I agree that seatbelts and airport security are apples & oranges. My post points out how very different they are. Someone else brought up the seatbelt/liquor control comparison.

The fact that terrorism is now considered a more real threat than it was prior to Sept 11, 2001 should not give our police the right to harass anyone for any reason. I *absolutely* support professional police and security officials doing their job to keep us safe from criminals (including those that the popular media likes to call "terrorists"). I'm just saying that they should be able to do it in a consistent and professional manner. In our legal system, we have over the years established concepts such as probable cause and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. Terms like "probable" and "reasonable" leave law enforcement some room to exercise professional judgment. All I expect is that the TSA uses that power in a professional manner - just like a cop in your neighborhood would. The beat cop can't grope you and use "I'm trying to stop terrorism" as his reason. I guess that's where I was going with the seatbelt reference.

Anonplz: you are absolutely right about the fact that the security rules for air travel aren't changing. I know that and accept it. Because of it, I (and millions of others) are taking fewer flights. I'm driving a lot of those 300-500 mile segments I used to fly. Freedom from unnecessary and repetitive harassment is a top reason to skip those flights.

Harrassment is such a loaded word - you and Spiff use the word frequently, which is fine - hey, it's a free country - but as far as I'm concerned, it is not harrassment. It's no more harrassment than giving your fingerprint when cashing a check or registering as a notary public, no more harrassment than submitting to urine samples when doing a drug test.

No more harassment than getting pulled over for no reason, no more harassment than getting strip-searched at school, no more harasssment than someone posting all your personal information on the internet, no more harassment than someone pointing a loaded weapon at you for your own safety... Yeah, it's all perception.



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"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry

Well, all I'm saying is that harrassment is a negative word, and those other scenarios are perhaps negative, but sometimes necessary. At any rate, the fact is that we are using a different vocabulary to talk about the same thing, right? Is it also harrassment if your boss demands you do something you don't want to do? If you have a job without a job description and not clearly defined, maybe it is, maybe not...