GO TO the airport. Get a cheap thrill. Folks who enjoy the full-body cavity search, rejoice!
The people who protect our skies from terrorists, hijackers, and numbskulls who pack toiletries in carry-on luggage yesterday rolled out a new toy. And it’s enough to make me rethink my hairstyle. I’m not referring to my head.
The gadget, which looks like a cross between a Disney ride and a time-travel machine, uses “millimeter wave technology” – a kind of full-body scan that not only peeks through clothes and inside pertinent crevices, but, I fear, can read your mind.
A passenger walking through security at Kennedy Airport who forgets to remove his shoes, keys or explosives belt previously would be subjected to the cold, strange hand of the “pat down.”
But now, dummies and bombers have a choice. Get hand-patted. Or, be electronically strip-searched by a machine that leaves virtually nothing to the imagination. When flying in Los Angeles, though, passengers will be scanned at random.
A tip: Wear clean underwear.
Maura Haley, 35, a Transportation Security Administration program manager, gamely leaped into the machine and spread her arms in demonstration, several dozen times.
A bored-looking screener reviewed the body scan from a “remote” computer terminal – actually, behind a wall just a few yards away. On screen, our gal seemed to have been transformed into a metallic, anatomically correct creature out of “The Terminator.”
The detailed picture revealed everything down to her brand of underwear (not La Perla; this is the government). The machine also shaved off 15 pounds, a good argument for scanning females.
Bowing to civil-rights killjoys, the TSA smudges out the victims’ faces, to make them unrecognizable to the screener. Plus, officials insist, images are not stored for more than a few seconds.
So I wanted to know – why not scan a man?
This question made the assembled brass uncomfortable. “You want to do a man?” an official was overhead saying. Finally, into the machine popped TSA project manager Kyle Keyser, 27. And I immediately understood the reluctance to use a guy.
Keyser’s image was yanked off the screen so quickly, I had yet to determine definitively if he was born Jewish. It was instantaneously clear, however, that the young man is not one to wield a razor near sensitive parts.
“I’ve got nothing to hide!” Keyser, who lives in California, said warmly.
So the next time I set off bells, is it the hand pat, or The Terminator?
Pat me, baby.