Reply #56: You forgot to mention that only a few were installed in

[sabrina 1]

a few airports and it was 2008, June to be precise. HOWEVER, because of the Civil Rights Groups who had fought them for years, TSA spokespersons assured the travelling public that the did not have to use them!

In June, 2008 in response to the objections to these machines, the TSA reassured the public:

Lara Uselding, a TSA spokeswoman, said passengers were not obliged to accept the new machines.

"The passengers can choose between the body imaging and the pat-down," she said.

That was the normal pat-down that no one had any objection to.

But in January 2009, this administration ordered billions of dollars worth of them and started installing them in hundreds of airports.

When the public continued to opt out of using them, THEN this administration's TSA introduced the 'Enhanced Pat-Downs' to force passengers into using them, fearful that they would not be funded if the public continued to have the choice given them under Bush.

Fortunately now though, Congress is considering refusing to fund them. Hopefully that will happen.

Meantime, considering that the last order was worth $44 billion of our tax dollars, and the one before that, more billions of our tax dollars, Chertoff's clients, Rapiscan, are smiling and thanking the gods that what Bush failed to do, this administration did with the support of many progressives who under Bush were screaming about the abuse of their rights.

Amazing what the difference between a 'D' and an 'R' can be!

However, for most progressives, the issue and the principles involved are what count and they have not changed their opinion of these abuses because the 'R' became a 'D'.