Your question and comment are based on a false premise - two falses premises. First, risk didn't begin on 9/11/2001. Second, I doubt anyone here thinks we live in a "safe world"; everyone here recognizes the risks. Life has all sorts of risks. The question is, how do we most appropriately respond to and attempt to mitigate those risks while maintaining those freedoms upon which this country was founded?


False dichotomy. The choice isn't "security systems or no security systems". The choice is, "effective and intelligent security systems or security theater".


As a sensible citizen, I appreciate any public servant who performs his/her job competently and professionally. As a sensible citizen who IS a public servant, I take exception to the idea that doing a routine job competently and professionally should be so exceptional that it's especially praiseworthy. I expect public servants (my staff and myself included) do to their routine tasks competently and professionally at all times. They are exceptionally praiseworthy if/when they go above and beyond the routine.


And how do you reach this conclusion, please? I suppose this is a fundamental difference in values. It seems to me that that secret rules, secret black lists, star-chamber proceedings, the "terrorist behind every bush" mentality, a "papers, please" society - in short, egregious restrictions to the very foundations of a free nation . . . . . it seems to me those things are more dangerous to my fellow citizens, to my children and grandchildren, than are a thousand terrorists with bombs.


~~ Irish

First, the world in which we live has never been safe, it is just that the dangers are constantly changing.

Reality is that a strong society is built upon people that have an ability to exist, and work and protect themselves and those around them without dependence on government to intervene except in the protection of their unalienable rights.

Airport security is a creation of imperfect humans and can always be improved. That is the goal many of us seek. We do not seek its elimination, we seek its improvement toward perfection.

Liberty is defined partially by the ability and allowance of the individual to take responsibility for the mitigation of ones own risk. Liberty is not safety. Liberty carries high risk.

Government imposed and enforced security can only be done in the absence or elimination of liberty through various levels of authoritarian control.

Yes, there are those of use that would accept that risk that true liberty entails. We understand that there are others that would rather surrender to government control. It is a great part of this ongoing discussion.

Love_Travel must be Ron's relative. Or slept thru the same English and Social Studies classes.

^^^^^^ times a bazillion.
Indeed, what really threatens us more? A terrorist attack, of which there have been none successful in over 10 years, or the increasing activities tending toward a police state: the government now able to read all your email and listen to phone conversations, monitor all your internet postings, look at your medical records, all without warrant. Now from the recently passed NDAA act, the government is able to detain you forever upon mere suspicion, without any legal recourse whatsoever-- habeus corpus, without which NONE of the Bill of Rights will get enforced, has been smashed with a hammer.

Moreover, is an underwear bomber nearly the same threat to us as two trillions of dollars printed every year to cover shortfalls in government revenue, thus posing a grave and immediate threat to continued value of our currency--what happens when nobody accepts that currency? (everything grinds to a halt immediately, 350 millions lives imperiled immediately and all at once).

The DHS, with its hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on the police state every year, is directly involved in creating the very real threats above, while protecting us, badly and with offensive means, from a very small threat.

Love_Travel, the tiny amount of apparent safety on an aircraft has been purchased at too dear a cost. Other nations perform adequate security without performing the TSA's degrading gropes on their passengers or strip searching the elderly.

When that job is one as reprehensible as looking at your naked body under your clothes with an x-ray scanner that may not be safe, feeling up children, and forcibly undressing elderly women, then yes, I would criticize TSA no matter how polite and professional they act when performing these duties.

Thanks for writing about this.

Your experience certainly matches my experiences in never seeing anything untoward along the likes of the hyperbole on these boards.

We're all so happy for you. You might consider that everyone may not have your experiences.

You also have not been murdered, though the news tells me it happens. I am thus inclined to discount your small (1 person) record. As the saying goes, YMMV.

I agree that the vast majority, probably 90%-95%, perform their jobs as trained to do.

I disagree with what it is they are trained to do.

Also the 5%-10% that are poorly trained or have no ability to be trained reflect poorly on those that are properly trained. It is the outliers that are remembered. This includes the outstanding and the incompetent.

Or is under 25 and went through the government school system. These kids are being brainwashed to obey authority at all costs.

And to make the same spelling and grammatical errors? Then at least they are learning something, as incorrect as that knowledge may be.

Or how about the victims of the largest mass murder of Canadian citizens in history, which was also the greatest loss of life in an airline attack before 9/11?

I strongly suspect Love_Travel that you don't know what that was and like many of the AFS crowd never gave it a second thought.

Exactly. It boggles the mind how any of the anything-for-security folks could have ever stepped foot in an airport after the spate of bombings in the mid-to-late-'80s, when checkpoints were not secured with body scanners nor frisks.

It also boggles the mind how they did not start demanding that all personal vehicles be inspected after the two bombings in the early '90s (WTC and Oklahoma City).

Way too many Americans do not understand that terrorism (on US soil and abroad) did not start the morning of September 11, 2001.

well... small (2 person) record because there is the OP as well

It is always such a pleasant start to the day to read that some of my past TSA experiences, which I have commented upon here at FT, are "hyperbole."

I'm glad your TSA experiences are generally wonderful. But please don't discount the rest of us who have not been as lucky. It's not appropriate, it's disrespectful and it's simply not true - not everything posted to the negative is a hyperbole. Not even close.

Hear hear.

But I hesitate to concur with the idea that a TSA experience could possibly be wonderful. One may believe it was, but I liken it to the taking of an unnecessary medicine. Changing one's natural physiology may indeed seem wonderful, I guess.

It may even feel wonderful to be conditioned for obedience. Part of the team!