Originally Posted by
eyecue
What would be the bigger moral dilemma? not doing your job and risk the consequences OR doing your job to the best of your ability without the mindset that you are doing something that other people dont agree with. IT is opinion I guess and half the fight on here is about whether or not there is a threat. Well just last year someone tried again with an IED in the underwear. You cannot discount that. You cannot discount that if nothing is done to attempt to close that vulnerability it woud not happen again. If your house gets burglarized, you take steps to stop it from happening again. The scope is wide and the issue is diverse and there is no easy answer.
Please pardon what might seem to be a slippery slope argument -- except that it feels like the slope has been quite slippery already indeed since 9/11.
When I flew to North Carolina the Thanksgiving after 9/11, I booked less than 12 hours before my flight -- I wasn't going out there for turkey day, but because my paternal grandmother had went into kidney failure. I was subjected to secondary screening, there were armed guards at the airport, etc... but no one felt my privates or even between my breasts. My father, who had not seen me in two years, was not allowed to run to hug me when I disembarked -- a man holding a rifle said "No, you wait for HER." But I did not feel violated.
Then they took our shoes, which made me feel a bit violated because of germs, but I got used to it. Then they started feeling underneath and sometimes between my breasts, which made me feel more violated but mainly for the humiliation of having to stand with my legs spread like a criminal and be seen by my male coworkers being touched. Then they wanted to take naked pictures of us, but said that was fine because if we didn't want to have someone see us naked, we could go through the patdown I'd gotten somewhat accustomed to after flying for work. Now, potentially I am facing a choice if I'm randomly selected or if something alarms the WTMD: either be seen naked, or have my breasts and genitals touched by a stranger.
There's no way that Thanksgiving in 2001, with body parts still being found from 9/11, that I ever would have imagined anyone would be asked to choose between virtually stripped or be felt between their legs to fly. But one man who sewed explosives into his underwear changed that.
So the IMHO not-so-slippery slope argument I have: What will happen when someone puts C4 inside their rectums or vaginas and boards a plane? How do you propose that threat be dealt with when it happens? What steps can be taken, and where will the line between the right to the privacy of our own bodies and the right for people to fly without blowing up be drawn?