Friday, November 26, 2010

National Opt-Out Day a Bust; or Was it?

National Opt-Out was a planned protest against the new 'Enhanced Screening' by the TSA. If the plan was to cause dramatic increases in lines all across the country at our nations airports then the plan failed. The reason may not be so clear cut. There are reports, though denied by the TSA, they shut down a number of the machines. It is also not clear to me that such a protest could ever have had that effect. If the Naked Body Scanners are used at random, the more people that opt out the less overall they will process. That in itself would not necessarily snarl air port security. The fact that it takes longer to process the people opting out since they had to be patted down (groped), does not mean the regular lines get blocked up; it just means fewer people were pulled from those lines. The lines would continue to flow normally, perhaps without the benefit from a few being siphoned off.

If the goal of the protest was instead to increase awareness of the new procedures, then it could be considered a success.

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