Gallup Poll: 42% Bothered/Angry About TSA Body Scans, 57% Bothered/Angry By Pat Downs
But the perhaps the most telling result is that a fully 71% of poll respondents feel that both security measures are “worth it” for the sake of air travel security.
This comes after a CBS poll showing 81% of respondents supporting the TSA scanners. Gallup concludes from its own poll results that, “Attitudes among frequent U.S. air travelers suggest that the reported uproar over the use of full-body scans and pat-downs at U.S. airports does not reflect how most air travelers feel.”
Disappointing results, to be sure, as it’s painful to see so many Americans go along with such invasive police-state tactics on the notion that it’s making them safer. As some scientists have pointed out, you have as much risk of getting cancer or some other health malady from the TSA scanners as you have of getting killed on an air flight by a terrorist. And when has TSA screening ever stopped a terror plot?
Never, by my estimates, and I don’t expect these invasive new tactics to change that. No less a public figure than the Mythbusters’ Adam Savage has questioned the effectiveness of the TSA after he accidentally got through airport security with 12″ razor blades.
The government, of course, claims that the scanners are perfectly safe and entirely effective, but has the public really had the time to evaluate independent data from scientists not employed by the government? And what happens if terrorists get through this new level of screening? Do we ratchet up the screening to even more draconian levels?
That’s been the trend so far. After the shoe bomber we had to take off our shoes. After the underwear bomber the TSA had to put their hands down our pants. Where do we go next?
The government, and the proponents of these tactics in general, make powerful arguments about air travel safety that resonate with the public at large. They say that we’d be less safe without these tactics, and how do we prove them wrong?
We could probably lower the crime rate if our nation’s law enforcement officers were allowed to detain us and search us or our property whenever they want. We might have a fewer crimes, but we don’t let the cops do that because we consider it to be an affront to our privacy. We don’t allow the government to trample the 4th amendment in our day-to-day lives even for the sake of additional security, so why would we let them trample it at airport security?
Tags: airport security, gallup, polls, tsa
