Remember those old X-Ray Vision goggles advertised in the back of your favorite comic books? The thrill of surreptitiously seeing through peoples clothes drove youthful imaginations into a frenzy of giggles and gasps. Of course, if you actually ponied up a few bucks and sent off for a pair, you were probably disappointed with the results-not only could you NOT see through people’s clothes, you couldn’t see much at all through the little red peephole centered amid those creepy hypnotic lens covers.

Seems as if a few pissed off kids grew up to make their frustrated childhood peepshows a reality, and now, in the name of SECURITY, real x-ray vision is being deployed across the United States at major airports.

The new scanners use a technology called millimeter wave scanning and can see through clothing, leaving no part of your anatomy unviewed. (Another similar scanner uses a process called backscatter radiation and offers similarly revealing results.)

The image above was produced by backscatter radiation scanning. The millimeter scan is even more revealing. But remember, it’s for YOUR OWN SAFETY that these devices are in use. Just like it was in YOUR OWN BEST INTEREST not to be able to take a bottle of water on a plane, or toothpaste.

The TSA, who is in charge of deploying these machines, says that the images shown have blurred out faces (like they can’t see your face when you walk in to the scanner) and that images can’t be printed, sent, or saved on the machines. But those charged with screening will still be able to know for certainty who has had a mastectomy or a penile implant, and of course, who is carrying a gun. (Oh wait, I thought metal detectors sniffed out guns.)

The question is this: how much privacy should we be forced to sacrifice in the name of SECURITY? Should we really have to expose our genitals to some low-paid airport screener just to go visit grandma in another state?

The machines have been in use at a few locations abroad for a little while, and testing of the devices has been occuring at Phoenix International Airport since October, 2007.

Next time you fly, you might as well just fly naked. Just remember that it’s all in the name of SECURITY. And it is FOR YOUR OWN GOOD.

(Cross psoted at Bring It On!)