BoingBoing rounds up the latest abuses of the TSA:
Cue up the Yakity Sax! In case you missed it, there have been a number of Boing Boing posts of late documenting outrageous TSA incidents:
• A terminal in Newark airport was evacuated because the TSA forgot to screen a tiny baby.
• TSA agents discovered an "anomaly in the crotchital area" of a 79-year-old woman.
• TSA agents at JFK harassed the family of a 7-year-old girl with cerebral palsy and developmental disability.
• TSA screeners in LA ran a drug ring and took bribes from drug dealers.
• The TSA's anti-hugging squad caught a terrorist masquerading as a 4-year-old girl who loves her grandma.
• A 95-year-old US Air Force veteran from World War II and his 85-year-old friend were humiliated, searched and robbed at a San Diego TSA checkpoint.
In the last seven times I have flown, I have had no bad experiences with TSA, and encountered several genuinely helpful people. One TSA agent personally took my suitcase (which turned out to be 3 inches too wide to fit the X-ray) back to the counter and got it registered and put on my plane, after observing that I was running late for my plane (my fault for getting distracted at the book store).
I have never seen anyone having trouble with TSA in the past few years. In the immediate time after 9-11, things were awful, but this is probably to be expected. However I keep hearing these reports and wondering exactly how much of a problem this is. I understand the plural of my anecdotes are not "data", but neither is this selective gathering of the most egregious, headline grabbing transgressions of a massive government agency.
Now I completely agree that the majority of the newer security measures are wasteful, time-consuming, invasive and almost certainly ineffective. If I were Dictator for a Day, I would roll back the vast majority, cut and retool the TSA down to a more sensible yet effective system in whatever ways possible. But this situation seems the classic security dilemma in action: no matter what consequences politicians and bureaucrats face in setting security measures: all the bad press, complaints, ethics violations and examples of small-scale tyranny that these security measures cause, the incentive will ALWAYS be stronger to never roll these measures back. One genuinely hostile terrorist or even backwater malcontent who makes it past security with a weapon, harmful object, or simply an oversize quilting needle? That is enough to instantly end or ruin the career of a TSA official, airport official, or associated politician. "WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE?" will be the public outcry, with huge media coverage and resulting outrage. "WHO cut corners or judged that the latest million-dollar-machine wasn't cost effective? These are our children's lives you risked, and our national security!"
Now I completely agree that the majority of the newer security measures are wasteful, time-consuming, invasive and almost certainly ineffective. If I were Dictator for a Day, I would roll back the vast majority, cut and retool the TSA down to a more sensible yet effective system in whatever ways possible. But this situation seems the classic security dilemma in action: no matter what consequences politicians and bureaucrats face in setting security measures: all the bad press, complaints, ethics violations and examples of small-scale tyranny that these security measures cause, the incentive will ALWAYS be stronger to never roll these measures back. One genuinely hostile terrorist or even backwater malcontent who makes it past security with a weapon, harmful object, or simply an oversize quilting needle? That is enough to instantly end or ruin the career of a TSA official, airport official, or associated politician. "WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE?" will be the public outcry, with huge media coverage and resulting outrage. "WHO cut corners or judged that the latest million-dollar-machine wasn't cost effective? These are our children's lives you risked, and our national security!"
Stupid, short-sighted and irrational as this is, we live in America; a country so self-traumatized by fear and injury that it has invaded numerous countries in the past decade, sent assassins mechanical and human into others to wreck vengeance and preemptively kill those who have any intentions to hurt us, no matter how ineffective those enemies may be. Where is the public outcry over the drones in Yemen? Where are the Senators and Congress-members standing up and actually pressing the Administration and bloated security apparatus? As far as I can tell our Senate and House have essentially forfeited their Constitutional duty to decide when this country should go to war, and they have done it out of fear and cowardice that they may be blamed as being "soft" on our enemies. That *Obama*, a president who has authorize unprecedented measures of covert and unconstrained attacks against (the admittedly non-traditional, guerrilla style) enemies of the US is STILL attacked by the Republican Party should give us pause at how little our public officials are pressured otherwise. It took Nixon to go to China, but I doubt even Ron Paul could muster the political capital and support in Congress to roll back this idiocy.
I know that few will care or listen to my comment, but I don't really find any of this outrage very important or useful. I completely understand the various motivations BoingBoing has to prioritize this subject, but aren't we missing a chance to discuss the underlining problems that cause this clusterf#$% of security and invasive government? These "shock-and-outrage" articles may be effective to marshal public attention, but this seems like just fighting a single symptom of a much larger problem: our Constitutional limits are so outdated that instead of guaranteeing our rights, the public as a whole implicitly allows them to be ignored rather than modified in a rational manner. How long has it been since the 4th Amendment was seriously upheld? How long since "due process" has been a serious consideration in the trials of suspected terrorists, or drug offenders, or protesters, or anyone without a few thousand dollars of discretionary money to hire a competent lawyer? How long since there was any serious push to cut the largest defense budget in all of history?
Perhaps this "shock and outrage the privileged and tech-savy" strategy is more politically effective; I am certainly not equipped to know either way. But I believe it is inherently dishonest, short-sighted, myopic and downright dogmatic. I like BoingBoing, and respect its writers and authors. But this ideological attitude does a disservice to their integrity.
No comments:
Post a Comment