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Paul's Call To Abolish the TSA, One Year Later
A year ago today, we noted that Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky called for the abolition of the Transportation Security Administration. It's now nearly 12 years since the hijacked-plane terror attacks of 2001; the TSA was created barely two months later, and has been (with various rules, procedures, and equipment, all of it controversial for reasons of privacy, safety, and efficacy) a major presence ever since at American commercial airports. "The American people shouldn't be subjected to harassment, groping, and other public humiliation simply to board an airplane," wrote Paul last year, and in June of 2012, he followed up by introducing two bills on the topic; the first calling for a "bill of rights" for air travelers, the other for privatizing airport screening practices. Neither bill went far. Should they have? Libertarian-leaning Paul did not succeed in knocking back the TSA, never mind privatizing its functions (currently funded at nearly $8 billion annually), though some of the things called for in his bill of rights are manifest now at least in muted form. (Very young passengers, as well as elderly passengers, face less stringent security requirements, for instance, and TSA has ended its prohibition of certain items aboard planes.) Whether you're from the U.S. or not, what practical changes would you like to see implemented? What shouldn't be on the bill of rights for airplane passengers?
Every time some disaster hits the US, we're going to see a big growth in the size and reach of government. In fact, I believe there are many politicians who salivate at the thought of catastrophe so they can go cry about the children on camera and create a new 3-letter tumor on our already unconstitutional government.
I mean, come on, this is a government that still administers polygraph examinations for its employees, eight decades after the guy who sold it to the government admitted he made the device up to support his other lifelong work, the Wonder Woman comic book.
The TSA isn't going anywhere folks. Look all the fighting it took to force sequestration, and then take a step back and view it from a different perspective.
Rand Paul is the worst thing to happen to libertarians. Just as Communism became conflated with Stalinism, Libertarianism runs the risk of becoming known through the lens of Paulism, which is a horrible bastardization of their ideals. He opposes same sex marriage, opposes the right to choose and supports foreign intervention by the US military.
Please don't let him claim the libertarian mantle or hold him up as an embodiment of your ideals - he's more destructive to the libertarian movement than all the political opponents there are. His position on the TSA is one of populist convenience, not one of principle.
I would like to keep my shoes on and be able to take a 2L through the checkpoint.
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
Why do we even need screening anymore? No one will ever be allowed into the cockpit again, even if they start murdering passengers. Bomb sniffers are still useful, but at this point, an attack on a football stadium during a game would be far more detrimental, both in terms of casualties and psychologically.
iirc he made a call to abolish the tsa and privatize airport security...like how it was before the tsa.
consider this though: if it were privatized, and their employees did something that violated your rights, you would have some realistic hope of legal recourse.
What shouldn't be on the bill of rights for airplane passengers?
- nonsense question.
There shouldn't even be such a legal document as 'bill of rights', because it is completely misunderstood probably by all to mean that those are your rights and nothing else. Not true, the government has no authority to limit any of your rights, by default you have all of your rights intact.
Government can strip you of your rights temporarily or permanently depending on whether the Constitution authorises that power to government for certain situations (like taxing your transactions, it's loss of a right, but at least it's Constitutional).
Saying that there should be an "airplane passenger bill of rights" is like saying that there should be a "bill of rights for blacks" or "bill of rights for gays" or "bill of rights for women" or "bill of rights for employees", none of it makes any sense, you have all of your rights regardless of your group and association, you shouldn't lose your rights for reasons that are outside of the power authorised to the government by the Constitution, yet here we are.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
. Privatizing it would just remove all accountability
No. Assuming the privatization meant that the airlines would once again be responsible for their own security, the airlines would either compete on maximum invasiveness (anal cavity searches for all), maximum privacy (likely pre-2001 screening to meet their insurance carriers' requirements), maximum security (say, pressure-testing luggage and allowing small arms aboard), or some hybrid that people liked. The airlines would be directly accountable to their passengers and those passengers would provide their feedback by way of ticket purchases and relative pricing. The exception might be remote areas where one carrier has a monopoly at a local airport and there is no actual choice in commercial aviation.
My God, it's Full of Source!
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Ironically how would armed drones have been sane to use in a busy metropolitan city to catch TWO people on foot. Maybe if they had hijacked a passenger less bus or vehicle and were on a stretch of the interstate by themselves, but then your still blowing up civil infrastructure for something a good o'le fashioned barricade would have made much more sense for.
