Originally Posted by
rbphilip
As for real "privacy", by buying your ticket you've given the TSA (as an organization) inspiration to access pretty much all the public (and not so public) information that exists about you.
Originally Posted by
rbphilip
And, for that matter, I don't consider the scanners or pat-downs violations. They are a condition of travel, not unlike buying a ticket, carrying ID, carrying a passport for overseas travel, etc...
On the scale of things that my government does that drive me crazy, millimeter wave scanners at the airport are not on the scale.
Where do you draw the line? Do you have a line? What if TSA wanted to strip search you in private? In public? Make you fly in a hospital gown? Make you fly naked? Interview your boss or personal physician as to if you were mentally fit to fly?
You can claim my question is absurd or hyperbole, but I would bet dollars to donuts that everyone here on this board who is over the age of 30, if asked 20 years go (1993) what they thought of commercial air travelers on domestic-USA flights having to remove their jackets, remove their shoes, remove their belts, not carry liquid in containers > 3.4 ounces, be put through a scanner that can create a naked image, be subject to a secret blacklist that can prevent travel with no due process, and potentially be subject to a patdown involving the front of the hands cupping the groin, the response would have been incredulity or laughter at the absurd hyperbole of the ideas.
And this is among a population that in the previous decade (1983-1993) had experienced some scary aircraft bombings (e.g., Pan Am 103) and deadly hijackings (e.g., TWA 847), so it's not like they had never heard of terrorism.