The “underwear bomber” almost blew up Northwest Flight 253. In response, Uncle Sam wants us to sacrifice privacy for safety.

We’re going to be asked to grin and “bare” it for national security. Literally.

OK, maybe the grin part will be optional, but the full-body imaging machines won’t be. The images produced by the machines are “no different than strip searches,” writes Jeffrey Rosen, chief legal analyst for The New Republic.

Rosen described the machines as “millimeter wave scanners that reveal the naked human body far more graphically than a conventional X-ray.” A quick Google image search shows you he’s not exaggerating.

In other words, this stuff isn’t PG-13.

And did I mention this is all happening at the airport? For every American man, woman and child passing through Transportation Service Agency (TSA) screening.

Though only 44 machines are in U.S. airports now, the TSA plans to install about 1,000 by 2012. They came to Chicago and Kansas City’s major airports last week, so it’s a matter of time before we see them in Omaha.

To those uncomfortable with the scanners, the TSA will offer an “equal level of screening,” done by one of their agents. But since we’re talking “equal” to a high-resolution shot of your naked body, one can only imagine what this “pat-down” will entail.

When I first heard about all this, I expected my religious friends would be upset. The pope said the machines violate the “person and integrity” of human beings.

But Catholic or not, most people I know think there is no price too great for safety. My friends are apparently representative of the broader country, as a recent USA Today poll showed 78 percent support for the scanners.

But sacrificing privacy to try to reduce the risk of another 9/11 to zero is foolish. First, that’s impossible. Second, doing it defiles American traditions.

Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.” The Declaration of Independence declared that “all men are created equal.”

But Americans today hold the government’s “national security” apparatus to different standards than the rest of society.

I just don’t get it. Why is it morally acceptable for TSA officers to see naked pictures of strangers?

At this point, some of you are still thinking “so what?” You may concede the TSA gets to see you naked just because they are the TSA, and you still don’t care.

But you should care about the principle. America got into big trouble by giving a blank check to its national security apparatus.

Agents wrote their own search warrants. Human beings were tortured. The U.S. ordered its troops to invade Iraq and kill Iraqi soldiers who never lifted a finger against them.

But the moral outrage is lacking. Most Americans seem to think the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security should be held to a different moral standard than the rest of humanity. This is a dangerous mentality that needs to be rejected in every form.

Americans need to stand up and say no to strip-search machines. They are not only creepy, but they undermine our founding principles.