To Scan, or Not to Scan

It's typical in today's divisive political climate to find opposing points of view within clear-cut social groups, where once there would have been unanimity.

On the issue of airport full-body scanners, polls indicate that 81% of the American people support their use, while the remaining 19% are opposed and quite passionate in their condemnation of the government's invasion of privacy in the name of security.

Set aside all the arguments, such as the fact that the radiation emitted by these machines could be dangerous, or whether or not these scanners are actually effective or not, and let's look at how nudists are reacting.

Erich Schuttauf, AANR's executive director, in support of the Transportation Safety Administration's use of the scanners, put out a statement saying "A trained TSA or security professional in a remote monitoring station takes a few seconds discreetly screening passengers to be sure they're only bringing what nature gave them aboard."

OK, seems reasonable that a nudist would have no problem with someone else seeing them naked. But the owner of Palm Springs largest nudist resort feels differently.

“It's an invasion of privacy,” Michael Patrick Williams, general manager of The Desert Sun Resort, told City News Service. “Naturists aren't really different from anyone else.” 

Williams goes on to point out that nudists are very interested in privacy even though they socialize in the nude. At nudist resorts, cameras and cell phones are generally forbidden, and clubs and resorts do everything they can to keep out strangers who might just want to gawk at all the naked people.

The Desert Sun Resort is affiliated with AANR, so this is a clear break with the organization's official stance on this issue. So who is right?

Williams is, by a long shot. Freedom is fleeting, something which literally millions have died for in human history. All wars waged by the United States, including the bloody Civil War, have been fought in the name of freedom. For this single reason above all others, all freedom-loving Americans need to oppose these new TSA security measures, which effectively treat ALL airline passengers as criminals, mandating a full body scan or physical pat-down as a condition for boarding a public conveyance.

It's not a nudist issue, it's an American issue. For Erich Schuttauf to support the erosion of Constitutional rights in America, when he represents a group of people who are looking to expand freedoms, is completely absurd. This has nothing to do with shame, or body parts, or anything else other than the fact that our government is engaging in virtual strip-searches of innocent people, and patting them down as if they were sitting down for a meeting with Don Corleone.

I don't know if AANR is just trying to generate some cheap publicity, or if the organization really believes that the way to achieve more body freedom in America is to actually sacrifice body freedom. Either way, AANR is being irresponsible and failing to serve the interest of its members.

And congrats to Michael Patrick Williams for standing up to AANR and its inexplicable stance on body scanners. More AANR members need to speak out and demand that Schuttauf reverse his statement and stand on the side of freedom in America.

Heightened Canadian Airport Security

Gymnophobia, in a Nutshell

In a well-intentioned but extremely gymnophobic article, John Hammer frets about body scanners, and in the process provides a glimpse into textile America's disgust with the human body.

I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of strangers have no desire to see my body. In fact, I think most people would not be thrilled to see a bunch of middle-aged men without their clothes on...If the airport was filled with middle aged men in gym shorts, or Speedos, with tank tops, or no shirt at all, and flip-flops, I think the airlines would lobby Congress to do away with the full body scanners because other people would choose to take a 14-hour drive rather than have to stand in line at the airport with a bunch of sweaty old men with their bellies hanging over the waistband of their shorts, or men with unbelievably hairy backs going gray, or men who look like they have birds nests under their flabby arms...if young attractive people want to join in the battle by coming to the airport in bikinis and thongs, I would welcome them. In fact, this is sounding like not a bad idea at all. It would certainly make flying more interesting to have attractive young people at the airport nearly naked, and if that is the sacrifice this middle-aged American has to make to help our government ensure safety in air travel, I'm all for it.

I don't think Mr. Hammer intended to be mean-spirited in his essay, he probably wanted to be humorous, but in the process he manages to expose the underlying problem that nudism has in America - people are conditioned not only to hate their own bodies, but the bodies of others. Hammer is so brainwashed by the perfect bodies he sees on TV, in the movies and in magazines that he has no use for the sight of real people.

This fear and loathing of the human body is a societal disease which is so widespread and insidious that it presents the single greatest obstacle to nudists and naturists in America.

German Activists Protest Body Scanners By Stripping Down

AANR Will Not Publish My Comment? UPDATED

It's been over 24 hours since I left a comment on the AANR blog here, in response to the organization giving its official stamp of approval for airport full body scanners, and my words have not yet appeared. Other comments left much later than mine have been moderated and approved on other blog posts. Is AANR afraid of opposing viewpoints? Here is my comment exactly as submitted:

Equating skinny-dipping with a virtual strip search by government security employees is absurd. The same power granted to the government to make people naked is the same power they can use to force people to stay clothed. Civil liberties are eroding in America, and the twisted thinking that declares body scanners as a positive for nudism is not only irrational, it’s dangerous.

UPDATE 1/11/10 - AANR has now published my comment, as well as several others which also take issue with the organizations stance on airport body scanners. Good for them, opposing viewpoints need to be heard on this issue.

Find the Cost of Freedom

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Are New Airport Security Measures Actually Keeping Us Safer?

More and more questions about the effectiveness of full body scanners at airports.

"You take away box cutters and cork screws, they put explosives in their shoes. You take away shoes, and they put it in liquids. Take away liquids, and they put it in their underwear," said Bruce Schneier, a Minnesota-based security expert and author.

"Now they're putting in full-body scanners, so they're going to do something else."

Mr. Schneier is part of a group of experts who question the efficacy of security measures implemented at airports in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. They argue that the bulk of the tactics adopted by governments simply clog security lines, infringe upon civil liberties and do very little to guard against future threats. In fact, Mr. Schneier and other critics say many of the measures, including the most recent ones implemented after the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt on a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit, are simply adopted to create a sense of security that something is being done in response to these new threats, but actually do very little to enhance safety.

"This is a stupid game and we should stop doing it," Mr. Schneier said.

What on Earth is AANR Thinking?

In one of the most bizarre public relations moves in recent memory, AANR has endorsed the government's use of full body scanners at airports.

“Put this issue in its proper perspective,” recommends AANR Executive Director Erich Schuttauf. “A trained security professional in a remote monitoring station takes a few seconds discreetly screening passengers to be sure they’re only bringing what nature gave them aboard. In exchange for safer skies, AANR believes it’s completely worth it. But you don’t have to be a nudist to agree these measures are based on common sense.”

No, these measures are based on FEAR, and have nothing to do with common sense. In addition, this worldwide move to body scanners could be nothing but a huge scam, designed more as a means to appease the traveling public than as a truly effective security measure.

Doesn't Schuttauf realize that endorsing the government's intrusion into personal privacy is contrary to nudist interests? The same power the government is wielding to strip off your clothes can also be used against nude beaches, nude resorts and clubs, and even nudity in the home.

As a nudist, I have no problem with people seeing my naked body, but that's not the issue here. What is happening day-by-day is a gradual erosion of our personal freedoms, willingly sacrificed to a government which declares its primary purpose for existence is to keep us all safe. If they can look under your clothes, they can look inside your home, your computer, your cell phone, and eventually inside your mind.

So for the sake of a public relations stunt, AANR, the self-professed "credible" voice of reason, has thrown personal freedom under the bus, much as it did with San Onofre beach. Equating government control over our bodies with skinny-dipping is not only incredibly stupid, it's patently dangerous.