Drones are a military technology for war fighting with limited use in the civil arena. The problems were having as a nation is conflating terrorism with military action.
How would returning airport security to private hands remove accountability? It would do just the opposite.
Notice how mall cops don't hassle anybody? Except maybe kids skateboarding in the parking lot? And why? Because if a mall cop stops you for no good reason and demands to search your bags or something, you call the management. The manager comes out, reprimands the mall cop for harassing the customers, apologizes profusely to you, Sir, and gives you a gift certificate to the food court.
When a government cop hassles you and you demand to speak to his superior, expect to get tased, beaten and charged with assaulting an officer.
I would much rather have private security personnel working for the airports and airlines than government officials. The rent-a-cops at least have an economic incentive to not treat you like shit. The government cops have no incentive to give a fuck, and so they don't.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
In a world where people aren't encouraged from a young age to compete, but instead to cooperate, you'll have neither the warmongers who encourage relaliatory action, nor the sort of petty dictators who staff the TSA.
Wow, that just substitutes the past 9000 years of history for pop psychology that wouldn't survive a 101-level course. Since I can't say it better:
My God, it's Full of Source!
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Although effectually the TSA serves little to no purpose in actual deterrence, it may be left just to make people feel comfortable / safe. Tho I disagree with both having the TSA and theatrical aspects.
-Ultimate Stickman Game Developer Infinite World Puzzler
Thats a beautiful sentiment, but is it really true? =)
A lot of the stuff discouraging tourism isn't from the TSA, but from other agencies under the Department of Homeland Security. For example, Customs and Border Patrol are the ones who run the ridiculous entry process, where non-U.S.-nationals typically have to wait in a line for 1-2 hours before they can be interrogated about their visit and eventually make it out of the airport. And the Office of Biometric Identity Management (formerly US-VISIT), another agency, requires all non-nationals to be biometrically recorded upon entry. And that's only for people in the visa-waiver program: if you're not from a visa-waiver country, there's a whole other set of hassles and delays to get a tourist visa. This process operates poorly enough that a number of academic conferences have started avoiding the U.S., because the delay is so long that speakers from countries like China and Egypt can't get a visa in time to attend and present their paper.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Also the wealthiest. Coincidence?
Not even close.
Success in capitalism is directly correlated with a distinct lack of morals, self-centeredness, sociopathic behavior, and of course inherited dynastic wealth. None of those serve anybody. Yes, there are edge case examples of successful people who don't exhibit these traits, but for the most part successful capitalists do exhibit them, and the most successful ones manage to hide that fact from a lot of people.
Now, if you want to tell me you can get relatively wealthy running your own business, employing people, and selling stuff that people want to buy to people who want to buy it, more power to you. That's free enterprise, but it's not modern capitalism. In the modern capitalism version of that story, you start a business, employ a bunch of people, then sell the business quickly to get a bunch of cash while the purchaser either moves the business to China and/or tries to eliminate as many of the employees as possible in order ot pay off the leveraged debt that was used to buy the business in the first place. That's the "captial" part.
Modern capitalism also makes looting, pillaging, and economic slavery legal. It even turns a blind eye to actual slavery, as long as the customers don't find out about it and as long as it takes place in some country with people of a different skin color and all. Actual looting and plundering? You outsource that to purchased government leaders. Financial looting and plundering? That's still a bit of a DIY operation, primarily handled by Wall Street investment banking firms.
Since someone else already responded to the second sentence, decisively, I'll do the first sentence:
In a world where people aren't encouraged from a young age to compete, but instead to cooperate, you'll have neither the warmongers who encourage relaliatory action, nor the sort of petty dictators who staff the TSA.
I'm not a libertarian, nor GOP, nor male. I can tell you this, though: It is contrary to human nature not to be competitive. Some competition, starting from a young age, is good! It increases self-esteem, pride in family, school and country. Yes, cooperation is necessary too, e.g. a group of people aligned to achieve a common goal, which (usually) can be accomplished only through competition with those whose goals are different. Regarding "warmongers who encourage relaliatory [retaliatory?] action": Retaliatory action doesn't mean you are a warmonger. There are many ways to retaliate such as tariffs, embargoes, intermarriage. The latter is even a form of cooperation!
