Slashdot Mirror
A Nude Awakening — the TSA and Privacy
DIplomatic writes "The Oklahoma Daily has a well-written editorial about the current state of airport security. Though the subject has overly-commented on, this article is well worth the read. Quoting: 'The risk of a terrorist attack is so infinitesimal and its impact so relatively insignificant that it doesn't make rational sense to accept the suspension of liberty for the sake of avoiding a statistical anomaly. There's no purpose in security if it debases the very life it intends to protect, yet the forced choice one has to make between privacy and travel does just that. If you want to travel, you have a choice between low-tech fondling or high-tech pornography; the choice, therefore, to relegate your fundamental rights in exchange for a plane ticket. Not only does this paradigm presume that one's right to privacy is variable contingent on the government's discretion and only respected in places that the government doesn't care to look — but it also ignores that the fundamental right to travel has consistently been upheld by the Supreme Court. If we have both the right to privacy and the right to travel, then TSA's newest procedures cannot conceivably be considered legal. The TSA's regulations blatantly compromise the former at the expense of the latter, and as time goes on we will soon forget what it meant to have those rights.'"
Except a groping is unlikely to be fatal, so you'd die in the same way, ergo with the same dignity as you would have done had the TSA never existed.
In other words it's 99 to 1 that you'd be asleep and soaked in piss. Dignity? Your call.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I don't want the risk of an airliner crashing into my house just because a bunch of pillow-biters don't want to be seen nekid. Don't you know you have no expectation of privacy in public?!
I just think it's funny that it took these back-scatter machines for the American people to take such an about-face in their rush to trade freedom for the illusion of security. Ahhhh...back in 2002 you were an America-hating terrorist-sympathiser with a dangerous tendency to disagree with government during war time if you spoke up about how silly the TSA's measures were. It's like they're still bolting the barn door after the cows had escaped, bred a new generation and died in the surrounding fields...
Blar.
Then you sir are an idiot. No offense.
The guy stated his personal preference, and you're calling him an idiot? What kind of twit are you? You know who the real idiots are? Those people who think vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate. Fucking morons.
Yesterday, before the Porn Scan and/or Freedom Fondle, I had approximately a 1 in 25,000,000 chance (Soruce: TFA) of dying in a terrorist attack on the plane.
Today, with the Porn Scan and/or Freedom Fondle, I have an approximate 1 in 25,000,000 chance (Source: TFA) of dying in a terrorist attackon the plane.
So between yesterday and today, I have gained nothing & lost my rights.
Yesterday 97.8% (Soruce: SIC) of statistics were pulled out of your ass.
Today 97.8% (Soruce: SIC) of statistics are pulled out of your ass.
So between yesterday and today, you have learned nothing, and lost all credibility.
Sounds like a fair trade to me. Personally, I'd rather die free than live in fear. But that's me.
Go jump off a building then. The rest of us will live on, gladly ignoring your false dichotomy.