it comes to the war on terror yet he’s made the right call and supported his experts and we’re now railing against him.

Seriously folks, put aside the nonsense about naked pictures and the mirage that Israeli type profiling can do the same thing (15,000 passengers a day compared to a million plus) and take a breath. We are safer because of these machines and the dedication of the TSA to enforce these standards and I for one will happily let them take my mannequin like picture or if necessary touch my junk if it means my junk gets safely from point A to point B.