Body Scanners: The Naked Truth | David Rittgers | Cato Institute: Commentary

Body Scanners: The Naked Truth | David Rittgers | Cato Institute: Commentary: "the scanners fare poorly against low-density materials such as thin plastics, gels and liquids. Care to guess what Abdulmutallab's bomb was made of? The Government Accountability Office reported in March that it's not clear that a scanner would've detected that device.

Even if the scanners did work against low-density materials, the same group linked to the Christmas bomb, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has already found another way to defeat the technology: hiding bombs inside the human body: A would-be AQAP assassin tried to kill a senior Saudi counterterrorism official with a bomb hidden where only a proctologist would find it.

That bomb wound up killing only its carrier. But a more enterprising terrorist could go to the plane bathroom to remove bomb components hidden in a body cavity, then place them against the aircraft hull — and the results would be far different.

Terrorists already know how to beat body scanners with low-tech (really, no-tech) techniques, but the federal government still spends billions on this gadget."

"An army of executives for scanner-producing corporations — mostly former high-ranking Homeland Security officials — successfully lobbied Congress into spending $300 million in stimulus money to buy the scanners. But running them will cost another $340 million each year. Operating them means 5,000 added TSA personnel, growing the screener workforce by 10 percent. This, when the federal debt commission is saying that we must cut federal employment rolls, including some FBI agents, just to keep spending sustainable.

Why cut funding for the people who actually catch terrorists to add more pointless hassles at the airport?"