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You would think that leading conservatives in our country would be, you know… conservative. As in being very opposed to letting government authorities intrude into people’s privacy and personal liberties.
Yet, we’ve been treated recently to the spectacle of many so-called conservatives up on their hind legs, howling that every single person in America who travels on airplanes must suspend their constitutional protection against unreasonable government searches and submit to an invasive scrutiny of their bodies by government agents.
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One of these is former homeland security chief Michael Chertoff. He’s demanding that airports install full-body scanners that see through our clothing, allowing airport screeners to view our nakedness. This virtual strip search would not be limited to suspicious passengers, but would apply to all of us, to every one of the men, women, and – yes – children who book a flight.
Chertoff imperiously dismissed any objection to such a sweeping assault on our rights, referring to objectors as “privacy ideologues.” Yeah, Mike, ideologues like Jefferson and Madison.
Worse is retired general Thomas McInerney, who struts around on Fox-TV as a military analyst. A longtime shill for Pentagon hawks, McInerney recently waded into the treacherous waters of racial and religious profiling. He declared that our government should henceforth consider every American Muslim to be a terrorist and should target all young Muslim men for physical friskings whenever they travel on an airline. The Constitution be damned, he said – “If you are an 18-28-year-old Muslim man then you should be strip searched.”
Welcome to the friendly skies of these “liberticides.” What’s a liberticide? It’s a counterfeit conservative who is eager to destroy America’s liberties, while professing to be protecting America.
“Right-Wing ‘Experts’ Justify Profiling, Body Scanners with Familiar Paranoid Rhetoric,” www.alternet.com, January 4, 2010.
“Saboteurs of the system,” Austin American Statesman, January 1, 2010.
“Thomas G. McInerney From Source Watch,” www.sourcewatch.org, 2010.
“Thomas McInerney from Wikipedia,” www.wikipedia.com, 2010.
“Debate Over Full-Body Scans vs. Invasion of Privacy Flares Anew After Incident,” The New York Times, December 31, 2009.
“In Aftermath Of Attempted Attack, ACLU Advocates Effective Security That Respects Privacy,” www.aclu.org, December 30, 2009.
“Ex-Homeland Security chief head said to abuse public trust by touting body scanners,” www.washingtonpost.com, January 1, 2010.
Michael Chertoff Pitchman for Full Body Scanners,” www.strandedpassengers.com, January 2, 2010.
“Former homeland security chief argues for full-body imaging,” www.washingtonpost.com, January 1, 2010.