"4 out of 5 Americans support full-body airport scanners"

In support of its new invasive scanning and pat-down procedures, the TSA cites the results of the CBS News Poll that 4 out of 5 Americans are in favor of using the new scanners. As the TSA Blog puts it: "You’ve heard TSA say how most passengers support the use of our Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT). Well, this time you don’t have to hear it from us. You can read a recent public poll that was conducted by CBS News where 4 in 5 polled support TSA’s use of AIT. "

Any opinion poll should be taken with a grain of salt. The way the questions are worded and the order of the questions have a huge impact on the results. In the case of the CBS News poll, it consisted of two questions:

"Do you think it would be justified or unjustified for people of certain ethnic groups to be subject to additional security checks at airport checkpoints?"

directly followed by:

"Some airports are now using 'full-body' digital x-ray machines to electronically screen passengers in airport security lines. Do you think that these new x-ray machines should or should not be used at airports?"

The two questions follow one after another, giving the impression that the full-body scanners are an alternative to ethnic profiling. More than half of the people polled considered ethnic profiling to be unjustified, and could have fallen into this interpretation.

Furthermore, the question on the full-body scanners does not allow those polled to express under what circumstances the machines should be used. For example: should the x-ray machines be used to screen all passengers? Or just those under suspicion? Should the screening be limited to adults only?

Of course all this sidesteps the question whether procedures that may violate the 4th amendment of the constitution, and certainly violate privacy, should be left up to opinion polls in the first place.