In the same bill that Congress limited the use of whole-body imaging or “strip-search machines” at airports (text of the amendment here), it required the Transportation Security Administration to study using facial and iris recognition to identify people in line for airport security checkpoints (Sec. 242 of House-passed version here).

So glimpses at de-identified bodies are a privacy outrage while massive biometric databases and records of people’s travels are good to go?

Not necessarily. Average people (and members of Congress) understand better what a look at the body is, but they don’t understand as well what biometric tracking and databasing of our movements means. So they’re quick to object to the former and lagging on the latter.

Those of us who understand the privacy consequences of government-deployed facial recognition and tracking must press to educate our less-well-versed fellow Americans.

Congress on Privacy: Schizophrenic or Lagging? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog