That's the worst attitude possible. If you are a professional there is nothing that another person does which excuses your behavior. Unfortunately, the level of professionalism is rather low in the law enforcement and security arenas.

With regard to better security, the remedies have been mentioned here a number of times. Return security to pre-9/11 levels and drop the liquid ban.

9/11 can not happen again. Airliners are safer now than they were then because of reinforced cockpits doors and passengers who now realize that cooperation leads to zero survivors.

If a person can't handle citizens challenging their authority and competence, they should not be law enforcement officers.

Last time I checked, I have a First Amendment right to call any peace officer a "goon" or "storm trooper" or "fascist" to his or her face -- and there is nothing that an officer can legally do to retaliate. This challenge to their authority does not constitute probable cause for the officers to make an arrest or subject the person to further investigation or "put them in their place."

Doing so would be a violation of the law which peace officers are sworn to uphold. Unless, of course, a peace officer's principal loyalty is to his or her own ego.

copwriter,

The more I think about it, the more steamed become about your temptation to "put them in their place."

In this federal republic, the people are sovereign. (Read the 10th Amendment if you disagree.) To protect our interests, we delegate a portion of our rights to government. Government in turn sub-delegates a smaller portion of those rights to law enforcement officers.

By definition, the people are more powerful and, to apply your symbolism, "above" law enforcement personnel. To put me in my place, you would have to reverentially help me walk up a pedestal and then bow before me in humble gratitude for your job and authority.

You were a cop. That means you were my servant, not my master.

Well if a McDonald's employee spoke to me that way I would be upset. If my doctor, lawyer or accountant spoke to me that way I would be very upset. You just don't walk up to a person and speak to them that way.

If I went in for a check up and my doctor yelled at me to take off my shirt I would be ticked. If he barked orders to breath in or breath out as he checked my lungs he certainly not be considered professional.

In fairness in the last few months at the airport I frequent they have been polite and professional. It is a pleasant change.

Oh, come on. There is simply no excuse for the abuses of civil rights seen in the OP's post. For one thing, the "Do you want to fly today?" line taken by the security, LEOs, etc. involved (and yes, I know this isn't about air travel, but the sentiment is identical) is downright inexcusable in any sort of civilized society. Acceptable in North Korea, Iraq, Soviet Russia, etc., but not in the bastion of the free world.

Even if you're going to insist upon security measures which have no reasonable basis and which contribute nothing to real security (such as inspecting wallets, of all things, on the way to the Statue of Liberty), then you can at least do so civilly, without resorting to bullying a la "Do you want to fly today?"

The instruction of, "Play along, so you don't inconvenience others," is such a total cop-out (no pun intended to the EP). Yes, people should consider what impact their actions have upon others, but that does not excuse the inexcusable in terms of kabuki security or incivlity in security officers, either.

If there's something wrong--and there clearly is in the scenario laid out by the OP--then it needs to be addressed, not simply dismissed as, "Play along so others don't have to wait." If the cashier rings up my groceries incorrectly, am I supposed to argue and have them fixed, or just swallow the problem so that those in line behind me don't have to wait longer? @:-)

And, by the way, comparing the OP to a criminal for standing up against stupid "rules" and caveman-like behavior is more akin to the hyperbole the quoted thegingerman accuses of than the cited EP's statements.

What rights do you think were violated? I'm curious -- is it the nature of security at the Statue of Liberty to which object, or the abusive attitude of those designated to administer it? The latter, I think, is a very valid objection; the former, not.

I hope you never did. Because that's not your job. Unfortunately too many LEOs think it is their place. I often wonder if that is due to their own insecurities...

THIS is a beautiful statement.

Let us NEVER forget that the government is a fiction...a corporation! The created(government) can never be more powerful than the creator(you, me). Government is an idea made real, but ideas often change and so should the government in it's methods.

Nonsense, they could easily classify that as suspicious behavior that suggests further investigation. Walking up to a cop and calling him a fascist? Why would someone do that? If their attitude is going to be so disrespectful and callous, what else are they up to? Or are they even in the right state of mind?