The TSA is a pathological bureaucracy. We had security and screening prior to boarding flights at airports for 20 (30?) years before 9/11. Those people didn't behave like the TSA. They searched and screened, but not in the TSA's rude, distasteful manner. They weren't privatized, and they didn't cost $8 billion per year to fund.
tempus fugit
The tsa needs to be abolished. US Citizens should not be treated like prisoners in their own country. And visitors should not be treated this poorly either, it is embarrassing. And more importantly, it does not make anyone safer, distracts from focusing on actual security.
People like you forget that the same man who wrote _The Wealth of Nations_ also wrote _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_.
Actually I was questioning the quote and not dictating a particular political policy or cultural methodology or social dogma. I rather like the idea of Star Trek, but we can't try that out until we can beam people we dislike to far away places and give them whatever tools they need to create their planet of tropes.
I think in many cases capitalism has been benificial, but by a means in itself I question it. Because on one hand you have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Hughes . And then you have Bell... *cough* vs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Meucci
Innovation isn't even consistently rewarded by capitalism. No matter how much stock you may want to put into a free market. There are lots of historical events that can point this out.
Why is it we are still so reliant on oil. When there are a myriad different ways to produce energy now? Because we have an oil industry. And its that simple.
Yes, it's true. It is possible to become wealthy in a capitalist society by providing a product or service that is a strong net benefit to society. Unfortunately, it's easier to become more wealthy by exploiting others.
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Passengers now know they have to save themselves from terrorists in the air. It has been shown repeatedly that anyone threatening the safety of a flight is quickly brought under control by the passengers themselves. This keeps planes safer than any amount of screening will ever do.
The airlines would be directly accountable to their passengers and those passengers would provide their feedback by way of ticket purchases and relative pricing.
Not to mention that pissing off a TSA agent is bound to send you to jail or get you on a no-fly list. However, if I pissed of a private security guard, the best they could do is maybe bar me from that particular airport.
Indeed, and before the creation and repeatedly increased power of the Corporation to shield people from the consequences of their actions, when businesses were primarily local affairs, and communities were close-knit enough to be a strong motivator to most people, that theory held reasonably well. In the modern world though we've drifted into a situation where psychopathic behaviour is encouraged and rewarded within large corporations, especially within the financial sector. Andthe massive increase in population and ease of transportation has degraded community to the point where it tends to be restricted to your co-workers and chosen social network rather than being heavily determined by geography. The result being that you get groups of people who are encouraged to ever more psycopathic behaviour and are surrounded primarily by others who are likewise encouraged, resulting in something of a social echo-chamber effect that tends to spiral out of control.
This perception is backed by many psychology experiments that show, among other things, that ethics tend to be heavily dependent on peer pressure - if an aparent member of your social group blatantly cheats and gets away with it, you become far more likely to do the same.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I disagree. To some degree yes. But I believe oil and coal have a lot of protection while other clean technologies. Thorium salt reactors, solar arrays, desentralized solar, etc... are being stifled by the very same economy that could be using them. And all because of this excuse that without the oil companies modern civilization would collapse.
No you wouldn't be able to run your AC 24/7 and keep your house exactly at 70 degree's cheaply. But there are alternatives and they WILL become just as cheap once we kick off our old dependence on what were using now.
I've seen a myriad of hydrogen fuel cells that work, mostly at universities and parks. Sears developed cheap batteries for stuff like cell phones years ago but didn't market them... the list goes on and on.
Hydro-electric power is underdeveloped because of the fear of "geoengineering" and while I agree that it can be disastrous and greatly change the environment. I think more Hoover damns would be better then supporting the strip mining of the Appalachians. Yeah they toss some soil back into a hill shape and replant tree's but in the meantime it wrecks the environment there just as bad.
Were colonizing Alberta Canada and by we I mean INTERNATIONAL oil companies that we all support, every one of us to go about our lives, and destroying the homeland of many native Americans who are waging a guerrilla war this very moment. Yet there are alternatives that we could bring down in cost if we did the GOVERNMENT group thing and subsized the technology and rolled it out like we did the railroads. I'll tell ya what, you want to keep the same monopolies in place so the "social fucking order" doesn't get disturbed fine. But lets do this we don't have any damn excuses to keep using OBSOLETE tech here.... we are not fighting cylons.
Capitalism, communism, feudalism, fundamentalism, militarism ... no matter what -ism you use, they all have the same fatal flaw: self-important, power-wielding, psychotic fucks who backstab their way to the top and keep the majority of the resources for themselves.
Could be better if the government didn't grant them immunity.
Time to offend someone