[TallGuyShort]

It's easy to tell the public you're invading privacy to prevent terrorism. It's hard to tell the public that terrorists killed people because you respected their privacy.

I'm not saying I agree - in fact I completely disagree - but as a public policy maker and politician, it probably seems illogical to do it any other way. Better to have people blame you for no privacy than blame you for death, right?

[mcantelon]

Also, there are campaign donations to be had from the vendors of full body scanners. Less so from civil liberty groups.

[tptacek]

It seems extraordinarily unlikely to me that campaign donations from millimeter wave vendors will exert anything resembling the force that game theory does; to wit, "voting yes to anything that might improve airport security, and avoiding at all costs voting no on something that might later be tied to some catastrophe".

[Tamerlin]

I think kickbacks is a more likely motivation here.