TSA Can Finally Force Terrorists to Reveal All

Ever since the horrors of 9-11, the entire Western world has been forced to suffer increasing indignity, inconvenience, and downright nastiness should they wish to travel by air, all in the name of greater security.  Of course, security has not in fact been improved - the stupidities and incompetences of the TSA in particular are too numerous to detail here - but it seems like all the government has to do is holler "It's for your safety!" and the gullible public will happily bend over and take it, metaphorically speaking.

With the advent of the panty bomber, now comes the next indignity: the strip-search scanner.  This is a new gadget sort of like a medical imager which virtually removes your clothes and displays your naked body in all its glory or lack thereof to leering security minions.  No, really:

Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan has debunked the government's claims, telling BBC talk show host Jonathan Ross that he autographed printed scans of his own body for two female security officers.

"I came out [of the scanner] and then I saw these girls and they had these printouts," Khan said.

"So I looked at them, I thought maybe it's a form you're supposed to [sign] ... and you could see everything inside.

"And then I've autographed them for them."

Which may be all very well if you are a gorgeous movie star.  For the rest of us to whom "having the body of a god" means Buddha, this prospect is rather less appealing.

As it turns out,  however, there is one great, glorious, shining advantage to this otherwise hideous and un-American invasion of privacy: It is un-Islamic too.

The Detroit Free Press reports:

The Fiqh Council of North America - a body of Islamic scholars that includes some from Michigan - issued a fatwa this week that says going through the airport scanners would violate Islamic rules on modesty.

"It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women," reads the fatwa issued Tuesday. "Islam highly emphasizes haya (modesty) and considers it part of faith. The Quran has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts."

The decision could complicate efforts to intensify screening of potential terrorists who are Muslim...

The Freep could hardly be more wrong.  The scanners most certainly do not complicate efforts to catch Muslim terrorists.  In fact, they do precisely the opposite: scanners make catching terrorists trivially simple!

To Catch A Terrorist

It has been well established that the Koran allows Muslims to commit any kind of sin while on the jihadi trail.  Islam famously allows lying for the benefit of Islam and commands the killing of all infidels.  It doesn't order the killing of other Muslims, but leaves plenty of loopholes for defining collateral deaths as worth it for the cause.

What's more, sins of all types are excused for pending martyrs.  The 9-11 terrorists and Maj Hasan of Ft. Hood infamy availed themselves of strip clubs prior to claiming their virgins (or trying to), which devout Muslims aren't supposed to do.  Certainly a fancy scanner would present no religious obstacle to jihadists because they're exempt from any and all considerations of sinfulness.

On the other hand, for an ordinary non-jihadist devout Muslim, this fatwa is a Command of God.  They cannot go through the scanner or Allah will whack them.  Therefore, they can't fly.  A non-flying Muslim is no threat to our safety in the skies.

Follow the logic here: Devout but non-jihadi Muslims can't go through the scanner, can't fly, and thus are no threat.  Muslims who are willing to go through the scanner... must be jihadis, because only jihadis carry the "get out of Hell free" card of suicide bombing and can safely ignore their religious fatwa!

All TSA need do is to jump any Muslims who do go through the scanners, and bingo, they've got their man!  Problem solved!

Of course, if they'd been doing that all along, the rest of us wouldn't have to get strip-searched every time we fly.  Can't have everything...