Regardless of whether or not they should, they can certainly make an argument for it. After all, someone who calls me a fascist obviously has no respect for me, if they have no respect for me, they may very well have no respect for my duties - ergo they warrant closer scrutiny.

Sure you have the right to do it, but any rational individual would not do it, as they would not say a lot of things they are allowed to say, but know better than to do so.

That's an incredible reach. A terrorist would try to blend in, not antagonize people who are trying to detect him.

Nope, me thinks you're rationalizing.

The fact is, disrespecting a security person is rational if that security person is disrespecting you. And, we're going to see more of that over time.

Sure, but the OP seems to have instigated the event in this situation - and to suggest that there's only one type of person who only acts in one type of way that will attempt to bring prohibited items through security is a bit of a reach, is it not?

I would hate to live in a world where exercising your Constitutional rights to criticize the government is considered "suspicious activity." Unfortunately, it seems I already do . . . .

The inference I get here is that any police or security officer who does not do things exactly the way you want them done is "unprofessional." It's a fact of life that someone who has the role of being the enforcer of rules is going to garner resentment from the people who don't want to follow those rules.

Further, as I pointed out before, it is just unrealistic to expect that an authority figure (or anyone else) is always going to turn the other cheek when you go out of your way to treat them badly.

I recall a conflict some years ago that was called "the war to end all wars." Never say never. If anything, I expect that security procedures may get even more stringent, such as restricting carry-ons to something no larger than a purse or briefcase. This is because The Other Side is very innovative and motivated. The liquid ban didn't take effect until a group of terrorists were caught before the fact, planning to bring explosives on board in component form, to be collected and mixed on board. That may seem far-fetched to you as a scenario, but so was concealing explosives in shoes until someone tried it. And that one came really close to working. If Padilla had gone to the lavatory to ignite his explosives instead of trying it in his seat, we would have probably been short one more aircraft. That didn't happen because Padilla was stupid. Are you that confident of the inferior intelligence of other Jihadis? Keep in mind that most of the last group that the Brits rounded up were licensed and trained physicians. Most of the physicians I have encountered were reasonably bright individuals.

Because you have the legal or physical capacity to do something does not mean that it is a good idea to carry it out. I imagine that I could walk into most any fast food restaurant and tell the person at the counter, "Look, loser - strain what little brain you have and try to get this right the first time. I want {item} {item} and {item}, I want it fast and hot, and I want it to be the best thing I've ever tasted. If it's not, I'm not only going to talk to your boss and have you fired, but I'm going to call your national office and rat out the whole store to be a warehouse of shiftless incompetents such as yourself. Why are you still standing there? Chop chop!" I would have committed no criminal offense. But what kind of customer service do you think I would be likely to get? I'd have to watch the crew make my food to ensure they didn't put human waste in it.

Go back to my previous post and the parable of my friend who wrote tickets as long as the violator belittled him. Did the violator have a right to do that? Yes. Did my friend have the right to fill out all those tickets? Also yes. And one could even make an argument that he was being conscientious and thorough in doing so.

Let's look at some other aviation-related scenarios where people would be entirely within their rights to discommode you:

• Your checked bag weighs 50.5 lbs, where the limit is 50 lbs. The gate agent decides to hold the line, despite your elite status, and charges you the $25, $50 or whatever the overweight penalty is. Or, if he/she believes that the aircraft is close to the max limit, he/she refuses to allow the bag on board at all.
• At the security checkpoint, the TSO sees that your liquids bag has 3.1 ounces of shampoo, not 3.0. They tell you to return to the terminal and dispose of the overage. Do it right here? Sorry, sir, we don't have the facilities. Move along now, you're holding up the line.
• The flight attendant is giving the safety briefing, one that you have heard at least 500 times. You amuse yourself by reading a magazine or carrying on a conversation with your seatmate. The FA demands that you cease your other activities and pay close attention to the briefing. When you refuse, she reminds you that you are required to obey the directions of the flight crew, and calls the airport police to have you arrested and removed from the aircraft. See ya. Buh-bye.

Since you believe that civility, cooperation and discretion should take a back seat to the pure expression of rights, live with it.

