Saturday, January 09, 2010

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.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, we had our personal freedoms taken on September 11, 2001. That day will always be in the history books, and it should be a reminder of the slip ups our security has done. Christmas 2009 is another wake up call that did not have any deaths, thank goodness for that. If being naked is the means to make sure that no more terrorist attacks will not happen in the USA, than I will be happy to strip completely naked. Freedom and safety are one and the same. If I am afraid to fly, or walk out my door due to lack of safety procedures, than what freedoms do we have in the USA?

Nudiarist said...

Airline security is mostly a show to make people feel safe. Take a cold, objective look at 9/11. Had the cockpit doors simply been locked, those planes would not have been taken over by terrorist pilots. Today with much better intelligence and no-fly lists, those 19 hijackers would never have gotten onto any of our planes. What these terrorists are now reduced to is recruiting imbeciles to wear exploding underpants, and in the case of this Nigerian, it was a failure of communications between intelligence agencies which allowed underpants bomber to get on a plane.

There are going to be thousands of people who will refuse to fly because of the body scanners. Yes, body hang-ups are a big problem in American society, but the loss of personal freedoms is far more insidious.

Anonymous said...

Nudiarist, good points...very good points. The simplest things in life are always the hardest to administer, but they do need to be done just the same. Since November 22, 1966, the day I was born, I have not seen any public servants work for the people. Like everything starts in the home, our government securities stars on how our public servants acts.

Brian said...

You're the one buying the product and you're the one revealing a piece of yourself.

You don't have to fly. You don't have to own a cell phone. You don't have to own a blog or a Facebook profile.

I don't like the idea of someone listening to my phone conversations or reading my emails. But, guess what? I didn't raise the capital nor build the infrastructure for these technologies. Thus, I use them according to another's terms. There must be a line somewhere, but this is not the place to get in that debate.

I get mad at people who scream "Save us, save us," and in the same breath, condemn the efforts to do so. If you're really that concerned about freedom, perhaps we should stick to the old ways. We can keep on racially profiling and stick a flashlight in your anus, because those methods are so fair and non-invasive.

Rick said...

Skinny dipping and the "virtual skinny-dip" of passing through TSA scanners are not the same. Skinny-dipping is voluntary and consensual, the other is mandated.

As far as the "trained security professionals" AANR alludes to, they are hired from essentially the same demographic that McDonald's finds its employees.

I don't have a problem getting naked in an environment where everyone shares a common attitude about nudity.

No, we "gave" away our personal liberties on 9/11. Nearly everything DHS and TSA have done has been a knee-jerk reaction to give the illusion of security.

I will not fly unless I absolutely have to, not because of body hang-ups but because of the inappropriate invasion of my privacy and person. The hassles of getting to the plane simply are not worth the hassle and inconvenience.

IMHO, the terrorists won long ago. They made us into a fearful, paranoid nation, willing to give up liberty for the illusion of security. Ben Franklin was right.

Nudiarist said...

Brian, nobody is arguing that we don't need some security at airports. The question is how much power should be afforded the government in these endeavors, and if these invasive procedures are a form of social entropy, threatening to decay and erode the freedoms promised to us by the Founding Fathers.

America is still an experiment, it is not a given that our republic will survive. These fears over terrorism, some valid, some quite self-manufactured, threaten to turn our country into a police state.

Elton said...

Yep, we are getting a Fascist government because we are not keeping our Republic.

The Terrorists are being used, just like everyone else, in order to erode our freedoms and to destroy our Republic.

As for body scanners, we can do a good turn and get naked to fly. If they are going to forcefully strip us, we might as well do it first.

Academic Naturist said...

@Elton - There was a German guy at a US airport that did that... TSA kept harassing him so he quickly got naked, danced around a bit, and said "is this enough for you?". As you can imagine, he was quickly tackled and taken away. (Saw that in a news story a while back...)

Elton said...

Well, its their fault for harrassing him in the first place. I suspect that the judge will throw it out.