Be careful what you wish for. The capital-P people are just peachy with those machines. I traveled last week and saw nobody (other than myself) opting out. The people --- in the aggregate --- do not care about this issue.
Left to "democracy in the United States", a referendum that requested the elimination of the "opt-out" process in favor of 0.5s of wait time at the security lines would probably pass in a landslide. Thankfully, we're governed not just by a legislature but by a Constitution interpreted by a panel of judges with lifetime tenure.
Indeed. It's actually quite amazing how impressive our federal judiciary is (two notable examples in Chicago: Posner [1] and Easterbrook). Unfortunately, the judiciary has faced a fairly serious crisis in funding over the last two decades [2]. The Chief Justice spoke about this in his year end report in 2010 [3]. It's one of the largest unsung problem in the U.S. today and it makes me worry about the calibre of judges we will end up with a few decades down the road. The math is depressingly straightforward: judges get paid a lot less, law school costs a lot more, and an entire branch of government is at risk for decay.
I don't think your observations back up your conclusions with regard to public support for the machines.
The choice people have is between these scanners and a highly intrusive "pat down" which typically includes some TSA agent's hands on your junk. That's not much of a choice.
It kind of does rebut the poll data. I bet a majority of Americans would rather be smacked in the face with a brick than shot in the face with a rifle, but it would be a pretty big distortion to rephrase that as "A clear majority of Americans favor getting hit in the face with bricks."
Sorry, this is wishful (I share your wish). The reality is, the polls aren't posing the either/or question. Respondents can favor the imaging machines and reject the pat-downs. Here's a sample question:
The Transportation Security Administration is increasing its use of so-called
'full-body' digital x-ray machines to screen passengers in airport security lines.
(Supporters say these machines improve the ability to spot hidden weapons and
explosives, and reduce the need for physical searches.) (Opponents say these machines
invade privacy by producing x-ray images of a passenger’s naked body that security
officials can see, and don’t provide enough added security to justify this.) Which
comes closer to your own view – do you support or oppose using these scanners in
airport security lines?
You would find the actual breakdown of responses equally dispiriting.
Americans think the imaging machines are a good idea. Americans are unreasonably scared of threats to airplanes. That shouldn't surprise you, since Americans are also unreasonably scared of airplanes.
In any case, if this is a "failure of democracy", it is not a failure of the kind imagined by the root comment on this thread.
It is right that about half of the Americans don't fly very often and seem for the scanners according to some recent polls. My "failure of democracy" statement was exaggerated I think.
On the other hand, people who fly somewhat frequently seem to be almost all against them. The guy who published the video said comments against the machines on his blog outnumber 20 to 1 the people who support them.
Left to "democracy in the United States", a referendum that requested the elimination of the "opt-out" process in favor of 0.5s of wait time at the security lines would probably pass in a landslide. Thankfully, we're governed not just by a legislature but by a Constitution interpreted by a panel of judges with lifetime tenure.