That you have the choice between being free of intrusive, humiliating, and unwarranted search of your person, or the being free to travel without undo restriction? Yes, that point is very clear.
Stranger
I really don’t know which pisses me off more. That a government would do this (the pat down) to it’s citizens or that the citizens haven’t taken up arms against the TSA (figuratively speaking). It’s too damn bad this wasn’t done by the Crown when passengers boarded ships for the colonies, because if it had been, I’ll bet the Bill of Rights would have been 11 amendments long.
We already have the necessary amendment. It’s being ignored.
Or thousands of travelers are opting to waive that right each day, whichever way you’d like to look at it.
Here’s an interesting story about a man who successfully faced down authorities and avoided both a scan and a pat down. I think the author’s conclusion that the man proved that the policies are unconstitutional is a bit of a stretch, only a court can do that, but it’s still an interesting story that shows what one determined citizen can accomplish.
Man Proves TSA Policies Are Unconstitutional
http://current.com/news/92816971_man-proves-tsa-policies-are-unconstitutional.htm
I think having your travel restricted if you’re not willing to waive those rights would constitute coercion.
If the government is able to restrict your freedoms when you refuse to waive your rights the you don’t really have those rights do you?
“Waving that right” under duress of significant time, cost, or livelihood is not a freely engaged choice, any more that accepting a sexual proposition from your boss upon threat of demotion or firing is a free choice. Your continued insistence at ignoring this basic point, which has been expressed in several different ways, borders on complete intellectual dishonesty.
Stranger
When they waive their right away, they also waive mine. I did not give them the right to decide for me. If enough people quietly go along, the authorities can come down hard on the few who actually care about their constitutional rights to protection from search and seizure.
I want to retain my right to not be harassed by authority types, if I am legally minding my own business. Is that asking too much? Is this still America?
[QUOTE=davidm]
I think having your travel restricted if you’re not willing to waive those rights would constitute coercion.
[/QUOTE]
That’s how you see it. I don’t see it as reaching to the level of coercion, and I don’t see it as a barrier to entry in participating in commercial air travel anymore than you could say that airlines restrict some people’s freedom to travel because their ticket prices may be too high.
There is no duress here. There is a choice to fly, or not to fly. Adapting your lifestyle to accommodate that choice may require effort, but for the vast majority of travelers, there seems to be little to no duress involved. Your analogy is flawed in that the choice imposed on the employee by the boss is illegal; thus far, the actions of the TSA have not been ruled to be either unconstitutional or illegal.
:rolleyes: These policies are published, posted, and at this point, well publicized. No one who hasn’t been living under a rock is unaware of the procedure one must now submit to should they wish to travel by air on a commercial airline. People are still flying. Opt Out Day was a resounding failure, it seems.
I can tell when I feel as though my rights are being infringed upon. It hasn’t happened yet. When it does, that’s when I’ll speak up. I’d expect anyone who cares about their rights to do the same – it just seems as though our opinions are drawn at different points along the spectrum.
Yep, you don’t care about having a rent a cop search your body and take naked pictures of you. If you don’t feel that is stepping over the line, what’s left? I have nothing to hide, therefore cops can come in my house any time they want. Just look away.
What a bag of unmitigated horshshit you have there. You can either choose to waive your Fourth amendment rights and be permitted to fly, or stand upon your rights and be highly restricted on how and where you may travel. That is the very definition on coercion.
Are you really this dense, or do you just lack basic reading comprehension skills? In even the link provided by the o.p., Pistole himself explains that the procedures aren’t available to the public or explained prior to conducting a search. This is in contravention to every other law enforcement agency policy in which the suspect is informed of the type of search to be conducted and the policy itself published material available to the public and in conformance with statute and caselaw. The TSA policy in no way conforms to norms of legitimate search procedures by any reasonable standard. A municipal peace officer would-be suspended and placed up for review on conducting a search in this manner without specific cause and following published procedure.
Stranger
As I said earlier, fine. There’s a choice. If you’re so afraid of bombs then exercise that choice and don’t fly. Don’t force your fears on the rest of us.
If you’re so concerned about flying that you require that your fellow passengers be essentially strip-searched before they get on a plane with you then you are never going to feel safe anywhere.
