And this awful invasion of basic human privacy and dignity gets even worse:
Washington (CNN) -- A privacy group says the Transportation Security Administration is misleading the public with claims that full-body scanners at airports cannot store or send their graphic images.
The TSA specified in 2008 documents that the machines must have image storage and sending abilities, the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) said.
It's only logical that such a device would be able to store and send an image. In a system dependent upon communicating information across a gigantic bureaucracy, saving and sending images seems like a necessary cog in the process.
To be fair, the TSA claims to have specific rules in place to prevent employees from saving the images internally or with camera phones. But life, as they say, finds a way. The internet is ripe for a blog that compiles ridiculous body scans. Think Perez Hilton meets Smoking Gun.
I can't repeat this enough: we've crossed a significant threshold with these body scanners. We've handed over our dignity in the name of a very, very remote threat. Imagine, if you will, the government being able to one day X-ray scan your house. Would that be okay? When does a search, or in the modern vernacular "a scan," become an unconstitutional illegal search?