I ask, because the former has NOT so far (and may end up NEVER having) caught a terrorist, so demonstrably has directly saved no lives. Terrorists are aware of the scanner and its shortcomings, and are well capable of exploiting them. If you think someone who is willing to blow themselves up on a plane is even remotely squeemish about plugging every oriface with enough PETN to bring down a dozen planes, then you’re not thinking straight. The latter, however, would conceivably save thousands, if not millions of lives.

Like it or not, societies need to concentrate their monetary and political resources where they will do the MOST GOOD for the state of the society, which includes the health, safety and liberty of the population. Cheeseburgers and Coke contribute more to death statistics per year than airplane terrorists have ever killed. Think about that. Deep Vein Thrombosis has killed more people since 9-11 than the deaths in the planes, in the buildings, and of the soldiers in Iraq and Afganistan combined (fact-check it if you like, it’s true). There are bigger problems in this world than media darling terrorists. Do you know the difference between a suicidal murderer and a terrorist matyr? Press coverage and fear. Don’t let the terrorists win.

And you know what? If I were a terrorist (which I most decidedly am NOT), do you know what I would target? The body scanner itself. It wouldn’t be too hard to add a stolen or “acquired” Cobalt-60 or Cesium-137 radiotherapy source inside the housing of the scanner, capable of exposing any and all scanned passengers to high levels of radiation. How hard do you think it would be to break into (or evacuate and stroll into) a small hospital and take one of these sources from their radiotherapy device? How high is the security at the plant that MAKES the body scanners? How high is the security of the transport from plant A to airport B? Radiation can be invisible, odorless, silent, tasteless and untouchable. No-one might know they were exposed until some time later. It could be happening right now.

Even disregarding this horrifying possibility, how about people who have undergone high-dose radiotherapy and who have reached their lifetime dose limit? Are you seriously expecting them to choose between being exposed beyond that? They will have no choice but to be assaulted.

Here is a nice tip on how to avoid full body scan in the airport queue: http://todayilearned.co.uk/2010/11/13/clever-idea-to-avoid-full-body-scan-in-the-airport/

I’d also fly nude or get naked at the airport, but you still gotta respect that other people might have a problem with that.

Seriously, although the scanner is not a panacea (as you pointed out, it misses anything in a body cavity) it seems less of an invasion than the wand and the pat-down.