Claire Berlinski On The TSA And The Sheeple
Berlinski writes at Ricochet:
Now, I don't think you have a "right" to fly in a commercial aircraft, so I don't think the TSA's searches are a violation of one's "rights." But I do think the American public's collective willingness to go along with what any thinking person can see is a ritualized, invasive, offensive, time-wasting and humiliating farce is a very bad omen about our political culture.It's alarming both because there should be some kind of enraged reflexive reaction--"Hey, we shouldn't put up with this, this is insane!"--and there just isn't. Most people seem willing just to submit to it; the objections to these practices seem to be confined to the political periphery. Is there a single 2012 candidate who has made this a campaign issue? Why not?
And it's alarming because it suggests no one party to this farce can think his or her way out of a paper bag. To see a stunning lack of common sense, on this scale, and to see a national willingness to believe that somehow it must all make sense and we should just trust the people who say it does--well, that's really disturbing.
My wife said yesterday that she'd vote for anyone who promises to dismantle the TSA, especially getting rid of the backscatter machines. Her radiologist uncle is not so sanguine about the agency's safety assurances.
Matt at July 3, 2011 7:41 AM
Right to travel via commercial aircraft? Maybe too specific. We *do* unquestionably have the right to travel without harassment.
Frank at July 3, 2011 7:57 AM
Matt, is you wife willing to vote for someone without an R or D after their name?
Dwatney at July 3, 2011 8:09 AM
Dwatney, she's not wedded to party, but, like most of us, ends up voting for the person likely to do the least damage.
Matt at July 3, 2011 8:18 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/07/03/claire_berlinsk.html#comment-2322340">comment from FrankTraveling by commercial aircraft is now a normal part of business and life in the USA.
Amy Alkon at July 3, 2011 8:25 AM
Stanley Milgram's experiments proved prescient yet again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Milgram#Obedience_to_authority
Robert at July 3, 2011 8:34 AM
"Now, I don't think you have a 'right' to fly in a commercial aircraft..."
I disagree with Berlinski on this. I have a right to engage in lawful commerce, of which flying on a commercial aircraft is one example. If the airline wants me to submit to a search before boarding, then it can insert a clause to that effect into the contract of carriage, and then I can decide if I want to do business with that airline on that basis. But that's not what's happening. The airline has nothing to do with the search, at least not from a contract standpoint.
(If it could be shown that the searches were actually catching a lot of terrorists, then a case could be made for saying that there is an overriding national security interest. However, no one has shown any evidence that the invasive searches have foiled or prevented a single attack.)
The government's stance is that, essentially, you consent to search by entering a public accommodation, which is authoritarian nonsense. That rationale, if it were Constitutionally supported, could easily be extended to any public accommodation -- parks, churches, schools, grocery stores. In fact, it could be extended to say that you consent to search by stepping out of your front door and into the public street in front of your house. Clearly, this would render the Fourth Amendment protection against warrantless search almost a dead letter -- warrants would only be required to perform searches of private residences. (And the authoritarians are working on that. I've seen a recent court decision in Indiana that says essentially that citizens have no recourse against warrantless search of a residence by police, unless the police admit that they were acting illegally. That's like saying that the burglar who breaks into your house can't be convicted unless he admits to his crime. If he simply denies that he knew that breaking into houses is illegal, he walks.)
Everyone wants to prevent another 9/11. Perfectly understandable. But let's recall how those attacks were carried out. They hijacked those airplanes with razor blades. Razor blades. The attacks worked only because of the long-standing government policy that discouraged citizens from resisting a hijacking. A few citizens armed with something heavy (e.g., a laptop) could have stopped those attacks cold, had said citizens not feared prosecution (or at least adverse publicity) for resisting.
Cousin Dave at July 3, 2011 9:15 AM
The problem with "we do not have a right to travel by plane" is that also
"we do not have a right to travel by car" -- 1892
"we do not have a right to travel by train" -- 1804
Arguably we have a right to modes of transportation from 1776, steam powered and wind powered boats, horses, and feet.
jerry at July 3, 2011 10:16 AM
Also, let's not forget that TSA is showing up in all sorts of places.
Surprise! TSA Is Searching Your Car, Subway, Ferry, Bus, AND Plane
Think you could avoid the TSA's body scanners and pat-downs by taking Amtrak? Think again. Even your daily commute isn't safe from TSA screenings. And because the TSA is working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol, you may have your immigration status examined along with your "junk".
