Current Event: TSA Body Scanners and Pat Downs

Recently I was watching the news and news report immediately caught my attention. I happen to love traveling and with the holidays coming up, there is sure to be alt of traffic in the airport. The article I chose was featured on CNN.com and is entitled, "Growing Backlash against TSA body scanners, Pat Downs". Briefly it dscusses the homeland security methods and precautions that are being taken in order to ensure security in the United States particularly around the holidays. The leaders of travel industry grougs came together to decide on appropriate security methods to lesson the concerns of the government andminimize the safety risks for the American people. However, interestingly enough the general public seems to have the most issues with their proposal of incorporating TSA full body scanners in the security inspection at the airports. The problem being many Americans feel violated to the point of terror during this process. Not to mention so called  "reassurance " only heightens their levels of fear because of this alarming  system. There is a cross between American values and American protection the line is wearing thin. Moving forward a decision has to be made. There has been talk about protesting th earrival of the scanning systems and in some cases frequent travelers have essentially avoided flying all together. This seemingly helpful idea has created issues so much that November 24th, which is the busiest travel day had been claim to be 'National Opt Out Day'. This is essentially the travelers making their own decision of protection measures by opting out of air flights costing airlines 9.4 billion dollars. In addtion to the moral and privacy issues in full body scanning, ther are said to be health risk involved. Some citizens believe that homeland security has completely taken away their righs of privacy and dignity in hopes to stop potential terrorists. They believe that as customers they are being treated like criminals and their rights are being stripped away from them, along with their privacy. I choose this current event because I thought it had alot of themes of sacrificing oneself to adhere to the technological advance in society. I believe that technology is not only taking over the world we live in but taking away individual opportunities to choose what is better for them. And no I do not think Omish living is the way of life but in some cases we have let what we deem as "necessary" become a necessity when in reality we have been without these advances all along. I think it is unfair for people who feel victimized by this use of technology to be subjected to using it. In addition I find it particularly interesting that when frequent flyers complain of the health risks, it is dismissed. Immediately, I connected this to how the health risk of the enviroment is put on the back burner daily  and subjected to the misuse and abuse we choose. Choice is the key word here because in both cases, the ability to choose is lossed. I also began to think about how the hopes for something better has immediately changed the perpective of society. We do this daily, as technology advances, we denounce the system that has been working effectively in the years past. Interesting.