The companies with multimillion-dollar contracts to supply American airports with body-scanning machines more than doubled their spending on lobbying in the past five years and hired several high-profile former government officials to advance their causes in Washington, government records show.

L-3 Communications, which has sold $39.7 million worth of the machines to the federal government, spent $4.3 million trying to influence Congress and federal agencies during the first nine months of this year, up from $2.1 million in 2005, lobbying data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show. Its lobbyists include Linda Daschle, a former Federal Aviation Administration official.

They’re a defense contractor, so lobbying is effectively their marketing budget. It isn’t exactly news that lobbying pays off. But I think the headline is a bit unimpressive. The company roughly doubled in size over the period that their lobbying budget doubled. Don’t forget that they acquired Titan in 2005. The buyout was rather critical for Titan, since they had a bit of a torture-related PR problem. Given that L-3 made $3.5 billion last year, almost entirely from government contracting, the body scanner represents little more than 1% of their revenue. You want to get upset over something? Look at what they do for that other 99%.