It seems that a lot of people have the impression that security is an invasion of privacy. It can be. But it is not always an invasion of privacy. If you go into an airport and you know that there is a lot of security there then it is not necessarily an invasion of privacy. Invasion of privacy is when police search your house without having a justified reason with a warrant to search your house. Now consider airports. No one is making you go into an airport. If you go into an airport you agree with their security standards and so it is not an invasion of privacy.
I do not believe in TSA. Safety is good, but TSA puts safety on steroids. Safety should not be the only thing you focus on. Here is an simple example. Suppose there was a law requiring all drivers to also wear helmets in addition to seat belts, and laws that banned motorcycles. Would such a law save lives? Absolutely. But I doubt many people support such crazy safety standards.
I also believe that safety should be managed by the airports themselves. This creates many different competing models for safety. Some which may be more hardcore on safety, and others which are easy on safety. I do also believe that this opens up room for more danger, but so what, there is a point to how crazy safety can get.
As Penn Jillette said in a Bullshit episode on gun control, "you cannot stop insane people from doing insane things by passing insane laws, that is insane". I see TSA as taking safety too far and so I do not support it.
Furthermore, the TSA is an invasion of privacy. Because it mandates all airports to use the same security system. If airports were able to choose their own security system and people would be able to choose what security system that they wanted to adopt, then this would end the violation of privacy. But if you have a single uniform mandate on every single airport and people have no other option when they want to leave or enter the country to go through a different checkpoint then that is an invasion of privacy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It is true that security checkpoints are inconvenient and represent an invasion of privacy. However, you would surely admit that some level of security is advisable. You don't think that people should be allowed to wander around the runways like they used to in the 50s do you? That was normal back then. If you agree that it is better that we have some kind of security then it is just a matter of degree. Safety is a tricky subject. Study after study shows that speed limits save lives but they are very unpopular because they inhibit freedom. One could argue that people should be allowed to do what they want unless it negatively impacts others. Speeding of course does impact others and there are many deaths where the victim was driving below the speed limit.
ReplyDelete"It is true that security checkpoints are inconvenient and represent an invasion of privacy. However, you would surely admit that some level of security is advisable. You don't think that people should be allowed to wander around the runways like they used to in the 50s do you? That was normal back then. If you agree that it is better that we have some kind of security then it is just a matter of degree. Safety is a tricky subject. Study after study shows that speed limits save lives but they are very unpopular because they inhibit freedom. One could argue that people should be allowed to do what they want unless it negatively impacts others. Speeding of course does impact others and there are many deaths where the victim was driving below the speed limit.":
ReplyDeleteHere is something that statists do not understand. Freedom does not mean you do whatever you please. And not all laws negate freedom.
The problem of traffic laws does not bother me. There are two ways to deal with traffic laws. Owners of streets would be able to set their own laws on these streets. If you do not agree with these laws then you do not have to drive on them, you can try to open up your own roads to have your own laws (or lack thereof). If it is a state owned road then you can make the same argument. If you do not agree with the laws you can take different roads with laws that you do agree with (assuming they exist). But of course this does not really work that way because privately owned roads are prohibited from having their own laws. I do think that roads can set crazy laws, like "drive always above 90 miles per hour", and so forth. And none of this infringes freedom.
The same should be with airports, but the TSA forces the same uniform security laws on them.
"Study after study shows that speed limits save lives but they are very unpopular because they inhibit freedom.":
Two problems with what you said. The first, well it is not really a proble, but do you really need a study. I hate "studies" and I hate statistical arguments, I especially hate the phraze "studies show", one of the most abused sentences if you want to get automatic debate points. You do not need any studies here. I think it is basic common sense to see that speed limits laws save life. Just like it is a common sense to see that seat belt laws save life. Just like it is a common sense to see that the porn-scanner of TSA would save lives. The second problem is to whom are these laws unpopular. I can assure you if I asked people in the street "do you think there ought to be no speed limit laws?", you would find very few people who would say "yes". So why do you say "unpopular"? They are quite popular.
The comparison is not apt. Speed limits, while they are problematic from a libertarian point of view (I paid for the road, and want it safe - and I paid for the road, and want to use it my way - the proper solution is not to tax people to build roads), are not dehumanizing. They do not degrade and humiliate those who drive. The current TSA procedures go beyond what is at all acceptable, not as a libertarian, but as a human being. If that were what it took, you should expose yourself to the (rather small) risks of flying rather than subject yourself to it.
ReplyDeletePut it another way: some people are afraid to fly. I'm not afraid to fly. The obvious solution, at least to me, is that the cowards stay on the ground, and leave me the hell alone. Instead, they insist that something be done to make them less afraid to fly, and this something is degrading and humiliating. It is a series of actions that when described in their essentials, put people in jail regularly - child porn, photographing nudity without consent, sexual assault, sexual assault on a minor...As a result, I cannot fly. So the cowards who are afraid to fly get to fly, and I don't. Under what assumptions is this a just outcome?
What makes it all the worse is that these procedures are neither necessary nor sufficient. The procedures don't address luggage, nor do they address people who work in the airport. If it were about security, these would be addressed. Instead, it's all about security theater - it makes the cowards less afraid without actually doing anything.
Then we have clear instances where the TSA simply goes beyond the rules to assault, and is not held responsible. This is what happens when you hire unqualified people and teach them that they are gods among men, that they have power (when a passenger asked to speak to a supervisor, he received instead an agent shouting into his face 'I have power'), that people must bare their bodies before them and bow down to their every whim.
Finally, I don't think any of this is what it's really about. I think it's really about a series of experiments to see what people will accept without standing up for themselves. Plus, they arrest anyone who does stand up for themselves, so they have a pretty complete list of who has any spirit of freedom left in them - people who stopped flying and people who stood up. That's why they'll round up first.