As part of the TSA's request for FY 2012 funding, TSA Administrator John Pistole told Congress last week that the TSA conducts 8,000 unannounced security screenings every year. These screenings, conducted with local law enforcement agencies as well as immigration, can be as simple as checking out cargo at a busy seaport. But more and more, they seem to involve giving airport-style pat-downs and screenings of unsuspecting passengers at bus terminals, ferries, and even subways.
These surprise visits are part of the TSA's VIPR program: Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response. The VIPR program first started doing searches in 2007, and has grown since then. Currently, the TSA only has 25 VIPR teams doing these impromptu searches: in 2012, it wants to get 12 more.
The searches are in the name of passenger security, and the TSA says it wants to prevent incidents like the 2004 Madrid train bombings. But if the airports' TSA searches miss security risks like large knives, loaded guns, and explosives, there's certainly the chance that screenings at train stations would be similarly flawed.
Not to worry: security isn't the only goal of VIPR. A recent VIPR operation/screening at a Tampa Greyhound bus station was conducted with US Border Patrol and ICE. "What we're looking for is threats to national security as well as immigration law violators," said Steve McDonald from US Border Patrol. An ICE representative said that they were also looking for smuggling, and Gary Milano from Homeland Security said that although that was the first time the Tampa bus depot had been screened, VIPR would be back again sometime in the future and was using the element of surprise as a deterrent to "the bad guys."
jerry at July 3, 2011 10:19 AM
Matt, I ask because many people are only willing for vote for the lesser of TWO evils and any others aren't even considered.
Dwatney at July 3, 2011 10:32 AM
Fuck. Now I gotta drive into New York instead of take the train???
Fuck. I hate this shit. I hate the TSA. I hate Obaba and our government. Where's my rifle?? Time for REVOLUTION!
Asshats.
Anyone read Thomas Sewell's editorial today on the Constitution?? He's 100fuckingpercent RIGHT.
An excerpt:
"Some clever people today ask whether the United States has really been "exceptional." You couldn't be more exceptional in the 18th century than to create your fundamental document -- the Constitution of the United States -- by opening with the momentous words, "We the people..."
"Those three words were a slap in the face to those who thought themselves entitled to rule, and who regarded the people as if they were simply human livestock, destined to be herded and shepherded by their betters. Indeed, to this very day, elites who think that way -- and that includes many among the intelligentsia, as well as political messiahs -- find the Constitution of the United States a real pain because it stands in the way of their imposing their will and their presumptions on the rest of us.
More than a hundred years ago, so-called "Progressives" began a campaign to undermine the Constitution's strict limitations on government, which stood in the way of self-anointed political crusaders imposing their grand schemes on all the rest of us. That effort to discredit the Constitution continues to this day, and the arguments haven't really changed much in a hundred years."
Read more: http://www.ctpost.com/opinion/article/The-Constitution-has-the-answers-we-re-seeking-1449379.php#ixzz1R4ITtJVv
Flynne at July 3, 2011 11:31 AM
Cousin Dave is correct. It is a violation of liberty. If I own a plane, and you are a private individual, and we want to come to an arrangement between us whereby you give me some money and I let you fly on my plane, it is within our rights to do so as we are not interfering with the natural rights of anyone else, the state cannot morally impose such obstructions between us unless there is a case to be made that we are inherently going to violate the natural rights of others in the process. There is not even anywhere near remotely such a case that can be made, and if it could be made, the argument would apply to "anything, anywhere" ... terrorists could strike in a mall, therefore police state powers over every mall must be justified, for example.
Lobster at July 3, 2011 11:57 AM
Well, I think Ms. Berlinski is getting her wish--the dumb right-wing vote is being trained to loose their bowels on the TSA.
This reflects the fact the Grifters on Parade (GOP) can't win elections on the strength of warmongers and plutocrats alone. They need the dumb vote too.
So, they appeal to gun-nuts, anti-abortionists, Christian Loonies, the TSA obsessed, gay-haters, anti-urbanists and rural subsidy dole-queens (farmers and rural industries).
Evidently, the TSA has made a mistake--they have not organized money-giving to the GOP. They need to attach flag-lapel pins, wave flags around, talk a lot about fighting terrorism and all the sacrifices they make, and stop hiring so many minorities. Better uniforms, with more epaulets, higher hats and medals would help too. And give big bucks to the GOP.
Instead, they seem connected to the D-Party, like school teachers and prison guards, Big mistake.
Really, who cares if you walk through a scanner? A pat-down? This is what concerns people?
No, something else is going on. Time to get people off the real issues--like the $1 trillion a year we spend on corprolitic defense, homeland security and the VA, money swiped from productive citizens--and on to somethign the dumb vote can understand. Those swarthy TSA agents.
