Members of the Liberty Restoration Project protested the use of full-body scanners at the Kansas City International Airport on Saturday. The responses from passengers was wide ranging.
"What if you need an MRI?" an old man snarled at the group as he exited the airport, shaking his head.
Tracy Ward, whose sign read, "Refuse the human microwaves!" retorted with a shrug, "I won't get one."
The LRP's Kansas City chapter, which has also protested the use of red light cameras, takes issue with the scanners that were recently installed in Terminal B.
The technology allows airport security agents to view stripped-down images of passengers' bodies (and, presumably, any weapons or dangerous objects they may be carrying). The LRP isn't alone in questioning the technology's invasion of privacy, as well as its effectiveness.
LRP member Gabe Grider refuses to fly because of them.
Chris and Randen of the LRP, who only wanted their first
names used, handed out fliers depicting a woman's nude image with the
words, "This is how the TSA views you."
As various news crews came and went between noon and 2 p.m., some travelers applauded the protest. One airport security guard told the group, in confidential tones, that he wouldn't let his wife pass through the new scanners. (Passengers can opt for a pat-down search instead.)
Randen offered a slippery-slope philosophy for protesting. "If we say that this technology is acceptable here, then why not use it at courthouses? Or at the mall? Those can be dangerous places. How about schools? Would that be okay?"
Chris chimed in, "I could see them wanting 'em at the Sprint Center."
But some folks expressed their willingness to trade privacy for security, like a long-haired guy who passed by and said, "As long as there's foreign people in this country, we're for the scanners."
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