It matters because there are different policies in place. Relevance is literally keyed to that. A good example of that is how, under the new policy, children 12 and under are exempt from the pat-downs. As to the date of the video, I'm sure you've read many things on the internet. If you feel like contacting the actual station and inquiring, you'll get the same answer that I did. In some circles it's called fact-checking, while simply googling around is not a real substitute. Anyway, I'm just pointing out some factual issues about this example and not trying to take away from the overall debate in the least. I just feel it's important to focus on current examples of the policy in force and keep the debate relevant to current conditions.

It's worth noting that this video is actually ~3 years old and, while what happened is objectionable, it was not done under the recently changed policies. Take note of the color of the TSA screener's shirts (white).

Before taking such shots on a person instead of the issue, you should always at least Google...

Michael Seringhaus [i]s a third-year student at Yale Law School, where he serves as an executive editor of the Yale Journal of Law and Technology (YJoLT) and a co-director of the Green Haven Prison Project, as well as the Trumbull College Graduate Affiliate Coordinator. He completed his PhD and a short post-doc in Mark Gerstein's bioinformatics group in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University in 2007. He did his undergraduate work at Trinity College, University of Toronto and thereafter spent a year as lead bioinformatics scientist at Affinium Pharmaceuticals in Toronto.

Looks like he may have the credentials (one of the top law schools, editor of a law journal on law & tech, and... a PhD in bioinformatics) to at least get past your initial objection.

As to your other objection, and I'm not saying I agree with his central thesis, there are other factors that would likely eliminate the false positive issue (esp. if it's upwards of 1:1,000,000,000) - physical location (if your passport says you were out of the country when the crime occurred, surveillance tape has you at a retail store across town, etc.), other physical evidence at the crime scene, etc.

I should probably concede that there's that extremely distant chance that your DNA doppelganger could live in the same neighborhood, frequent the same social circles, and commit a crime in which you have no alibi and there's no other evidence aside from some trace DNA. That would be a real bummer.

Your comment does not make sense. If it were 2-3 times the cost, but still the same situation w/ the data limitation, then you would still offer the same spurious reasoning as to why unlimited should be understood to be just the opposite. Most people's home broadband is unlimited for a fixed price which is often lower than that of EVDO data services. Why does it not suffer the same fate since it has a fixed price as well? Should all-you-can-eat buffets also lead one to believe that since it has a fixed cost, you are limited to 5 plates vs. all that you can consume? Obviously if everyone in town went to the buffet at the same time and were eating 24/7...