TSA-Creep: Be Prepared To Be Groped And Photographed -- Everywhere You Go
Those of you who go quietly at the TSA checkpoints, despite how they're violating our Fourth Amendment right against being searched without reasonable suspicion we've committed a crime, this is where that leads.
Regular commenter Eric wrote:
I took my kid and his friend to the indoor water park today. They made a copy of my driver's license and took a photo of all three of us for their records. No photo, no copy, no entry. WTF???
My reply:
Wow, Eric - this is awful. This is the creep that I see happening vis a vis the TSA being allowed to continue violating our rights at airports. A private business has the right to set up conditions for entry, but I believe it's only possible for them to do this now -- to even consider doing it -- because of the TSA.
Via Drudge, massive expansion of TSA checkpoints seems in store. More here in the LA Times.
I think we as Americans are so physically comfortable and have such easy lives (in so many ways -- all of us, me included) that many or most of us just don't have it in us to speak out against any sort of violation of our rights. This is very dangerous, as I wrote in my piece on the erosion of civil liberties and what we need to do to protest, that no mainstream US outlet would publish, but that the Russian newspaper Pravda finally did:
The TSA's main accomplishment seems to be obedience training for the American public -- priming us to be docile (and even polite) when ordered to give up our civil liberties. Not only does the TSA violate our Fourth Amendment rights, they've posted signs that effectively eradicate our First Amendment right to speak out about it. One such sign, in Denver International Airport, offers the vague warning that "verbal abuse" of agents will "not be tolerated." Travelers are left to wonder whether it's "verbal abuse" to inform the TSA agent with his latex-gloved hands on their testicles that this isn't making us safer, or are they only in trouble if they pepper their statement with obscenities? Not surprisingly, few seem willing to speak out and risk arrest.I believe I've found a less risky and more impactful way to protest, and it's through sobbing. I'm calling on American women to do as I did at the TSA checkpoint: Opt for the pat-down and sob their guts out.
Think about it. What better way to draw attention to the inappropriateness of government-sanctioned groping than hearing mothers, wives and daughters react viscerally to having their private parts touched by strangers -- in each and every airport across America each and every day.
As the 18th century economist Adam Smith noted, sympathy for others is a powerful human motivator. Because a bureaucracy's first duty is protecting itself, perhaps our only chance of revoking the pointless daily rights grab that is the TSA is to evoke wide-scale sympathy. Helpfully, there's plausible deniability for a sobbing woman. We can suspect she's manufacturing her tears, but we can't prove it.
Some find it an absurd contradiction that I write books on bringing back manners, and yet I'm encouraging people to sob at these checkpoints. The truth is, good manners don't always involve going quietly. Sometimes, like when our civil liberties are violated, the most civil thing a person can do is be as loud and uncivil as possible. Still, I'm a realist. I know that most people will not follow my lead. But, maybe, every day, at every TSA checkpoint, a few will bust out in tears. And maybe, just maybe, through the spectacle of this, we can claw back some of the rights we've so docilely given up.
The notion that we can ever have complete physical safety is a ludicrous one. We cannot insure that -- not even by throwing away all of our civil liberties. What's alarming is how people are mewling about protecting our physical selves without considering how dangerous it is to give up our rights and stand there cow-eyed waiting to be told what to do next. Every time we go all "We The Sheeple...", every time we allow one more Constitutional right to be taken from us, it makes it that much easier to take the next and the next...until we wake up one day wondering how we ended up living in a police state. I think it's far better that we do our sobbing now than then.
Pssst! Can somebody please try to get the Pravda link to Drudge? It needs wide linkage to be successful -- so at least a few Americans will join me in standing up for our Constitutional rights at the airport...and beyond.
Geez, you wear a NAMBLA shirt to an indoor water park and next thing everyone's taking your picture...
--just kidding --
Eric at December 24, 2011 2:10 PM
Eric, you're a man with children going to a park. You don't need a nambla shirt for society to think ill of you.
Sio at December 24, 2011 2:16 PM
Wow, Eric - this is awful. This is the creep that I see happening vis a vis the TSA being allowed to continue violating our rights at airports. A private business has the right to set up conditions for entry, but I believe it's only possible for them to do this now -- to even consider doing it -- because of the TSA.
Perhaps you're right, that it is only possible for a business to do something like this now because of the TSA. But, because you support the right of a private business to set up conditions for entry -- just as you support the right of a business to refuse service to blacks (or anyone else the business owner doesn't care for), as discussed in a previous post -- wouldn't you be in favor of something that facilitates the exercise of either of those rights?
Jim at December 24, 2011 3:10 PM
Stale Onion.
Crid at December 24, 2011 3:13 PM
Amy, it's not quite Drudge, but Brian Garst linked to you from Linkiest yesterday.
Cousin Dave at December 24, 2011 4:07 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/12/24/tsa-creep.html#comment-2873409">comment from Cousin DaveAmy, it's not quite Drudge, but Brian Garst linked to you from Linkiest yesterday.
