In an article in USAToday DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano assures us that Scanners are safe, pat-downs discreet,

Rigorous privacy safeguards are also in place to protect the traveling public. All images generated by imaging technology are viewed in a walled-off location not visible to the public. The officer assisting the passenger never sees the image, and the officer viewing the image never interacts with the passenger. The imaging technology that we use cannot store, export, print or transmit images.

Got that? The technology can’t store images. I’m sure that my friend Borepatch would tell you that like diamonds, anything stored on a computer is forever. In fact, the TSA admitted this not to long ago. As the lawyers say, let me refresh your memory.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong? was posted on this blog back in August. Take a few minutes to read that along with the linked article.  I will quote just a small part of my post here,

A 70-page document (PDF) showing the TSA’s procurement specifications, classified as “sensitive security information,” says that in some modes the scanner must “allow exporting of image data in real time” and provide a mechanism for “high-speed transfer of image data” over the network. (It also says that image filters will “protect the identity, modesty, and privacy of the passenger.”)

I wonder if MS Napolitano understands what “high speed transfer of image data” means in context of sending images over a network? I’ll bet she does, but I’ll also bet that she thinks you don’t.

So, here we have the DHS Secretary lying to us on brave guy standing up to the bullies and being threatened with a law suit for following the orders of the police and the TSA nitwits. Now, a writer for Forbes Magazine is writing that, Full Frontal Nudity Doesn’t Make Us Safer: Abolish the TSA.

Here’s another whopper by Napolitano,

And the weapons and other dangerous and prohibited items we’ve found during AIT screenings have illustrated their security value time and again.

Ummm, sure they did. Not. Because if they had in fact caught one single thing, the TSA would have a big, splashing, expensive Three Ring Circus and Side Show press conference to play Show and Tell with all the evil terrorist weapons they’ve intercepted. And probably the terrorists carrying them as well. We’d hear about it  because they would tell us about it. You know, just like they do every time air line passengers stop and beat the snot out of detain a would be air plane bomber.

If that isn’t enough to convince you that the TSA is a clown show then you should read this 2008 article from the Atlantic,

The Things He Carried.

I think this sums up the effectiveness of TSA screening pretty well,

We took our shoes off and placed our laptops in bins. Schnei­er took from his bag a 12-ounce container labeled “saline solution.”

“It’s allowed,” he said. Medical supplies, such as saline solution for contact-lens cleaning, don’t fall under the TSA’s three-ounce rule.

“What’s allowed?” I asked. “Saline solution, or bottles labeled saline solution?”

“Bottles labeled saline solution. They won’t check what’s in it, trust me.”

They did not check. As we gathered our belongings, Schnei­er held up the bottle and said to the nearest security officer, “This is okay, right?” “Yep,” the officer said. “Just have to put it in the tray.”

“Maybe if you lit it on fire, he’d pay attention,” I said, risking arrest for making a joke at airport security. (Later, Schnei­er would carry two bottles labeled saline solution—24 ounces in total—through security. An officer asked him why he needed two bottles. “Two eyes,” he said. He was allowed to keep the bottles.)

I’m sure Napolitano will tell us that screening has improved since then, but you and I know that she’s a chronic, pathological liar, so her assurances mean nothing.

I think getting rid of the TSA would save a lot of money, and maybe even a few lives.