paranoia and prudery go head-to-head

When one day we look back on how "the great privacy movement" began, it won't be accounts of Muslim homes being searched without warrants or gigabytes of data being swept up by the National Security Agency that sparked revolution - but rather images of underwear on TSA screens and videos of passengers being felt up by federal agents.

Americans finally seem to be growing wary of privacy incursions in the name of national security - and it is our prudery that's pushing us to take a stand.

Of the many forces that get humans in action, fear is the clear forerunner. You don't need the reminder of today's stampede in Cambodia to know that fear can get humans to do almost anything (include trample other humans to death). Fear of terrorism has gotten Americans to accept secret searches of our homes and warrant-less searches of our online communications, not to mention bare feet at the airport.

Our sense of privacy and injustice have not been enough to counter that fear - but privacy concerning our private parts may have the edge.

It may be that this visceral reaction to protect our "junk" is not worth exploring - it is what it obviously is - but I couldn't help being reminded of Jonathan Haidt's "moral foundations theory." According to Haidt, morality comes naturally - and it comes in five flavors. Some of us are more instinctively offended by injustice, while others get their moral dander up when someone is unloyal. One of those moral dimensions - disgust - may be what's kicking in at airport security scans. (The other dimensions, btw, are "caring for others" and "respecting authority.")

At a TSA briefing for House staffers in DC, people were "averting their eyes" when it came time for the pat-down demonstration on a young female volunteer. No one has ever averted their eyes from a questionable FBI search of library records. That difference - whether an action is eye-avert-worthy or not - is not to be underestimated. While most Americans do not approve of the government tracking down their library records, they're not upset enough to make a fuss. Images of men agents feeling down other men (and women feeling up women) just may be the one thing that's worse than the miniscule chance that there's a terrorist on our plane.

It'll be interesting to see in the next couple of weeks whether our outrage over being touched is the thing that finally gets Americans to draw the line on privacy. Who knows. Fear of exploding planes still has a hold on us. But in the looming the battle of paranoia over prudery, I'm putting my money on the prudes.