But being a cop also means that one is going to be using the authority of the position to enforce rules that people often don't want to see enforced. There is and will always be a human element to this transaction. If you don't want the human element, then expect to be held to account for every violation of the law. One mile over the limit? Please sign here. Call me anything you want, sir, but press firmly, you are making four copies. By the way, I'll be issuing you another citation for obstructed view - that windshield is pretty dirty. Nice manicure on that middle finger. I also note you have no litter bag in your car. It will take me a second to write that one up. No, sir, that's not so - my parents were married, and I would not even consider doing that to my mother.

If you choose to engage in "standing up against stupid 'rules'" at the place and time that they are enforced, you risk the commission of a criminal act, and being charged with same. I've never said that you shouldn't make a stand against a rule or law that you think is improper. I do believe that you should make that stand at an appropriate venue. The cop/guard/TSO/whatever has close to nothing to say in the writing of those rules. He is doing his job. Go complain to someone who can do something about it. My sense is that the people I am debating here would find that too inconvenient, which I believe is the basis for the protest in the first place.

As for your analogy about the cashier who rings up your groceries incorrectly: I'd bring it to their attention as soon as I had noticed it. But if they told me that I needed to take it up with customer service or the manager, I'd find customer service or the manager and take care of it, and allow the people waiting in line behind me to do their business. I would be polite to the cashier in doing so, and start from the perspective that this is, at most, a mistake, and that there is a possibility I could be wrong. This approach has been working out pretty well for me so far. Your mileage may vary.

I expect I know a lot more LEOs than you do, and very few of them are insecure.

War Story Alert: I spent two years as a court officer. The primary duty was to provide security in the courtroom and for the judge, but that took up a small fraction of my time. A greater portion was spent making arrangements for defendants to fulfill requirements of their sentences, and to monitor their progress. This could and often did include some combination of payments of fines in installments, scheduling weekend jail time, arranging for community service, attendance at victim impact panels, counseling, various schools, and so on. The judge I worked for gave me considerable discretion and latitude here. For instance, if someone showed up in my office after a $500 arrest warrant had been issued (typically for non-compliance with sentencing requirements) for them, I could reduce the bail to whatever money I could get out of them, set a court date for them to appear, and send them on their way. It was costly and time-consuming to physically arrest all of these people, and the objective of the arrest was to guarantee their appearance in court, anyway. This bail-and-release method usually worked.

I also had discretion in assigning community service, unless the judge had specified the conditions in his sentencing order. Obviously, anyone that thought they had been treated unfairly was free to complain to the judge, who would review each one of my assignments before it became final. I don't recall anyone ever doing this, as I was much more of a soft touch than the judge.

One case involved an 18-year-old from a community about 40 miles away from our city, a community that was quite wealthy. The lad had been arrested and was about to plead guilty to drunk driving. His family had hired an attorney from their community, one that had never appeared in our court before. The prosecutor, after having agreed to the plea bargain, had suggested the attorney speak to me before court to expedite the sentencing arrangements, which were to include about 80 hours of community service. The attorney came in and told me that his client was the recipient of a baseball scholarship (to a community college, as it turned out - fees at community colleges being what they were, I didn't think they bothered with athletic scholarships), and that he would be performing his community service coaching Little League. I replied that the court's view of community service was that it was supposed to be punitive, at least in part, and that coaching baseball didn't seem to fit the bill. I told him his client would probably be assigned to manual labor at the animal shelter. The attorney bristled, straightened up, and told me in the most condescending tone he could manage, "I will discuss this with the JUDGE, in the manner that ATTORNEYS and JUDGES do." I told him to feel free.

In court, the attorney started to make his pitch for the coaching, and the judge cut him off. "My bailiff makes the community service assignments. See him after court." We signed him up for the animal shelter duty. I made no reference to our previous conversation.

A month or so later, the non-compliance warrants for the kid started to cross my desk. No fine payments, no school attendance, no community service. The warrants were signed and filed, ready to be served next time the cops came across him.

A couple of months after that, the attorney called me. His tone was considerably changed, talking to me like we were old pals. His client had already flunked out of community college, something I didn't know you could do in only one semester. He had been so occupied with school that he just forgot about the other stuff. Could I be a nice guy, dismiss the warrants, and sign the client up for a new program, now that he was back home?

