At a small airport the other day, I saw a passenger with a popular attitudinal T-shirt slogan patiently submitting to an enhanced gropedown from the TSA. It was a poignant image of the republic at twilight: a man in a “Don’t Tread On Me” T-shirt being trod all over. I wonder why more Americans aren’t outraged by this:
Her 95-year-old mother was detained and extensively searched last Saturday while trying to board a plane to fly to Michigan to be with family members during the final stages of her battle with leukemia.
Her mother, who was in a wheelchair, was asked to remove an adult diaper in order to complete a pat-down search.
There is a term for regimes that submit law-abiding wheelchair-bound dying nonagenarians to public humiliations without probable cause and it isn’t “republic of limited government.” Given everybody’s touchiness over Kathryn’s North Korean comparisons, I’ll say only this: George III wouldn’t have done this to you.
Amy Alkon posts a response from a bureaucratic bozo to her own experience at the airport. Caution for sensitive types: The word “labia” is included. But that’s because in 21st century America the anatomical feature “labia” are included in a trip to the airport – and that’s what should concern you. As the crack TSA agent informs Miss Alkon, “We go thru sensitive areas with back of hand.”
That’s great news! Somewhere on page 273 of the handbook, there’s a graphic detailing the precise point on the upper thigh where the licensed state groper is obliged to invert his paw.
My weekend column concluded with some thoughts on American government’s culture of excess. Big Government – more-more-more money-no-object government — will by definition be profoundly stupid government. Lean, constrained government would not only be affordable but smarter. The bloated moronic airport security regime is a particularly ugly example. In a decade of existence, it has never stopped a single terrorist, but it can successfully cow a dying woman born during the Wilson Administration into removing her diaper.
We can all sleep easier knowing that.
When is this affront to freedom, never mind dignity, going to end? TSA needs to be shut down.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI was recently at a Penn & Teller show in Las Vegas. They do a bit on the TSA morons and the violations of privacy and liberty that these searches entail.
They've developed a clever system of civil disobedience. They have the Bill of Rights printed on a small metal card. (You can buy one in their souvenir shop.) The metal is heavy enough to set off the metal detectors, and the plan is this: carry it in your pocket when you go through screening. When the alarm goes off, hand the TSA agent the 'offending' item. The Fourth Amendment (against unreasonable search and seizure) is highlighted on the card.
Now whether or not this stunt will irritate these jerks into selecting you for a body cavity search, I don't know.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseP & T's suggestion makes some awful assumptions: 1. that the TSA person can actually read at a higher than 3rd grade level; and 2. if so, and if they actually read what's on the card, that they would actually recognize that it is from our Constitution.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMark,
I am outraged. But I also work 60 hours a week. What am I going to do?
Soon I am going to have to fly home, to attend a loved-one's funeral, a death expected any day now. I refuse to be X-rayed. (Does anyone believe stupid government will keep the X-ray machines in working order so they are not blasting us with cancer?) So a groping will be in order, at least 2 of them round trip.
So far, the few times have at least been non-issue for me (a white male pushing 50). I certainly have been yelled at -- "Stand there there and wait! No you can't be near your possessions!" No patience for the sleepy traveler.
I have no choice but to give up my liberties when and until the Tea Party or some candidate begins to champion the cause. And boy, will they get my campaign donations.
And boy, will there be h*ll to pay by the TSA if any of my stuff does get stolen. I am just nuts enough to spend my retirement savings suing and doing what I can to ruin careers. IJ (click here), please take my case!
We are doomed.
Keep up the good work on your great columns. Some light shining is better than none at all.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI sympathize with the fact that many of us still have jobs and responsibilities that we feel personally responsible in attending to.
But the real fact is this: your job, your family will mean nothing pretty soon if we let them keep going and going.
We can't always wait for OTHERS to start something up.
Well, actually, we have the ability to get people in on this - if they are not cowards. It's called Facebook and Freedom Connector.
We have to stop being afraid of what might happen if we "disobey". Yes, one of our country's greatest strengths is "rule of law" and "ordered liberty", but this has gone TOO FAR.
They are groping babies, toddlers and 95-year old dying women! WTH!
We can't keep whining that we have no time.
The REPUBLIC is the one without the time.
Franklin responded to a fellow citizen when she asked what they had given them: "A Republic if we can keep it."
Can we keep it? Can we be as brave as our Founders were?
They pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.
How can we do less and expect to keep what they gave us?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAside from the sheer inhumanity and abuse of a helpless person in this sordid case, something else got my attention. With all the billions of dollars we've poured down the TSA rathole, can none of them figure out that a 95 year old invalid is not a terroristic threat? Are those storm troopers so conditioned against common sense that "they will only do their duty" no matter how sordid? What has happened to America?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAmerica is paying a price for its weird worship of Islamophobia-phobia.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI simply refuse to fly and will not until we stop being treated like criminals just because we wish to fly on a commercial air carrier.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis idiocy just has to stop!
