Airport Security - Just smile for the full-body scan?

I think I've just gotten the compelling incentive to workout more - I plan to travel and based on recent events, I'll likely be checked with a full body scanner.  The news says the scanner technology provides visuals under clothing,  detailed enough to "see the sweat on someone's back."  Sweet.  I suppose if a person has strong feelings about modesty they can stay home, or be prepared for a pat down like none experienced outside of the police station (we already know PETN in briefs needs checking, but the same amount of PETN would pad out a bra, or be hidden in body cavities just as easily).

The scanners are in place in various airports already (Denver, Reagan, London for example).  They are in place in Amsterdam, but they just weren't used for the Christmas Day Bomber.   If body scanners were going to be effective, they would need to be used on every single person - assuming they were able to detect the items of concern (reports indicate they may not).  I understand one can refuse the scan, but must be subject to a pat down instead.  Will this include effective checks of gender-specific anatomy? Its definitely a weak-link model:  all the investment, all the invasion, and potential abuse of personal privacy, will only help us if we use it all-the-time-everywhere.  If this is the control of choice, it will be coming soon to an airport near you.

But is this really the right control?  Recently I traveled to Israel via Paris, and am keenly sensitive to the security aspects of travel there.  Somehow, I made a mistake in packing, and found all my liquids for two weeks of travel (not a huge amount but definitely over TSA limits) in my carryon bag just as we were going through security.   As we approached the x-ray at SEATAC, I was prepared to have to throw bottles of sunscreen, etc, into the trash, but tried one thing first:  used multiple 1 Qt baggies to divide up the liquids, and then placed one baggie in separate totes to go through the x-ray.  It worked!  At that point I realized TSA screeners have no idea who owns what in the various totes they screen.  Seems like a big weakness in the scanning process.  Could I have hidden a few ounces of PETN in a cosmetic container?  Certainly, yes: the risk of being caught would be only if they had a specially trained dog to sniff for it, or if they did the additional scan for explosives.  I think the chances of foiling the system through the carry-on scanning system is pretty high.  If that is true, the privacy we are giving up for full-body scanning at airports could be for naught.  Ugh.  DHS needs to look at their controls from an effectiveness standpoint.  Full-body scanners is a "cosmetic" control - it looks like they are doing something, but it may not do any real good.

ACLU is suggesting that full-body scanning at airports is just the first step on a slippery slope.  Why not use them at sports events?  Access to shopping malls?  Access to anywhere there is a large concentration of people?  You want to go shopping?  Scan.  Movies?  Scan?  Baseball?  Scan.  Yikes!

The potential for abuse is there.  We don't see the person reading the scan, we don't know what is really viewed on the scan, we don't know where the information goes after the scan (we're told it is erased but come on...).  Let's just say the transparency in this whole control arrangement leaves a lot to be desired (yes, that pun was intended).

So people are outraged by this, right?  No.  The acceptance of this intrusion is quite matter-of-fact.  "In this day and age we have to accept this sort of thing," was the response from those queried according to an article in USAToday.  That is chilling.

This is not a new discussion.  Yes, in ways it is much more physically personally.  But we've been here before with the Clipper Chip discussion during Clinton's administration.  Lynn McNulty was the designated "arrow catcher" for NIST during that episode as the debate raged about the loss of privacy of our communications due to the back door designed into that crypto mechanism.  The FBI pushed hard for that technology.  Ultimately the public outcry caused the Feds to re-look at their approach and come up with a better way.  One of my heros, Mark Rotenberg of EPIC, continually watches out for our personal privacy.  But this time... we just have to accept it or presumably face being blown out of the sky?

Not this chick.  We have to do better.  We must demand it.