Thanks, Cousin Dave.
Amy Alkon
at December 24, 2011 9:10 PM
Amy,
It's not a solution but Prof. Mark Perry has a post about using social networking to find flights on chartered planes that avoid the TSA groping. You'd still be checked on the no-fly list but otherwise it looks like a better experience.
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/12/markets-in-everything-cheap-seats-on.html
BlogDog at December 25, 2011 7:11 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/12/24/tsa-creep.html#comment-2874170">comment from BlogDogThanks, BlogDog, but I think the solution isn't avoiding the TSA but protesting it. Also, I haven't shopped anywhere but Salvation Army for a number of years. If I have to take a flight, it's going to be on El Cheapo Airlines, not El Charter.
Amy Alkon
at December 25, 2011 8:05 AM
Amy, I think you need both. BlogDog's point is that the more people who find alternate means of transportation, the fewer customers the airlines have. And if the airlines eventually get the message that the TSA is costing them business, then maybe they will be motivated to use some of their influence.
(Of course, these days, probably their first effort will be to try to get subsidies to make up for the lost business that the TSA causes. I hope that ship will have sailed by then.)
(And I can't believe I'm saying this, considering the industry I work in. A drop in airline traffic will directly impact my employer and a lot of my friends and co-workers. But, like the airlines, the aerospace industry is going to have to confront this issue eventually. It's a very dicey issue for a lot of people in the industry -- they (including me) don't want to take a public stance because the TSA might be able to threaten their security clearances.)
Cousin Dave at December 25, 2011 10:09 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/12/24/tsa-creep.html#comment-2874297">comment from Cousin DaveAnd if the airlines eventually get the message that the TSA is costing them business, then maybe they will be motivated to use some of their influence
I'm guessing that airlines have noticed the drop in business and tried unsuccessfully to do something about it.
Amy Alkon
at December 25, 2011 10:20 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/12/24/tsa-creep.html#comment-2874300">comment from Amy AlkonThis is a huge thing for the government to do and it will not be rolled back easily. Bureaucracy protects itself. (Not sure if that got cut out of my TSA op-ed. There were a lot of versions -- at the point when I thought it was being rejected because it was, maybe, shitty writing in some way.)
Amy Alkon
at December 25, 2011 10:21 AM
Allow me to make the situation more clear for everyone. You now live in a war zone. America has been targeted for termination. Your way of life, your beliefs, your hopes and dreams for a future filled with happiness and prosperity is coming to an abrupt end, UNLESS you decide to defend yourselves against the enemy within.
The TSA assault on freedom of travel in America is part of a larger agenda. The TSA is designed to disrupt movement, inhibit commerce and further cause Americans to lose faith in their country, its leaders and its VISION. The TSA is a military operation, just one of many enemy "troop" divisions that are now rolling across the USA.
You exist in a war zone where every day is spent navigating a minefield of booby traps. The enemy desires to maim and kill the population, to plunder your wealth and diminish your integrity and self esteem. This is a war by stealth; look around; there may not be tanks, and missiles and troops on the ground (yet), though in every sense of the word, a war is being waged by the US government against the population.
Each must find their own way and decide what is the best course to follow. For patriots and REAL men, there is but one course; WE will die in the HONORABLE fight to protect our families, our freedoms and our way of life. Stay tuned...
September Clues at December 25, 2011 1:26 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/12/24/tsa-creep.html#comment-2874632">comment from September CluesSeptember...please keep commenting hear. People need to hear more about this.
Amy Alkon
at December 25, 2011 1:52 PM
September...please keep commenting hear.
Hear hear.
Steve Daniels at December 25, 2011 9:52 PM
From the link on "September Clues":
"The News Media had a central role in pulling off the 9/11 psy-op. The operation involved airing on television a substitute, computer-generated version of reality. It has temporarily succeeded to sell to the world the preposterous tale of 19 young terrorists using hijacked airliners to attack the USA."
What an idiot. The last thing I need to see is another 9-11 "truther", who cannot even describe how aircraft work, buildings are made or even basic physics.
Amy, given the "hear" confusion, I suspect we've been spoofed.
Radwaste at December 26, 2011 12:25 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/12/24/tsa-creep.html#comment-2877016">comment from RadwasteThanks, Rad, but the truth is, I'm just exhausted, and when I'm tired, I sometimes write "due" for "do," etc. It was me. The little cartoony thing by my name is me commenting from within my software. It leaves that little mark when I do.
I don't agree with 9-11 conspiracy theories, but I'm all for people telling the rest of us to wake up. Today, I've spent a good part of the day cutting words in my TSA/civil liberties op-ed to send it out to people who run my column (they need it a little shorter -- got it to just under 1,000 words, and improved, now that I'm not desperate to make CNN, etc., like me).
Amy Alkon
at December 26, 2011 1:55 PM
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