We could put fresh out of high school, fast food workers as TSA security and not have them perform at such a low level of eying risk assessment.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTSA behavior is not only harmful and moronic, it undermines the citizenry's respect for our government. In the long-term, its not the insult to commonsense and our intelligence that matters most; its the fact that our distrust and disdain for our own government will reach a point where civil disobedience will look like the only solution to a government gone wild.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRight now, civil disobedience may be our best solution as it does not call for violence, which would undermine our cause.
If now is not the time for civil disobedience, when is the time?
How much farther will we let them go?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe TSA agents are in many cases quite mean and rude. I have had some be pleasant, but in Atlanta they speak to you with contempt and disdain. I am left feeling like I have been spoken to like a dog who has just relieved himself on the carpet. I have been shouted at and embarrased in front of my bosses for having my small purse out of my backpack when approaching the line -- hence having more than 2 items.
It is also disturbing how little some of them understand of the security procedures at the airport. I asked some agents why they were going through people's bags at the gate, and an agent proceeded to scold me telling me that they cannot be certain that security procedures in foreign countries my not be as stiff so they have to go through security again at the gate. International arrivals do go through security again before gaining access to the rest of the airport. Do TSA agents not know this?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"In a decade of existence, it has never stopped a single terrorist, but it can successfully cow a dying woman born during the Wilson Administration into removing her diaper."
Yes, and this outcome was obvious from the beginning, at least to anyone with eyes and a reasonably functioning brain. It didn't matter then, though; what we needed was security, security, security, and anyone who mentioned Ben Franklin's (apocryphal?) maxim was ridiculed. It's worth remembering, too, that neither Republicans nor Democrats were any help on this issue; security theater is just too important to them, for whatever reason.
I used to pass the time in security lines by thinking about all the ways in which I could *still* do massive damage even if I were limited to items that could pass security screening. After a while, I just got bored with it all, in part because I read this, and in part because my my wife suddenly realized that she'd had her Leatherman tucked in a small pocket on the bottom of her travel bag for about five years, and not a single TSA agent had ever discovered it in something like a dozen screenings.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnyone thinking there is a politician or group of politicians that will turn the tide in the country is naive. There are no examples of a country putting on the brakes once it begins to head over the cliff. The end is either collapse or revolt.
Looking around at the docile and oblivious people around me, I'm thinking collapse is the most likely outcome. Stuff will stop working all of a sudden and then steam roll until nothing works at all. We are well on the way. Just look at your local police force. They spend as much time harassing honest people as they do catching crooks.
The TSA is the cutting edge of modern American government.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt always gives me a sense of pride in the TSA "professionals" when I observe them walking through the baggage claim/international arrivals area at Dulles. Loud talk, playful punches, pants hanging low, pushing food and drink into their faces as they push civilians out of their way paints a nice picture of what the requirements and training of TSA agents entails. SO happy this is a federal agency that has unionized with the AFL/CIO.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLorraine and xkcd have a good point. There are a thousand things that I'm allowed to bring with me on the plane that I could use as a weapon if I wanted to. Okay, a thousand is an exaggeration, but a dozen is not.
The key thing about this though, is that I'M NOT A TERRORIST. My interest in hijacking a plane: zero. My interest in bringing down a plane I'm on: just shy of negative infinity. You could give me an entire arsenal of weapons, and the plane would be just as safe as it would be if I didn't have them.
Our security really needs to stop looking at WHAT is getting on our planes and instead focus on WHO is getting on them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is exactly right. The difference between the Israeli method and the TSA method is that the Israelis are looking for terrorists. The TSA is looking for things that have the potential to be used by a terrorist.
Like Zsuzsa, if I WAS a terrorist, I could bring down a plane with the current security protocols in place. The key is that I'm NOT a terrorist.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat Zsuzsa and GWB are saying is exactly correct.
Will we ever be able to elect anyone who sees that they are correct and take corrective action?
I'm just not that hopeful.
Pitchforks and Torches.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Zman comments that there are no examples of a country putting on the brakes once it has begun to head over the cliffs. I disagree and, as in previous comments, have outlined how Lady Margaret Thatcher did just that for the United Kingdom. Here? We have Sarah Palin who has demonstrated this ability at State level and, given the Presidency, could do it for America.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou have to be joking. The UK is a a wreck. The only thing Thatcher did was slow the march for a few years. Once she left the scene, the march to collapse began again in full.
Just look at the place. If a criminal breaks into your house, you are forbidden by law to defend yourself. There are cameras on ever street monitoring the sheep. They are putting cameras inside homes to monitor "bad parents."
Your example simply proves my point.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse