Passive naked scanning at Penn Station

Passengers at Penn Station are being unwittingly strip-searched. Although software modifications have been applied to mask the privacy invasion, it is nonetheless a privacy invasion to have a machine see through your clothes!

TSA is running a trial of these scanners, stepping individuals as they go up and down an escalator. No warrant or consent necessary!

Refusing a search on public transit

The Metro system of buses and rail in Washington, DC, started implementing random bag checks last year. Right now, the checks appear to be limited to bags and only for detection of explosives. Of course, if you're heading towards a station or stop and see a table set up to do the checks, it's not that hard to turn around and walk to the next one. Or, you could hope that your not selected for the check. But what happens if you refuse? You immediately become a suspect (but you must already be suspect if you undergo a search, right?) and will be surveiled.

If you think this fight is only about cancer-causing radiation, or only about the luxury of air travel, or only about preventing the next 9/11, you are mistaken. This is about our rights as individuals being stripped from us.

H/T Bruce Majors

If flying is "a privilege," what about public transportation?

To all of the commenters (here and elsewhere) who say that those of us who are anti-scanner should stop flying and shut-up, because it's a privilege for us to be allowed to complete a lawful private contract we made with an airline: do you think it's in line with the Constitution to have random searches on buses and trains?

As I wrote over at LewRockwell.com:

A couple of years ago, there were threats of random searches of bags for DC Metro train riders (a la NYC and Boston), but I never heard anything more. Today, the TSA started random checks of customers’ bags and this apparently affects both the rail and bus lines for the DC area. It’s good to hear an uproar about this on the MSM, as they point out that there are petitions being filed against this action. But the quotes from the Metro officials are status quo:

“It’s good to vary your security posture,” he said, noting that transit agencies in New York, New Jersey and Boston have successfully carried out random checks.
…
The screening will be conducted before passengers pay to enter the rail system or board a bus, and customers who refuse the inspections will be “free to leave,” Taborn said. But there is a possibility that those who decline screening will be questioned.

Translation: We like to keep law-abiding citizens on their toes. And if they show resistance to this tyranny by peacefully walking away, we reserve the right to make their lives miserable.