"The only thing we have to fear"

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."  But did FDR imagine a day where the promotion of fear would be a big business, politically and economically?

There are now about 400 full-body scanners, set to grow to 1,000 next year. One of the people pushing them most energetically is Michael Chertoff, the former Secretary of Homeland Security.

He’s the co-founder and managing principal of the Chertoff Group, which provides security advice. One of its clients is California-based Rapiscan Systems, part of the OSI Systems corporation, that makes many of the “whole body” scanners being installed.

Chertoff has recently been busy rubbishing Martin Broughton, the wise British Airways chairman who said many security checks were redundant — calling him “ill-informed.” Early this year Chertoff called on Congress to “fund a large-scale deployment of next-generation systems.”

What have we come to?  Going on 10 years of a steady drumbeat of fear.  It's a sickness of the soul, and it's contagious.  And profitable.