Ron Paul Responds to TSA: Introduces 'American Traveler Dignity Act'

People generally don't like giving up the illusion of control, which is why we're more likely to die from a car wreck than getting murdered while not giving a **** about the former.

So this "show" isn't surprising because rather than treating determined fanatics as an act of nature, we've already turned on ourselves and willingly given up our civil liberties away for that blanket of control and security.

Given the lack of exposure or attention for this, it isn't even a partisan issue, which means that we're all still bat**** scared and can rationalize it for whatever reasons.

 

The Israelis have used racial profiling for nearly 40 years with no incidents in Israeli air traffic. Why can't we do the same, oh because we still believe the fairy tale that the majority of musli.....you know what, never mind.

 

Been listening to the Sam Malone show much?

 

i think partisanship has alot to do w/ it, actually.

we have so-called liberals and democrats arguing in favor of these invasive and demeaning procedures while many conservatives and republicans, who loved the police state when bush was president, speak out against it. if bush was president i guarantee the uproar over this stuff would be much, much greater from the left.

even israeli security experts are saying we are going overboard w/ all this.

 

If only you knew what you were talking about.

 

Racial profiling IS used by the US, it's just not spoken about in public. THat's why there hasn't been any other incidents, except for the underwear guy that slipped through the cracks.

 

Yes, there's the usual civil liberties uproar from the non-ruling party, but apparently the ruling party's justification of "security" is the more popular opinion given that we're trending more and more into that direction without much of a fight.

 

Literally.

 

You have no clue. The reason why they don't have any incidents is because Israel takes a scan of all your luggage and makes you account for everything that appears in the x-ray by physically going through every piece. They also make you pull every metal item out of your carry-on. All cables, headphones, coins. Everything. Once you go through the metal machine which will go off because of the metal buttons on your jeans, they will then wand you and give a nice TSA style pat down. The process takes about 1-2 hours in an uncrowded airport.

I think checkpoints can handle about 10 people per hour at most. Can you imagine the chaos at an airport like DFW or George Bush.

 

I presume Major supports this incident as it did not directly affect him. After all, why didn't the guy just go through the scanner?

Another:

Oh, and please shut the **** up, Obama.

Obama: TSA pat-downs frustrating but necessary

 

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Here's one for you: because I don't ****ing like being racially profiled you piece of ****.

Imagine someone like that woman in pakistan who was sentenced to death for blasphemous speech being racially profiled as a musli.....you know what, never mind.

 

those poor people - aside from it being totally humiliating and degrading, there is also the fact that you have some high school drop-out, glorified mall cop handling medical equipment which they know nothing about.

i dont think that its a coincidence that they only rolled this out now that there are hardly any WWII vets left - both of my grandpas served and i know neither of them would have tolerated this. those TSA perverts would have been eating 85 year old knuckle sandwiches if they tried to grope them or my grandmas. our generation is now so terrorized and cowardly that although we know this stuff is wrong and pointless, we accept it.

 

Its all complain until something happen.

 

¿que?

 

Light bulbs, cellphones, antennas, radios, metal detectors, etc. Anything else to contribute?

 

A great point and a good post overall but I wanted to single this part out. As I said earlier the guys working the airport don't make policy and I can't say for sure there aren't pervs among them but it is petty presume all of them are and to take out your ire on them.

 

If you are tying unreasonableness to effectiveness though would you say that a procedure that is just as invasive yet proven effective would be reasonable?

It sounds like though that you are making an a base assumption of air travel as a right but I think you have to look at the nature of the activity of air travel. It is is something that only exists largely because the government has created and runs the infrastructure necessary to make it happen and while it is getting more and more common it is still isn't something that is absolutely needed. It is different than the protection of specifically enumerated rights. Obviously Locke was writing at a time when air travel didn't exist but I'm sure that even he would recognize the government's right to wide leeway in regulating an activity that is largely created by the government and participated in on a voluntary basis.

I agree that the courts will probably be a poor recourse to decide this because I think the courts will uphold it. Again considering the Stitz and Prouse rulings the USSC has allowed discretionless searches, which these scans and pat downs are, even ones that require someone to engage in what could be considered an invasive, breathalyzer / blood tests, and degrading, drunk test, activities. At that point IMO it would be better to push for this as a policy and/or legal change. Although that might be tough too given that polls seem to support the idea.

 

And again that sounds very petty as no average TSA employee creates that policy. You should direct your ire to the Admin.. Anyway they are not prejudging you as they aren't taking you into custody and can refuse the search by simply not flying. In regards to being forced into a search like this without probable cause as noted in my post above the USSC has upheld these type of discretionless searches.

Have you considered though that maybe it is you that is causing them to be dicks? I mean if you go in with the presumption that they are dicks then you will find that becomes self-fulfilling.

As I said before "unreasonable" is a subjective term.

Actually other than the generalizations about TSA employees, and Constitutional arguments, I agree with most of what you have stated and don't like the policy. The reason why I am focusing on the Constitutional grounds is that yourself and other critics of the policy have brought that up repeatedly. Now while you might find that odd last I checked this forum is called "Debate and Discussion" and as someone who has an interest in the Constitution why should it be odd that I would debate an issue that is both interesting and very relevant.

 

I think the focus on the TSA screeners misses the point that they're assigned to an impossible task forced upon by the government and implicitly backed by our more vocal concerns of security and our passive acceptance.

We're tasking them to prevent the improbable. With our heroic powers of insight and twittering, they're the first to be blamed if some lunatic attempts a tragedy with common household appliances. "If they only did their jobs, we wouldn't have to deal with this!"

I think flyers have to accept a degree of risk in flying. They already have whether they realize it are not, but real acceptance means addressing the issue of liability. The exceptions and loopholes for frequent and elite flyers, airport workers, and pilots means that we're screening against uncoordinated, crazy, and stupid terrorists. I mean, if the government doesn't know suspected terrorists are getting on board planes, then how is it justifying spending tens of billions on shadow information gathering agencies which spies on us through every conceivable form of electronic communication?

So we get fondled and scanned because our information gathering isn't strong enough.

Then the American people get spied upon through warrantless taps and internet monitoring because our airports aren't safe...another 9/11.

Shouldn't the extreme negate justification for the extreme of the other? This is continuing the pattern where we reward the government for its ineptitude and incompetence with the powers they already have but fail to enforce or follow through.

And with more government cutbacks, the TSA will not have the friendliest of public faces. Which might be better off for the government because it redirects anger away from the civil liberties being taken away from us.

 

No, although that is a fair point. I suppose I would have to retract that argument as a standalone position. Fundamentally there are two parts to the unreasonable argument in my opinion.

1) Not effective.
2) Excessively invasive.

I appreciate you agreeing regarding the courts. Frankly, the constitutionality argument (i.e., that the courts have to decide what is/isn't) being played out in this thread is just as subjective as the term "unreasonable" in the constitution to begin with. Ergo, it's fairly unproductive.

What is not subjective is the level of degradation and abuse this policy encourages and the fact that it is still not effective.