‘Shirt Off’ Chertoff

Posted on 01/01/2010 at 3:24 pm by Bob Cesca

Benen discovered a fascinating pair of stories in the Washington Post today about former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff. Apparently, Mr. Chertoff is a huge fan of airport full-body imagers and so he wrote an op/ed in support of photographing your naughty bits:

The administration must stand firm against privacy ideologues, for whom every security measure is unacceptable. Failing to use all available tools to plug a gap in security puts the lives of airline travelers needlessly at risk.

What a flaming coward he is. So much fear for a 1 in 10 million chance. Anyway. Later, in a completely separate story:

What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines. The relationship drew attention after Chertoff disclosed it on a CNN program Wednesday, in response to a question.

Of course once the cable news people are back from vacation, we’ll hear all about this massive conflict of interest, right? Like we did with Daschle’s taxes or, say, Reverend Wright… right?

Oh. Never mind. I forgot. Cable news is equally as terrified. The question is whether these full body scanners will stop kung fu terrorists.

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  • eljefejeff

    you know, I really don’t care if they scan me, but are they gonna be looking at my 5 and 7 year old sons naked? FUCK NO, perverts!!!

  • bibimimi

    What massive pendulous pair of cold hard cash teats is Joe Allbaugh doing lip-up upon??

  • http://nanotyrnns.blogspot.com/ Nanotyrannus

    Didn’t they have the chance to deploy these scanners when they were in charge and decided instead to take away our lip balm and bottled water?

  • jane

    Cherchez l’argent. Or something.

  • LAH

    The fear has hit my city. I am from St. Louis. They recalled a flight from ST. Louis to Chicago (which takes less than 45 minutes) after being in the air for 15 minutes, because a passenger’s name RESEMBLED someone on the watch list. Welcome to 2010. The new year of fear.http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/AAD85F0BFD355AE08625769E006D863D?OpenDocument

  • Jan

    This is ridiculous. I read today that the “administration” has authorized 200 Xray sanners in the US.DAMN I’m glad I voted for Mr. Civil Liberties Obama.Time to take the train.

  • edzeppelin

    I really don’t understand the line of attack that going through one of these scanners is a violation of anyone’s civil liberties. If you purchase a ticket to board a plane, then you are entering into an agreement that you will be searched before boarding. Your giving permission to be searched. There should be an option for those that do not want to go through the scanner, but put them in a different line at the airport! You don’t want to be scanned, fine, wait in a different, and probably longer line. Seriously, who cares if they see my johnson. The amount of people passing through these machines on a daily basis would make any TSA worker viewing them immune to a pair of tits or some dude’s dick. If it prevents me from taking off my shoes, my belt, any jewelry, my kids shoes, emptying my pockets of cell phone, wallet, and keys, etc…then stopping at the “get dressed” area afterward to get everything put together again, then I much prefer it. I’d rather walk through some scanner like Total Recall then go through the current crap we do now.I agree Chertoff’s conflict of interest should be disclosed, but jumping all over Obama or anyone else in Homeland security for wanting these machines because it violates civil liberities is knee-jerk reactionary in my view.

  • trahan

    Chertoff’s conflict of interest should be more than disclosed, it should disqualify him from any interview on the subject.If the next failed terrorist attack has c-4 shoved up his rectum, will it be alright to examine all passengers with a rubber glove?