Why National Opt Out Day Was A Bust

They turned the machines off, so no one needed to opt out. If the machines and/or friskings are so important for safety, why did they increase the danger of flying on the busiest travel day of the year? Unless it's all smoke and mirrors. [Link]

Apparently, the backscatter machines were turned off in lots of locales. Why? Because of National Opt-Out Day; turning off the backscatter machines meant that there was no need to opt out, which meant that people didn’t opt out or report legions of opt-out incidents, which meant that the TSA was spared a public relations embarrassment. As Gizmodo notes, turning off the backscatter machines on one of the busiest travel days of the year was crazy, given the many security concerns that the TSA has cited . . . unless, of course, the backscatter machines, and the patdowns that one gets if one opts out were never all that important to begin with.