Scattered Thought

Benjamin Franklin once said, “They who can give up essential liberty for temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety.“

The media has blown up with stories about TSA employees and the TSA over stepping their boundaries. The TSA has been implementing more invasive methods over the past 4 years, testing it on their employees to see if they can get away with it. You can read plenty of stories; here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here… (yes, each one of these links go to a different place) oh and here (because people assume TSA employees are not human for some reason and thus not susceptible to human issues).

Our government is not there to violate us. It is here to represent us. We have a strict set of definitions in place and pat downs/body scans (digital strip search) violate our 4th amendment rights. In addition to that the body scanners are a gross invasion of privacy. In the digital age — it is virtually impossible to get rid of this information. Once it is stored in a database  chances are in some way it has been replicated — and this has been proven to be true based on the leaks of body scanner images and stories of employees abusing these said nude shots.

When I have to choose between a violation of my health, privacy, and rights by using a body scanner or a legal form of sexual assault there needs to be better options in place. For instance, look at Israel. They haven’t had an incident since 2002 and their methods are far less invasive.

So what should I do? Not fly like senators (our representatives, go figure) have suggested? If I want to go to Europe I should find an alternative method that doesn’t involve body gropage? So either I accept the way it is because the government has told me to do so or that is it. I just shouldn’t fly.

This is intolerable. The fact that this isn’t even more of an outrage is astounding. Terrorists already won. They succeeded in striking “terror” into our hearts and changing our values and rights. We’re doing what we’re told like good sheeples and no one wants to fight back because that’s not the “nice” thing to do. It’s inconvenient to us evidently. Hijacking of flights occurs less often than a shark attack, its chances of happening are negligible. Even with these pat down methods, there is no way to detect whether or not something is inside the body — so is the next step to be a cavity search? Where does it stop?

The thing about rights is if you let them take blows, it becomes significantly harder to avoid the next blow.

That’s why I urge you to write to the President, your Senators, your Congressmen. Do something because that’s what being an American is supposed to be about.