Freedom Line Blog

Remember Erroll Southers?  He was President Barack Obama’s nominee to be the chief of the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA), the agency in charge of security at all the nation’s airports.  If approved, he would have been the point man for installing full body scan machines for every passenger to walk through.  Yet, he withdrew his nomination last month after it surfaced that twenty years ago as an FBI agent he illegally accessed information about his ex-wife’s boyfriend.  By all accounts he was a model security professional before and after the incident, but introduce a personal motive, and even the best people may play a dangerous game with our privacy.

Once again, Britain provides a case study.  Recently, an Indian film star discovered the failures of a government-run failsafe system.  Immediately after participating in a mandatory full body scan at London’s Heathrow airport, Shahrukh Khan saw two female security workers printing out a picture with detailed outlines of his manhood on display.  The event gave the lie to assurances by the British government that no scanned information would be saved or printed.  Though irritated, he made light of the matter and autographed the paper.  The rest of us should take note.

It is darkly ironic that at a time when most Americans are disgusted with the lack of transparency from their government, their government is lusting after more transparency from its people.