The TSA's new porno-scanners that take naked pictures of travelers for bureaucratic titillation and the offered alternative of a grotesque feel-copping that would get the perpetrator locked up were he not a government employee are now well known. Given the equally well-known tendency of Americans to be fat and ugly, it's no surprise that they're upset at such enforced ogling; the only wonderment is that they aren't even angrier.

What is truly startling, though, is to hear that TSA predation is too offensive and intrusive even for someone for whom public nudity or near-nudity is her professional stock in trade. Yet that's what former Baywatch star and Playboy model Donna D’Errico tells us in a news report:

Public property.

After waiting in a long line of holiday travelers, D'Errico and her son finally made it to the moving carrier where all the carry-on bags are placed. That's when a TSA agent took her by the elbow and told her she needed to "come this way." Donna D'Errico says she felt overexposed at LAX airport after being forced to go through a body scan that she suspects was ordered because she was pretty and not because she was a terrorist suspect. "I said I was traveling with my son, motioning to him, and the agent said he was to come along with me as well," D'Errico said. "I immediately asked why we were having to go through an extra search, and no one else was being made to do so, indicating the long line of other passengers in front of and behind where we had been in line. In a very sarcastic tone, and still holding me by the elbow, the agent responded, 'Because you caught my eye, and they' -- pointing to the other passengers -- 'didn't.'" [emphasis added]

Having seen her photo, we can well understand why she caught the agent's eye. Catching eyes is her profession, it's the reason she is both a mother and a wealthy celebrity.

If Ms. D'Errico were plain-looking, she'd no doubt be in a plain job like anyone else. Nobody would ever have heard of her and the TSA minions would not have given her a second glance.

That's not how God and genetics panned out - which is absolutely no business of the TSA. There is a clear and well-documented link between Muslims, young Arab men, people named Muhammad, and the act of terrorism; so far as we know, outside of James Bond movies there is no similar link between hotness and homicidal intent. Even Jihad Jane was no Baywatcher.

Despite stereotype, though, Ms. D'Errico is not just a dumb blonde, for she can well express a truth which has escaped most of our political structure and certainly the TSA:

"I must have overlooked the clause in both my Playboy and 'Baywatch' contracts stating that once appearing in that magazine, or on that show, I would forever be subject to being seen naked live and in person by anyone, at anytime, under any conditions, whether I agree to it or not, and for free," she said sarcastically. "I posed for Playboy 15 years ago. I was on 'Baywatch' 13 years ago. Both of those were controlled environments, with proper lighting, makeup, etc., and were jobs. I contractually agreed to do both of those jobs. I could have stopped or changed my mind at any time. None of those conditions are present when TSA decides for you that you will consent to being scanned or felt up, or you simply won't be allowed your constitutional right to travel from one place to another freely." [emphasis added]

People get naked every day. You do; I do; Barack Obama surely does as well, given that as Vice-President Biden pointed out he is "clean."

Does that give the TSA the right to force you to do something that you do all the time anyway? Of course not - because the time and place is not of your choosing.

We all eat and drink, too - should the TSA be able to force you to consume food or drink if the spirit moves them? Of course not, on the same grounds.

No doubt ten seconds' Googling would provide even the cretins who work for TSA pages and pages of a full-color, fully-nude, much younger and presumably even more libidinously-gorgeous Ms. D'Errico. No matter; for them, the ability to appreciate, examine, and feel up a living breathing human woman standing in front of them was far more desirable than gazing at an airbrushed photograph - as, indeed, it is for most normal people.

It shouldn't take a doctorate in psychology to realize this; yet, somehow, government officials would have us believe that TSA agents are inhuman in their dutiful randomness, and would just as willingly get up close and personal with Roseanne Barr or Dawn "Bridget" McDowell as with a Baywatch babe.

This goes against five thousand years of recorded history best expressed by Lord Acton:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Once you are in a TSA line, that's pretty much what they have: absolute power over you. Apparently, you can't even change your mind and leave without risking a monster fine. In a democracy, this cannot be permitted or tolerated.

Not every TSA worker was a sexual predator when they were hired. Thanks to this policy and human nature, though, all save the most saintly soon will be. D'Errico's fellow celebrity Khloe Kardashian may be more prophetic than she knows when she said:

They basically are just raping you in public.

We'd say not to give the TSA any ideas - but thanks to the butt-bomber, they've already got them.