Are you also going to require that before you allow us to stand next to you at the supermarket?
Are you going to live in constant fear and suspicion of every stranger you encounter? I don’t want to live like that. I’ll live with some risks (we already do) before I’ll succumb to that.
After the Oklahoma bombing and the first Trade Center bombings, which were done with a rent a truck, how come we didn’t have to get our nads squished if you wanted to rent a truck. Those were real terrorist acts, that actually occurred. It was not speculation about bombs that might happen. We should have had TSA at every rent a truck in America. Then we could be safe. TSA should be on every street corner squishing genitals in the name of freedom.
Not at all. Like all political speech, it’s rhetoric designed to have an effect. And it’s starting to have that effect.
If people want a change to be made, comparing it to molestation is exactly the way to go about it.
Why on earth *shouldn’t *people employ rhetoric in order to achieve their goals - which, in this case, is a change to the way things are currently being done?
You know what I don’t have a choice in? Paying the TSA’s salary and subsidizing the construction or airports and subsidizing the airline industry. Because I have to pay taxes whether I want to or not.
So people who think saying that I have a “choice” to fly is some sort of great argument can fuck right off. If the government is going to tax me to do something, I’m going to damn well complain if they are doing something I don’t like. I can give two shits about your stupid “choice” argument.
And it’s not necessarily just rhetoric.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/tsa-worker-accused-assault-jail-time-stalking-harassment/
I’m sure that the vast majority of TSA employees are decent people, many of whom are desperate for employment of any kind in this economy, but I have to wonder if the job doesn’t also attract certain types.
Which begs the question, what happens when a pre-op trans gendered M toF person goes through the line and the female agent feels something more than normal? Will s/he have to produce it for the pecker checker?
This is the thing that creams my corn.
These are not different times. They became different for US because it happened in our backyard – not just that, in two of our signature cities and to some of our signature landmarks. Everyone says things were different, but honest to goodness bombings were commonplace in other countries before this. Not just Israel, either: terrorists blew shit up all the damn time in London.
But it wasn’t New York City. It wasn’t Washington DC. It wasn’t a building you saw on sitcom opening credits or that you visited on your holidays, and so it didn’t scare the bejeezus out of you all those other times. Horrific violence happens in other countries every day and night. Genocide, torture, rape, mutilation, all varieties of horrific things happen in places you can’t even find on a fucking map, but when someone manages to break in HERE? It’s a fucking tragedy.
I was scared, too, when the towers fell. I curled up and trembled and wept. It changed the way I felt. But I understood that if we folded, if we withdrew into ourselves, if we gave up who we were – after all, didn’t they “hate our freedom”? – then their one stroke would have felled us, David to our Goliath.
I was upset when I could no longer take the shortcut from downtown to campus around the capitol because of bombing fears. I was upset about warrantless wire taps. I was upset when I couldn’t kiss my dad goodbye at the departure gate. I was upset when I had to take off my shoes – how damn stupid is that? I get a little OCD about my hands, so I was personally upset when I couldn’t take a full bottle of hand cream and hand sanitizer on with me in my carryon luggage. I am upset about these new measures, too.
I’ll write my Congressman. I’ll write my President. And if there was an airline that offered security-free flights – once through a metal detector, maybe, and that’s all she wrote – then I’d book every flight on it forever rather than piddling my pants in the terror that I might be the unluckiest son of a bitch in the world.
And if someone tried to hijack that plane, they’d get shanked. :mad:
The TSA isn’t a law enforcement agency; it’s disingenuous to compare their tactics to “other law enforcement agencies.” If you disagree that their search methods are widely known to the public at this point, you just haven’t been paying attention.
[QUOTE=davidm]
If you’re so concerned about flying that you require that your fellow passengers be essentially strip-searched before they get on a plane with you then you are never going to feel safe anywhere.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t require anything of anyone. That’s not my decision. Quite frankly, I have no problem with you just passing through a metal detector and having your guns and knives removed. That’s all I’d require.
I don’t live in constant fear. I just don’t find the current procedures to be invasive, or imposing upon my rights.
So what? They’re acting as cops.
Well most people do find them imposing, and as you say, you’re not afraid of just using a metal detector. So why needlessly upset a bunch of people?