The whole issue of the full body scanners is a complex one. No one doubts we want to be safe in the air, but at what cost? You would be arrested if you showed up to the airport naked, yet it is deemed just fine for TSA employees to see you that way. We have been conditioned that when one is going to fly we will have to have some kind of security check, yet if you decide, at the point of the "grope search" that you’d rather not fly if it means you’re person is going to be handled, there is now the chance of a $11,000 fine for refusing.
That’s right, if you turn down the scanner then decide that you would rather take other transport, the TSA can fine you for refusing. I think this puts the TSA on really shaky legal ground. The search itself is predicated on you giving up some of your rights because of an action you wish to take that is regulated by the Federal Government. If you decide that you don’t want to take that action, they are still insisting they can search you or fine you.
"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"
Now, so far, there have been no fines for this. The authority that allows them to do this has only been in place since August 20th so it is really early days. Still it is hard for me to see how it would ever hold up in court. There is no contract entered into when you get in line for screening, at least not between you and the TSA. You have a contract with the airline that says you can’t fly if you aren’t screened but the TSA is a Federal agency, not a commercial carrier and the rules for the government are different than the rules for a private company.
The 4th Amendment is supposed to prevent the unreasonable search and seizure by government authorities. It has been bent out of shape over the last few decades as things like stopping and frisking people for weapons in dangerous neighborhoods has been allowed, even if there is no active reason to suspect that someone is armed.
It might be this which has led the TSA and Department of Homeland Security to think they can do whatever they like in the name of security. However an airport is not a dangerous place. It is not a bad neighborhood with a history of drug and gun crime. There have been some 150 million flights world wide since 9/11 and there have been three attempts that we know of to bring down flights. Even if we push it and say there were ten times those which we did not know about, it is only one attempt per 5 million flights.
The argument that we are being kept safe from 9/11 attacks is spurious at best. In the past we were all told that if there was a hijacking, sit tight, don’t make trouble and wait for your government to come to the rescue. Since 9/11 that is no longer true. If anyone tries to take an airliner they will be attacked on all sides by everyone as it is clear to sit tight is no guarantee of safety. So we don’t need the scanners for that.
Weapons like the bomb the Underwear Bomber wore are harder to detect but they are also not very effective. In both cases where a non-metallic bomb was smuggled aboard an airliner, they failed to detonate. Richard Reed could not get his lit before he was stopped and the same was true for the Underwear Bomber. While these failures won’t stop terrorist from trying, is it really worth the invasion of privacy we are experiencing in the name of safety?
The bigger deal to me is the trading of liberty for security. It is one thing to give up some liberty to a company which you have a passing relationship with, but it is quite another to passively give it up to the government which you have a life long relationship. It is not that I think the government is nefarious, it is that there is such a disparity in power that any time you are giving away rights it has to be viewed with the most skeptical of eyes.
Where does it end? Let’s not kid ourselves, this latest reaction is not the end. Terrorists will keep trying to find new ways to attack air traffic. It is too important to commerce and it is really expensive to guard against new low cost attacks. They don’t even have to succeed, they just have to make us react. So, will we be flying naked? Will we be forced to remove all of our clothes and put on paper garments when we want to visit Grandma in Wisconsin?
There has to be a balance. There is a lot of talk about how the Israeli’s have done a great job with their planes and flights, but that is not a path we can go down. El Al has 80 planes total. They have a single large air port. . It is not a minor difference we are talking about here. El Al flies 40 flights a day, compared to the 8,700 flown in the US.
The individual interviewing which is at the core of their security is not something we can practically do at the major and minor air ports that dot the nation. Further, they are not shy about racial profiling, which is something we should not and can not stand for here.
We have to find a way to balance the privacy rights of citizens with the security concerns of that our world gives us. As always it is far better if we get to the would be terrorists before they get to the air port. The money we spend on high tech gadgets really would be better spent on intelligence gathering.
There is a final point I’d like to make about all of this. All of the most recent attempts to bring down planes have originated overseas. We have not had a domestic attempt in nine years. If our systems prior to the porno scanners were good enough to help with this, why is it that we need to gear up now, and in the US? By assuming that anyone could be a bomber in the United States does not seem to be supported by the evidence. I am not arguing for a return to the way things were before 9/11, obviously we were too lax but why are we treating our people like potential criminals? In this nation our bias says you have to wait until someone has committed or been accused of committing a crime before you can deprive them of rights. Is wanting to take a flight to Michigan now a crime?
The floor is yours.