His name is Derrick Jensen, a radical environmentalist/anarcho-primitivist whose writings have been compared to Foucault and Camus. He co-wrote a great book that discusses this particular issue Ann brought up. The book is called (and I’m not kidding on this) “Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control.” Now the book is more important than ever. Check it out.

http://is.gd/5Nvo6

The last big high-tech scam was a lemon (The airport scanner scam):

In forecasting the fate of the full-body scanners, we can turn to recent history, which saw the rapid rise—and decline—of the previous “miracle” screening technology. In the years following 9/11, dozens of explosive trace portals (ETPs) were installed in airports across the country, at a cost of about $160,000 each. These “puffer” machines—so called because they blow air on passengers to dislodge explosive particles—were once celebrated as the “no-touch pat down.” But in a Denver test by CBS in 2007, a network employee was sprayed with explosives and then walked through the airport’s three puffers without any trouble. The machines also set off false alarms, and they frequently broke down, leading to sky-high maintenance costs.

After spending more than $30 million on the puffer machines—most of them purchased from GE—the TSA announced earlier this year that it was suspending their use. Only about 25 percent of the machines were ever even deployed at US airports. A report last month from the Government Accountability Office found that the TSA had not adequately tested the puffers before buying them.