Originally Posted by
WillCAD
LarryJ, I think what Wally Bird meant when he said "rationale" was "stated reason", which is not always the same as the "actual reason." In other words, I think he meant that AIT was put into place for reasons other than those stated by TSA.
I got into a bit of a semantic tangle trying to explain what I meant. I also assumed
LarryJ was to some extent defending the deployment of body scanners, which may be incorrect.
Not being party to the evolution I don't know how it went, but I can imagine:
1. Chertoff being oversold (with or without financial encouragements) on the capabilities of the machines;
2. the TSA as a whole being oversold or bullied by Chertoff into accepting those capablilties;
3 the press and public (most of them) being duped into accepting them "To Keep Us Safe".
If the 'reason' behind body scanners is that they detect explosives, then that is patently incorrect since they don't. It is therefore unreasonable (or a better word if anyone has one) to accept and promote their use on that basis.
Don't know if that's any clearer.
And on the other point, there are many ways in which explosives could pass undetected through a checkpoint, but I'm not going to detail them. The TSA may not know or acknowledge this, but other agencies do.