An anomaly in the crotch area; or, yet another example of how the terrorists are winning

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Having just been through Heathrow, and, going through security, having seen first-hand some outrageous, and downright ridiculous, pat-downs -- not to me but in the span of just a couple of minutes both to a crying young child and to an elderly woman in a wheelchair, apparently potential threats to our freedom -- I am even more sensitive than usual to the excesses, if not abuses, of the security state.

It's not that I object to airport security, mind you, or to all security generally. Some security, obviously, is necessary and desirable. And perhaps some excess just comes with the territory. Even if you can find the line, some reasonable limit, it's inevitable that it will be crossed now and then.

But it's pretty clear it's gone too far, that 9/11 in particular, and the culture of fear and panic it produced, or magnified, with governments all too eager to impose on us even more elements of the police state, all in the name of supposedly protecting us, has turned us against ourselves -- in the U.S., in Britain, here in Canada, and elsewhere.

It may be too much to say that the terrorists have won, but obviously they've succeeded in terrorizing us, and in compelling our governments -- that is, ourselves, ideally -- to prioritize security overkill. There are countless anecdotes to support the broad generalization, and they all add up. There's what I saw in London, there's what many of you have seen, no doubt, and there's this, from The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg:

Okay, I now have definitive proof that al Qaeda has actually won. It hasn't achieved the dissolution of the United States, or succeeded in murdering millions of Americans, or  re-established the Caliphate, but it has caused our government to debase itself in the name of security. To wit:

My mother-in-law was traveling home to Rhode Island from Washington Reagan airport this past Tuesday night when, passing through the TSA naked-porno machine, she triggered an alarm.

 A bit of background before I continue: My mother-in-law, though youthful in outlook and an all-around very attractive person, is also 79-years-old,  4'11" if she's lucky, and weighs about 110 pounds. She was in Washington to visit her grandchildren, and to lobby the Rhode Island congressional delegation as part of the American Library Association's National Library Legislative Day. She is not a threatening person, in appearance or demeanor. I don't know this for sure, but I think she was probably carrying a library tote bag of some sort -- or perhaps it was an NPR tote bag -- as she approached the security checkpoint. A general rule: terrorists don't carry tote bags.

She entered the machine and struck the humiliating pose one is forced to strike -- hands up, as in an armed robbery -- and then walked out, when she was asked by a TSA agent, in a voice loud enough for several people to hear, "Are you wearing a sanitary napkin?"

Remember, she's 79.

My mother-in-law answered, "No. Why do you ask?"

The TSA agent responded: "Well, are you wearing anything else down there?"

Yes, "down there."

She said no, at which point, the friend with whom she was traveling, also a not-young volunteer library advocate, came over and asked if there was a problem.

The TSA agent said, again, in full voice, "There's an anomaly in the crotch area."

Ultimately, she went through the scanner again and no such "anomaly" was found. But the damage had been done -- to her, to all of us.

"I'm not embarrassed," she said. "I just think they're stupid and their machinery is defective and they should learn to whisper when they're talking about my crotch, or anyone's crotch."

This wasn't even all that bad of an incident, just one more example of a stupid system that has come to be part of our way of life.

You want security? Fine. But it needn't mean a wholesale assault on our liberties, and on our dignity.