Big Brother sure is getting bigger. Now, don’t get me wrong… I understand the purpose of these and why they are “necessary”. However, it doesn’t mean I can’t feel uncomfortable knowing some guy in the next room is checking out my wife’s breasts, or pulling me into another room because I have a chunk of metal in my crotch (I have my penis pierced).

Oh, do I look forward to the days of going to the airport and getting pulled aside regularly. I’m sure I’ll miss a flight or two now, because I tend to cut it flight times close.

One thing that makes it lesser of an evil is that the x-ray images will detect and blur the faces of those whose junk is being checked out. Yee. You know damn well a bunch of these images are going to show up online, x-ray videos on YouTube, etc.

Here is some info from news articles. To start with, here are two of my favorite quotes in reading about the scanners thus far.

The scanners do a good job seeing under clothing but cannot see through plastic or rubber materials that resemble skin, said Peter Siegel, a senior scientist at the California Institute of Technology.

“You probably could find very common materials that you could wrap around you that would effectively obscure things,” Siegel said.

So, If I wrapped myself in a body condom I should be good, right? Here’s another favorite.

Passengers who went through a scanner at the Baltimore airport last week were intrigued, reassured and occasionally wary. The process took about 30 seconds on average.

Oh, goodie. As if going through airport security doesn’t take long enough as it is. Now we can add another 30 seconds to the process.

Oh, wait. I lied. Here’s another quote I like.

“Most passengers don’t think it’s any big deal,” Schear said. “They think it’s a piece of security they’re willing to do.”

In Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, where scanners have been tested since last year as an alternative to pat-downs, 90% of passengers choose to be scanned, the TSA says.

If I’m a terrorist and I’m hiding something that the scanner could expose (let’s face it, that’s why these scanners are around)… I could just choose to be patted down still. So, what’s the point of these again?