Ever since Richard Reid attempted to detonate his sneakers with pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) on an American Airlines flight in December 2001, airport travelers in the United States have had to remove their shoes while going through security. Now that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has tried to blow-up a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day with PETN sowed into his underwear, I worry that authorities will soon ask us to undress and put our undies on the conveyor belt. Let it not be so.
Alas, these are trying times for civil libertarians. We want to oppose government intrusions into our privacy, but terrorism these days is so damn scary. For example, I live in New York City where ever since the London Tube bombings of 2005, the police can randomly search our backpacks and bags when we enter the subway. While I opposed this policy in principle, I did not rally in the streets after the NYCLU’s legal challenge to the random-search policy failed. Like many New Yorkers, I acquiesced in the hope that the privacy-security trade might just be worth it.
So now the underwear bomber presents a fresh challenge to our resolve. We all want to be safe on airlines, but should we really let the government peek into our drawers? Apparently, the Dutch are already implementing full-body scans using a millimeter wave scanner that conducts virtual strip searches. The potential for abuse seems ripe. And it’s not all together clear that these undeniable intrusions really would stop any or all potential terrorists.
In the end, my concern is that stripping our privacy rights in the name of fighting terror will leave us naked in the rest of our lives as citizens. We cannot let our understandable fear of terrorism wind us up so much that we get our knickers in a twist. Living with risk is part of democracy. To stay free and honor the Fourth Amendment, we may need to accept some danger. People, let’s keep our pants on here.
Photo: Rupix