Kevin Underhill’s blog, Lowering the Bar, has managed to do something that no one else online has been able to do.  Be funny and stay that way.  It’s not that the law doesn’t offer a multitude of opportunities to find funny things, but it’s very hard to maintain the subtle touch that brings out the humor that could make a lesser man cry.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the subjects Kevin touches are limited to knee-slappers.  Quite the contrary, as humor is often an excellent way to note the foibles of a serious target and ridicule it in a witty way.  As we chuckle at Kevin’s posts, we can’t forget that the humor masks the pain that’s caused in the lives of many.  Funny, and not funny at all.

One of the most pervasive issues of the year stems from the TSA adoption of body scanners, combined with scope and grope, to save us from the terrorists.  Whether they be toddlers or the elderly in diapers, rape victims or breast-feeding moms, it’s been a sickening morass of failure and anger.   We’ve discussed whether the rights lost to safety are worth it, the use has been shockingly misguided and the harm justified or justifiable.  But Kevin’s post, German Police: Body Scanners Are Useless, raises a question of a different sort.

Has this all been just a complete, total, extremely expensive, extremely intrusive, extremely painful, joke?

After a ten-month test of the same scanners currently irritating many U.S. travelers, German federal police have concluded that they aren’t worth using. This appears to be largely because, according to the report, the scanners “triggered an unnecessary alarm in seven out of ten cases.”

How many of the other 30 percent might have been false negatives, I guess we’ll never know.

After all the pain we’ve endured at the hands of these machines, they don’t actually work?  This is certainly something we can all laugh about, even though it’s unlikely that the Department of Homeland Security will admit that the German’s are right, that the body scanners, for which former Homeland Security Czar (and federal prosecutor and judge) Michael Chertoff, lobbied on behalf of their maker, Rapiscan,   And it turns out that the very expensive but shiny hardware, now deployed backwater airports that no terrorist has ever heard of, don’t work. Ha! They got us.  That was a good one.

Adoration of technology has become as American as mom and apple pie, with so many of us believing that any device that runs on electricity contains magic that makes the impossible happen.  We are amazed at how invisible waves zip through the air and make wondrous images appear on tiny screens in our hand.  We are thrilled that metal and wire can protect us from knives and bullets.  And bombs.  And sweaty armpits and pleated pants.  And the layered look that goes in and out of style.

When Apple produces a new iPad, the scrutiny is overwhelming, launching thousands of eyes and fingers a’twitching with overwhelming interest in whether it’s really an advancement over its predecessor.  The interest is monumental.  Of course, the iToys have a shelf-life of a few months, forcing its critics and adherents to start over again before the pixels dims.

Sadly, there has never been similar scrutiny of the technology used by government.  Apparently, no one gives these tools more than a thorough rhetorical look-see, whether it’s the breathalyzer 5000 (which courts have embraced despite the fact that no one other than the manufacturer can explain how it works, or even such old school devices as speed radar, which will clock a tree at 70 when plugged into the cigarette lighter socket of a Crown Vic.  Despite these examples of historic willful ignorance, we still think nothing of spending billions and humiliating people everywhere to enjoy the benefits of a machine that fails.

When Kevin Underhill writes about the findings of the German’s, it’s witty and funny, almost impossible not to bring a wry smile to a reader’s face.  When I write about it, it’s heavy, sad and depressing.  But both of us have the same point to make, whether done in enjoyable fashion or mine.  Our blind faith in technology to magically solve our problems isn’t working out very well.  The people who makes decisions about its purchase, use and admissibility in court don’t have the capability to understand what they’re doing, and they rely on compromised, self-serving voices in making their determinations.

And we suffer for it.  Sorry, but I can’t make a joke of this.