another reason not to fly

As the country is readying for Thanksgiving plans, the government is getting ready to deal with the swarms of holiday travelers passing through airports. And as usual, it looks like it’s going to be a sub-par job.

Back in July, a local news station discovered that for almost 5 hours, the security checkpoints at Sky Harbor airport in Phoenix, Arizona were unmanned, except for one minimum wage earner who was often caught sleeping. At the end of September, fellow libertarian Citizen X waited at the Indianapolis airport for five hours because the TSA neglected to clean up after itself following a training session and closed down the airport when “bomb-like materials” were found (which, of course, turned out to belong to the TSA). There are accusations flying around that the TSA has tipped off airport security screeners about covert testing, to warn them so that they pass the tests. It doesn’t seem to help, though, because the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that 19 airports have failed to notice testers with bomb-making materials slipping through checkpoints.

I’m not a big fan of airplanes to begin with. Going to school in Chicago with my parents’ living in Cleveland has meant quarterly plane rides to visit. It is an hour, hour and fifteen minute flight at the most between the two cities, but it has not been uncommon to spend four to five hours on a single trip, which is almost the amount of time it takes for me to drive the distance. Further, any people who cross onto the property of Midway airport via car are subject to having their vehicle searched, just by being at the airport. It’s as though airports are a 4^th amendment-free zone. This is, of course, nothing surprising. There has been a steady decline into complacency. Travelers accept that they will be subjected to government intrusion, and feel that it is worth it, that they will be protected in case 9/11 happens to repeat itself. (I wonder how many fellow travelers share Mr. Tancredo’s sentiments.) Donald Kerr tells us that we need to forget about our old concepts of privacy, that “privacy can no longer mean anonymity.”

Back in 2001, my political science teacher told the class that we wouldn’t know whether or not the terrorists of 9/11 had succeeded for several years. It wouldn’t be until we lived in constant fear of it happening again, that we’d see their plan of terror had worked. I guess it’s worked.

[On ancient Athens]: In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again. – Edward Gibbon