Airport Travel

My privacy has officially been violated. It was bound to happen. After flying three times in one week, it was almost guaranteed that I would be scanned by one of the new TSA scanners.

These scanners, a new security measure, scan your body for 10 seconds as you stand in a box with your legs a foot apart and your arms raised above your head. It projects a naked image of your body toward a security official watching the screen, who then looks for anything you might be sneaking onto a flight. From my understanding, the scanners make “pat-downs” unnecessary since technology does everything for us. They have created an ethical issue by potentially causing discomfort in some individuals at the idea of a random stranger examining your nude body.

TSA and newspaper articles suggest that it is not unethical because “the person monitoring the image does not know your identity.” A friend in Boston raised an interesting point refuting this measure. People don’t know someone’s identity when they are looking at pornography magazines, do they? So why is this ethical?

In a world where technology takes more prevalence by the day, we are undoubtedly increasing our safety. I have no question that these machines were created with good intent, to ensure that people are not sneaking illegal items onto plane. But where do we draw the line between what is too much? The technology and amount of interactive devices are keeping us safe by increasing stalking abilities and not considering human thought and ramifications of such decisions. Privacy does not exist…ever. The scan takes 10 seconds, and I don’t believe it would take a security official any more than 10 seconds to pat down someone who sets the alarm off at the gate.

Thus, I foresee an interesting future with this new invention. If nude scanners are acceptable in airports, where will they be acceptable next? School buildings? Ellis Island? Museums? Essentially, my generation must be prepared to lose our definition of privacy and acknowledge the impact of the Information Age. By the time I have kids, security measures and inventions will probably have exploded.

Let’s just accept the fact that we were always being watched. Between these, security cameras in department stores and easily-available devices sold in stores, machines will be aware of what is going on. But do the people who own or control them? Despite my father’s jokes about these “TSA regulation and stimulation stations,” the people monitoring these machines are still Americans getting paid to do a job. In fact, they probably did not request that position, and if they did, I have hope that airport security is intelligent enough not to hire them. In an age of technological innovation, we must remain aware of our surroundings as we lose this privacy, because while we might be being watched, we are not necessarily being judged.

Judgment and appearance is ultimately what many humans care about, and a machine cannot do that. It can witness things but not really understand personality, therefore, admitting the creepiness of these TSA scanners, they do fulfill their goal of promoting security and safety. Once Americans recognize this, press coverage will diminish and these measures will become habitual, just as security has been in the past.