Little girls are being violated!! Grandma is having her adult diapers taken away!
PS How many times in this blog has "concern for the children" been ridiculed as stupid posturing (which is often is). But when little girls are patted down by TSA agents (because their parents are insensibly afraid of scanners)....sound the klaxons!!
BOTU at July 3, 2011 12:28 PM
Just curious... What was the moment in your personal development when you decided that you were fully adult? Tell us about that time. Give us the narrative: The people you were dealing with, the challenges you were facing.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 3, 2011 4:41 PM
"Just curious... What was the moment in your personal development when you decided that you were fully adult? Tell us about that time. Give us the narrative: The people you were dealing with, the challenges you were facing."
I will pinch hit for BOTU. He seems to be busy banging his sixth wife to celebrate the July 4th in honor of Thomas Jefferson.
It costs a cool million U.S. dollars to support a single lowest rank foot infantry soldier in Afghanistan. These million dollars is our money paid by you and myself.
How is this possible? We are not fighting the 7th Panzer division led by General Rommel. For Christ sake, we are fighting goat fuckers without indoor plumbing. And there is no end in sight.
Somebody is making a lot of money at public expense to milk this holy war. This should make you mad. Not the TSA agents, who is doing their job as ordered by the military industry complex.
chang at July 3, 2011 5:35 PM
> I will pinch hit
You can't; the questions were directed to him specifically.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 3, 2011 5:51 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/07/03/claire_berlinsk.html#comment-2325691">comment from Crid [CridComment at gmail]And we await his response. He's been off leash (without you here) for far too long.
Amy Alkon at July 3, 2011 6:02 PM
Fully adult? I suppose that is meant as an ad hominem insult, but here goes...
When I realized the world is not a perfect place, and maybe three-quarters of people on it have lives that make mine look like a picnic.
That some of my "problems" were to some extent self-inflicted.
When I really, really stopped believing in God.
When I realized that taking care of my kids was Job One (actually, I believed that before they were even born).
When I stopped craving some sort of career or social success in favor of family. When I took on work for the money, not for the fun.
When I recognized that waving a flag and wearing a uniform does not make a patriot.
When I fully understood the horrific waste that is our federal military and civilian agencies, and the pensions our grandchildren will be paying to current employees. When I realized some people will lie about the need for war for political gain or monetary profit.
I guess I could list more, and who knows when true adulthood comes. People in later life (70-90s) can be both wise with years or increasingly petty.
BTW, I have not had six wives. That count is high. I do admire Thomas Jefferson though.
BOTU at July 3, 2011 7:56 PM
is doing their job as ordered
You know, just after murder and rape, 'following orders' aught to be right up there with assualt as crime punishable by a lifetime in prison
lujlp at July 3, 2011 8:06 PM
Why are you guys wasting your time arguing with BOTU the troll?
Cousin Dave at July 3, 2011 8:56 PM
> I suppose that is meant as an ad
> hominem insult
Well, if you take it that way, OK. (Though people clucking about "the dumb vote" oughta be cautious with Latin.)
> I guess I could list more
I want the part where you've dealt rewardingly with others, and recognized their interests in way that was mutual rather than desultory ("BOTU", "I took on work for the money, not for the fun"). Can you share some insight or affirmative principle which we can apply for ourselves?... Or are we just going to have to come to you to explain who's "dumb" or "a patriot" in each individual case?
You're starting to seem like a sorta grim guy, and defense expenditures, however inappropriate they might be, aren't likely the source of your distress.
Crid at July 3, 2011 9:26 PM
I guess this shouldn't be such a surprise, considering that, in the early 1940s, a Nazi official got a group of ordinary people to round up and kill all the Jews in a village, simply by suggesting that they wouldn't look good if the didn't do so. They wouldn't be part of the "in crowd" in other words.
No threat of death or imprisonment was needed to get these otherwise ordinary people to murder dozens of Jews. Just the mere suggestion that their peers would regard them with a jaded eye was enough.
Some of these killers had consciences: one drank himself into a stupor while performing the deed; another one attempted to explain at length to his victim(s) why he had to kill him/them.
Our willingness to obey and submit, probably essential to our survival in caveman days, is one of our biggest modern failings.
mpetrie98 at July 3, 2011 10:45 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/07/03/claire_berlinsk.html#comment-2325989">comment from mpetrie98There's an "in group"/"out group" thing that was surely part of that. We evolved in tribes probably mainly filled with kin, and were probably not often (or maybe ever) around strangers.
Amy Alkon at July 3, 2011 11:14 PM
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