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Comment by ForrestN

I laud your efforts against the TSA on the issue of body scanners. It was a huge waste, and they aren't effective.

But I think you'll be more effective against the body scanners if you drop the right-wing crankery at the end. The fear-mongering about terrorists isn't helpful. If they want to pull something off, they will, whatever kind of detector we're using. "Placing us all in danger" is Fox News rhetoric.

The fact that these scanners were a mistake doesn't imply that we should necessarily privatize the TSA. It needs a huge amount of reform. But there's no evidence that privatization wouldn't lead to the same kind of risk-taking and incentive problems that we've seen come to such spectacular fruition in the financial sector.

As things stand now, we have a clumsy system and there hasn't been a major attack since 9/11. Focus on the ineffectiveness, and the invasion of privacy, not on making people scared or promoting bankrupt ideas about replacing the government with free enterprise.

parent ForrestN 14 years ago

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