Scanning away privacy

(In response to Austin Yost’s Friday column, “Privacy or protection? Scan me in, please.”)

Mr. Yost’s article on full-body scanners is the attitude most represented by big government advocates. “We might be in danger? Government, protect us! Here, take more of my rights; more of my liberty!”

Full-body scans are intrusive searches that are utterly unreasonable, and in that vein, they’re a violation of the 4th Amendment.

The argument is that the terrorists might murder more Americans, but let’s face the facts: We drastically changed security measures after 9/11, then again after the shoe bomber.

Every time, the terrorists find (and will find) a new way to circumvent our new security measures, and every time they do, more and more of our liberties are stripped away.

Let’s look at these scans for what they are: quick strip searches. Doesn’t sound so reasonable now, does it?

I don’t want the government’s restrictions if it means an unconstitutional stripping of the assurance that I won’t be unreasonably searched — of my privacy.

As Plato said, “This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.”

Harry Hazell
Undergraduate