Profiting From Fear at Airports

Shortly after former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff made the rounds of TV shows arguing in favor of such measures to thwart “bad guys,” one of his consulting firm’s clients, Rapiscan, won the $350 million contract to provide the full-body x-ray machines. As one TSA supervisor said to me after my own sexualized pat-down, “This is about bureaucracy—people trying to cover their asses—and there is a ton of money involved as well.” Meanwhile, the supervisor confirmed—as has online discussion by TSA employees – that workers ordered to molest travelers are traumatized, too.