So I’ve caught a really nasty cold or sinus infection and it’s keeping me home from work today.  With nothing to do until my doctor’s appointment this afternoon, I’ve been sitting here all morning reading about today’s favorite internet topic, namely the TSA’s full body scanner and peep show.  The public outcry over this highly invasive, potentially unconstitutional, search of innocent people has been vast, and so has the coverage.  Steve Chapman writes about it over at Reason.com today.  CNN is covering the story.  You’ve got guides on “How to opt out of the scans”, Yahoo covering the refusal of pilots to go through them, and bloggers discussing their experiences going through the alternative security check points and the resulting molestation you’re going to recieve.

All of this insanity, all of it in response to prior insanity, and for what?  Why are passengers being groped and fondled in ways that’d get you beaten up and thrown out of any strip club in the US if you tried to grab a dancer like that?  Why are government agencies intent on treating innocent citizens as though they’re cons entering a supermax prison, or like they’re already confirmed as bomb toting terrorists?  What gives?

Obviously, airport and plane security has taken a major jump in terms of necessity since 9-11.  No one was prepared for the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon because, until then, airlines had dealt only with terrorists taking hostages aboard their planes.  The attacks were a brand new method of terrorism, completely unthinkable before the fateful day we all remember so vividly.  There were no real security measures in place before the attacks, and the procedures which were in place were shown to be spectacular failures.

Which is why that particular terrorist attack was so successful.  It came out of left field, hitting us where we weren’t looking.

Today, I don’t know of a single person who argues that we shouldn’t be checking the passengers getting onto planes for weapons, bombs, and chemical or biological agents which could cause massive harm to the passengers or the people on the ground under this giant flying explosive we call a 747.  It’s just common sense now that everyone clearly understands the amount of damage that these machines can cause if they fall into the wrong hands.

But we’re going a bit overboard, aren’t we?  Full body scanners, X-Rays, taking pictures of your whole body, including the naughty bits, and for what?

Has there been a successful terrorist attack by hijacked plane since 9-11?  Of course not.  And these new invasive scanners weren’t used in foiling anything that may have been stopped between 9-11 and their debut in March of this year.

Indeed, if you look at the terrorist attacks that have happened since 9-11, the successful ones have all been completely different.  Sure we’ve had crack pots like The Underwear Bomber, the Shoe Bomber, and various other lunatics who stand up and scream “I’ve got a bomb!”, but none of these attacks have been serious.  It’s like the terrorists are just trying to keep us scared and misdirected by sending in their highly expendable morons on missions with absolutely zero chance of success.

And heck, these days they’ve even stopped sending in their morons, as the recent scare over packages from Yemen proves.  Now the terrorists are just phoning it in, or in this case, mailing it in.  Our headlines are clogged with “Was it a dry run?” and “These bombs may have gone off over…”, and the terrorists are just huddled in their caves, laughing and practicing TSA pat down techniques on their goats, secure in their knowledge that our bureaucracy is still fighting the last war.

Those of you who have ever had any exposure to organizational theory know what I’m talking about.  It’s a classic case of rational organizational structure going haywire.  Stimulus, response, stimulus, response, always creating a new rule, a new procedure, adding new regulations, but never thinking about what the future may hold.  This is the reason big businesses lose the battle for market share to newer, smaller companies that are still hungry and imaginative.  They never see what’s ahead, they just focus on what worked and what happened in the past.

Because the last major, successful terrorist attack in the US happened on and with planes, the rational organization that is a Federal bureaucracy is focused only on planes.  Anyone with half a brain realizes that the next attack is just as likely to happen on a bus, or an Amtrak passenger train, not a plane.  And yet you don’t have to submit to full body X-Rays and body cavity searches to hop on a city bus.

You don’t have to submit to a strip search and pat down before going to church, or a professional level sporting event.  But why not?  If we’re doing this to innocent people trying to catch a plane, why aren’t we focused on the other alternatives that can cause massive damage to large numbers of people at something like say, a NASCAR race where 100,000 people show up?  Who knows what could be hidden in the multitude of RV’s that attend one of those things?  But there is nothing in terms of security going on there!

Let’s face it:  The terrorists have already evolved their methods.  Look at the similarity between the Mumbai terrorist attacks and that of Maj. Hasan.  It’s easy to see that the next terrorist attack on the US could involve the terrorists slipping a couple of hundred men across the wide open Mexican border, arming them with fully automatic “scary looking guns” (I refuse to use the term “assault rifle” since all firearms are intended for “assault”), then coordinating attacks on 5, 10, maybe 20 small towns scattered across the US where the local police force couldn’t field the manpower, nor the firepower, to stop the attack.

Let’s be realistic.  We’re not going to be able to prevent a seriously determined terrorist from killing people.  There is no way to think up all of the possibilities open to such an individual, nor any way we could police them all even if we could.  The required amount of manpower and funding is virtually infinite, there’s no freakin’ way.

So why is the government focused on making sure they get photos of your under-aged daughter’s crotch when she tries to board a plane?

I think there are two reasons:

1) It’s highly visible.

The government realizes that it cannot prevent terrorist attacks, but it can’t just come out and say it.  They have to look like they’re in charge, like they’re being proactive, like they’ve got a handle on the problem and they’re busy looking out for you and the rest of the American citizens.  So they create yet another massive, inefficient, useless bureaucracy, staff it with a bunch of people who were on the fast track to becoming 99ers, and try to put on a big show to justify the expenditures.

And then there is thought number 2…  Which I think plays a big role, even if it isn’t discussed.

2) The government owns car companies.

The government now has a vested interest in seeing the American citizen drive.  They own GM.  They own Chrysler.  The union workers who work in all of the Big Three’s auto plants are a very active, very vocal special interest that donates large amounts of money to politicians every year and work their “Get out the vote” drives.

So to scratch their back, the government is working as hard as possible to make sure you want to drive everywhere you go rather than fly.

They’re making the wait to get on a plane longer, making the conditions more miserable, and trying everything in their power to make sure that you see buying a plane ticket in the same light as you do your next proctologist visit.

In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the TSA didn’t start shoving things up your rectum before letting you on a plane in the very near future.  These union members have kids to feed, you know?

“Now boarding Gate 7, drop your packs and lift your sacks!’  It’s a lovely vision of the future, isn’t it?

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