How did our country get to this point?
Oct. 2nd, 2011 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasJust got through security at Tampa airport. Opted for a patdown instead of the backscatter. Am still shaking from anger. Didn't show any upset to the agents; not their fault, and didn't want to be arrested for causing a problem. But how the HELL did out country get to the point that we are willing to be treated as probable-cause criminals for traveling? It's unAmerican. It's against everything a free country is supposed to be. And I have no choice! If I'm to visit Lis's family, I have to accept this infringement of my right to not undergo a search.
I have to accept that free movement around my country is now probable cause for criminal activity. How the hell is this acceptable?
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-02 02:50 pm (UTC)I'll be going through it next weekend.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-02 03:52 pm (UTC)I have to wonder if this, combined with the increasing cost of air travel, will keep more people from traveling via air.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-02 05:45 pm (UTC)Personally, though, I think its fear. We haven't really been attacked on our own soil since Pearl Harbor and then 9/11 happened. No one knows how to handle it and the policticans had to be seen doing something or risk being voted out of office.
In other words, we're acting like children.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-02 07:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-02 07:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-02 07:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-03 12:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-05 12:57 am (UTC)Didn't Washington State get bombed a bit during World War II, after Pearl Harbor?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-03 05:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-02 06:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-02 06:52 pm (UTC)Security Theatre
Date: 2011-10-02 09:06 pm (UTC)Think I told you about my recent flight from Tampa to Burbank and the return? Exact same trip in each direction, totally different interpretations of the security "regulations". Everything identical - same baggage, etc. Nothing different. My bags were such that they SHOULD have been checked - checking such non-traditional luggage as a cash register, show booth, etc. I was expecting to be checked. Tampa didn't disappoint and went thru everything thoroughly. Burbank? Could care less -- NOTHING was checked! So, if I'm a potential terrorist flying from Tampa to Burbank, shouldn't I also be a potential terrorist flying from Burbank to Tampa? Nope. Security Theatre. IF I were a terrorist (and I'm not) wouldn't it make more sense to fly out of small airports (cf. September 11) than big ones? Yet, we hassle folks in big airports and leave them alone in small ones. Make sense to you? Doesn't to me.
One reason why I drive everywhere when possible instead of flying. No safer, no less safe, just less inconvenienced. Sorry about your treatment in Tampa. Are you sure you aren't a closet terrorist?
Re: Security Theatre
Date: 2011-10-02 10:46 pm (UTC)Not yet, anyway.
Re: Security Theatre
Date: 2011-10-03 02:55 am (UTC)More on the Tampa / Burbank situation and what appears to be a hole in the law big enough to drive a terrorist bus thru.
As we all know, the Fourth Amendment (theoretically) prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, which was then reinterpreted over and over again to allow one exception to another.
Check out the Border Search Exception:
Searches conducted at the United States border or the equivalent of the border (such as an international airport) may be conducted without a warrant or probable cause subject to the "border-search" exception.
Most border searches may be conducted entirely at random, without any level of suspicion, pursuant to U.S. Customs and Border Protection plenary search authority. However, searches that intrude upon a traveler's personal dignity and privacy interests, such as strip and body cavity searches, must be supported by "reasonable suspicion.
Yup, Tampa is an "International Airport" so they can do what they want. Burbank (and Manchester NH, et al) are not "international airports", so theoretically all searches there must be supported by "reasonable suspicion".
Makes you wonder about the legality of it all. So, if I were really a terrorist would I even bother with Tampa? or select a softer target (like Burbank or Manchester). As I said earlier, it's all Theatre, and not particularly well thought out theatre, either.
Re: Security Theatre
Date: 2011-10-03 11:03 pm (UTC)"According to the government, (the 'border') is a 100-mile wide strip that wraps around the 'external boundary' of the United States. As a result of this claimed authority, individuals who are far away from the border, American citizens traveling from one place in America to another, are being stopped and harassed in ways that our Constitution does not permit. Border Patrol has been setting up checkpoints inland — on highways in states such as California, Texas and Arizona, and at ferry terminals in Washington State. Typically, the agents ask drivers and passengers about their citizenship." -- http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/fact-sheet-us-constitution-free-zone
The ACLU also provides a nifty map of the "Constitution-Free Zone." It includes nearly 2/3 of the population of the U.S., including all of Massachusetts.
Re: Security Theatre
Date: 2011-10-04 02:58 am (UTC)Driving on US Interstate 10 in New Mexico (eg US highway within the Continental United States) ALL traffic in both directions is routed off I-10 and into a Border Patrol checkpoint. "Documents Please" and where are you coming from and where are you going?
We have been turned into a country where you are presumed guilty until proven innocent. It only took 10 years to turn this country into the Bizarro United States.
Re: Security Theatre
Date: 2011-10-03 05:38 am (UTC)Car travel is considerably less safe than air travel. By avoiding airports, you reduce the risk of arbitrary detention and police brutality by TSA officials, but you increase the risk of dying in a car crash. Depending on the travelers' appearance, and where they are traveling, somebody choosing to drive may also face local risks of arbitrary detention and police brutality...it can be a difficult choice in some places, but I suspect that's a different problem than the "inconvenience" you were thinking of.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-02 10:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-02 10:38 pm (UTC)Interestingly, the Constitution does not list a right to travel. That was mentioned in the Articles of Confederation but may have simply been considered too basic to even list in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-03 12:10 am (UTC)(Would a Member of Congress on the way to the Capitol be able to bypass a TSA pat-down by citing Article I, Section 6?)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-03 01:21 am (UTC)Privileged Characters
Date: 2011-10-03 02:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-03 12:53 am (UTC)It happened in the wake of the 9-11 attacks, when our congressional representatives turned cowardly, too fearful either of other attacks or for their own positions should another attack occur, to stand up for the constitution they were sworn to defend. And the president encouraged and went along with the destruction of our constitutional rights for what reasons others may speculated. And the citizenzry failed to act, whether because we, too, were too fearful, because we felt powerless, or perhaps because we were too dazed and grief-striken.
The time to rise up and reject the so-called Patriot Act was when it first was enacted. Yet in nearly every area of my life at that time, mine was the only voice raised in protest. For which I was called any number of things, unpatriotic being the kindest. This may be why I've been subjected to such searches every time I've flown since 9-11.
I keep hoping that we, as a nation, eventually will wake up, realize what we've done to ourselves, and demand that our representatives reverse the damage or lose their positions. I keep hoping, but I don't see any real movement in that direction from enough people to make a difference.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-04 04:32 am (UTC)It's not just the body scanners, it's the whole "Papers please", search-and-seizure, guarding-the-barn-door-after-the-horse-got-out mentality. The whole conflation of "security" with "freedom" confounds me. *grits teeth*
The only apparent suggestion for fighting the TSA is to write one's congresspersons, but I feel like I can't do it justice without a full-length opinion piece. My one civil-disobedience fantasy is to go in wearing a jacket with nothing underneath it (on top), and then when they inform me that I have to remove it to put on the conveyor belt, nonchalantly comply.
Short of that, I really like this metallic-ink t-shirt of the 4th amendment.
See also:
http://www.thetsachoice.com/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/11/17/921313/-Why-We-Must-Fight-the-TSA-Updated
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/11/-are-any-parts-of-your-body-sore-asks-the-man-from-tsa/65482/
http://fedupflyers.org/