For some ASU students, flying out of Phoenix at the start of spring break might have given them the chance to be part of a test group bearing their nude body for airline security.
Right now at Sky Harbor, new technology is being tested that uses X-rays to peer through passengers' clothes and reveal their naked form and any concealed items to security personnel. The measure is arguably needed because of the inability of prior detectors to find potential weapons.
Compared to the attire later donned by spring breakers on foreign beaches and crowded nightclubs, the measure may have seemed modest. But such casual and regular virtual disrobing for airline security marks an unsettling move in the push toward compromised individuality at the behest of the government and private agencies.
Opponents so far have made appeals to strict principles of civil rights and privacy. But in American culture, with its vague handling of rights, their arguments are lost in idealism and oversimplicity, leaving agencies to continue on in the name of practicality.
The fact is, Americans make compromises in their rights every day. When involving things like injury or imprisonment, we fight tooth and nail.
But every day, we accept compromised rights in our schools, courts and under the demands of private businesses.
When flying, we allow it every time we step into the aisles of security. We concede to being herded along and then isolated, as we splay our possession out for search and stand for screening.
We may roll our eyes and joke, but when the rush of emptying our bags and being led through detectors by armed personnel comes, we quiet all the same, accepting the stakes and intrusion in the name of well-being.
Uncovering our bodies, however, is particularly compromising. Despite its casual treatment, a person's body provides a fundamental experience of who he or she is. Whether consciously, in issues of safety, image and identity, we go to great pains to conserve the integrity of our bodies.
The government and the makers of the imaging technology have worked to appease our modesty. Personnel viewing the images are planned to be removed from security lines, so they never see those whose images they view. Filters are also said to obscure the faces of images and blur its contours to save some embarrassment.
An inserted fig leaf of sorts is also being talked about to give our forms the decency of public art gallery statues.
Speaking honestly, walking through imaging machines would only be mildly awkward for most of us. Whatever meaning we place in our bodies, the realities of life have required compromises there too. We have disrobed in doctors' offices and gym class showers alike since childhood.
In the name of security, many will now shrug off concern, not wanting to make a hassle and liking the promise of safety.
But in addressing the immediate and easily resolved issues of comfort, the deeper issues of intrusion are being sidestepped. Promises of anonymity may curb some awkwardness, but there is no denying the submission involved if Americans choose to regularly display one of their most fundamentally protected possessions, their bodies.
With the threats of traveling and the slow advance of security into our everyday lives, allowing the government to look under our clothes may seem trivial.
But considering the more fundamental experience of power between us and our government and the deeply felt implications of our bodies, we need to decide how far we are willing to let the hand of the government go in the name of protection.
Matthew Bowman is an English literature senior. He can be reached at: matthew.bowman@asu.edu.