The temptation to ask, "Wouldn't you rather take this up with the judge, in the manner that attorneys and judges do?" was overpowering. However, I bit my tongue, told him he would be set for a "show cause" hearing, and would receive notice of the date in due time. When the hearing took place, the judge tore the client a new one and sent him to jail for several days. I drove him there.

Cops don't always put people in their place, although many richly deserve it. I still urge all of you to heed that saying I mentioned earlier, about the alligator and the swamp. The butt you threaten to kick today may be the one you will have to kiss later.

I would grant you the former. I am not willing to grant you the latter.

As for your "war story" - we've all got them. Would you like to hear some IT war stories about people with 'tudes who then need to be nice because the problem is their fault? I could easily state that 99% of the people who use computers are total retards and back the statement up with "war stories". That wouldn't excuse any poor behavior on my part in dealing with them as customers.

I fully expect cops to talk crap about citizens behind their back. Just as long as they deal with the people with respect. It seems like that isn't the attitude these days. Furthermore, I'm sure more effort is put in to screening police officers than TSOs so whatever issues folks may have with cops, in my experience the TSOs are even worse.

That's not your call to make. I may think the guy complaining that the network is "feels slow" is a total moron but I politely thank him, take his information, and start investigating his issue. The only person in the legal system who might be allowed to put someone "in his place" is a judge.

Your choice and opinion, although I haven't seen anything that would give you much basis for validity.

I find that most cops and TSOs are polite and respectful, you find the opposite. Has it occurred to you that the way they are treated by you and me might have something to do with this?

Sure it's my call to make. First, I haven't been a cop for over 12 years now. When I was a cop, I got to handle any situation in the way that accomplished whatever the objective at that moment was most efficiently. Ignoring attitude, body language, speech patterns, etc. would have been irresponsible. Cops constantly have to size people up and react to what they see. You have no way of knowing if the guy driving the next car you stop might try to kill you. Cops also have to control the situation. It's always best to ask nicely, but if I think that the only way to get you to not escalate a situation or to get compliance with a lawful order is to intimidate you, I'm reasonably good at that. You won't like it, but you would like it even less if I hit you with a baton, stunned you with a TASER, sprayed pepper spray in your face, or shot you.

The theme I keep getting here is "I don't have to do that, and I'm not going to." This is where the "Do you want to fly today?" or, as in the OP's situation, "Do you want to visit the Statute of Liberty today?" question comes up. No, you probably don't have to relinquish your wallet, take off your shoes and belt, remove the liquids from your carry-on, and so on. But, if you want to get on the airplane, or see the Statute of Liberty up close, or drive off with only the speeding ticket, it would behoove you to do as you're told, anathematic as it seems. The cop, guard, or TSO may not have risen to the lofty station in life you believe you have reached, but at this moment, he is the alligator and you are in his swamp. If you want to change this situation, you need to talk to the guy that owns the swamp, not the alligator. You might prefer, or even enjoy, trying to intimidate or bait the gatekeeper so you can demonstrate what a great civil libertarian you are. Most of the time, it's not going to work in your favor.

Should cops, TSOs, security guards, etc. act more "professionally" and courteously? I suppose so. I'd also like to see politicians that didn't lie, parents who took their parenting seriously and provided structure and good role models for their children, and physicians that treated me with nothing but my optimum health in mind. In fact, I'd argue that my list has greater priority than yours, because rude authority figures are merely offensive, where the others alter the course of peoples' lives.

My gut feeling is that the people who are protesting this situation most fervently aren't nearly as concerned about civil liberties as they are about doing whatever they want, whereever and whenever they want to do it. They don't like authority figures of any type, but especially those that keep them from acting on their whims and reminding them that there are limits to their range of acceptable behavior. Regulatory and security procedures are okay only as long as they work in their personal interest, and if they don't understand the reason for a policy, then the policy must go. You can protest and complain all you want on Flyertalk, and if that's a diversion for you, I guess there's no harm. But if you really want to change things, you need to devote your energies elsewhere, and quit throwing rocks at the people that have little or nothing to say about the procedures they are told to administer.