TSA X-ray pics too racy for Facebook

Earlier this week, I started the Facebook Group Say No to Full-Body Airport Scanners. I found this picture online, and decided to use it as the group’s profile pic. Since the image seemed a bit too revealing, I added some black bars …

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A while later, someone informed me that the pic was a hoax (it was a tweaked version of stock-photo of a woman) and not actually from a back-scatter machine. Journalistic integrity being what it is (and sprinkled with a generous dose of Catholic guilt), I replaced it with this one that you’ve probably seen before:

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Now, here’s where it gets hilarious. The above photo has been seen everywhere: on numerous blogs, on the ACLU’s website, and on news sites from here to Australia. It’s from the Associated Press, taken during a demonstration of the backscatter machines in 2003. It’s an accurate representation of what TSA-holes are seeing when you walk through one of the full-body scanners at the airport.

So I decided to use the above image for my Facebook group. And when I did, it was removed, with this message:

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They allowed it to remain (in miniature) as a profile pic, but they deleted the larger version. Based on the warning I received (that images that contain nudity, drug use, or violence are not allowed), I’m guessing it was because the photo revealed too much skin.

That’s right: the pictures that the TSA is taking, the pictures that are EVERYWHERE in the news, are too racy for Facebook.

Does anyone else find this royally and utterly effed up?

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