Opting Out of Tyranny

[Note:  My personal experiences with individual TSA employees over the past 4 years have been uniformly positive.  Having been a passenger on roughly a dozen flights over that time period, I have never been mistreated, nor have I been subjected to the body scanner or had an enhanced pat-down.  My opposition to the TSA's current actions is rooted in the belief that their policies are totalitarian in nature and therefore anathema to the proper role of government.]

Last summer one of my children was sexually assaulted in broad daylight at a public park.  At the time of the assault there were scores of people nearby, but no one recognized that the assailant was unlawfully detaining my child while groping the child's body inappropriately.  It is particularly difficult for me that I was less than 100 feet from my child while this assault occurred.  Had I seen what was taking place I would have intervened without a second of hesitation, but it was only after my child informed me of the man's actions that the police were notified and the assailant was arrested.   He will be sentenced next month for felony sexual abuse.  To say that this incident has been stressful for my entire family is an understatement akin to suggesting that the North Pole can be a bit chilly this time of year.

I share this sad experience to illustrate a similar affront to decency that is occurring daily across this nation, in full view of scores of people, who, while clearly seeing what's happening to their children and loved ones, dare not lift a finger to stop the groping.  I refer to the so-called "enhanced pat-down" now being employed by Transportation Security Administration employees at airports around the country.  If there is a more clear example of oppressive government behavior in our day, I don't know what it could be.

If you or your family wish to fly on a commercial airliner, the TSA gives you the option (for now) of either submitting to being irradiated and having naked images taken of your body or to being thoroughly groped over every inch of your body by security officers who demand complete submission to their will.  Roll your eyes or utter the most minute protest to their actions and you are virtually guaranteed to be pulled aside, interrogated, browbeaten and threatened with missing your flight or even with arrest for failing to acknowledge their absolute authority over you.

Let me put it like this:  If you take a photograph of your child in the bathtub, you could be charged with child pornography.  If a TSA employee creates a nude image of your child electronically, he or she is simply "doing their job."  If a stranger gropes your child's body he or she could go to prison for sexual assault.  But if a stranger wearing a TSA uniform gropes your child's body, the act is sanctified by the state and you as a parent are forbidden to intercede.  

How on earth did a nation that prides itself on being the freest country on the planet come to accept the kind of surly police state behavior usually reserved for third world dictatorships?  Worse still, how did an American people whose ancestors tamed a continent and stared down some of the most tyrannical governments mankind has known become so timid that they have chosen to voluntarily geld themselves of their rights in the name of promised security?  If we are willing to silently suffer the indignity of ourselves or our loved ones being electronically strip-searched and to allow our private parts to be physically groped by strangers acting under the color of law, where exactly would we draw the line regarding government demands that we submit?

The use of nudity and humiliation as a means of breaking an individual's resistance to authority is a well-documented fact of human history.  From the way the Nazis systematically stripped the Jews of their identities and their dignity prior to their liquidation, to the way that captured U.S. pilots shot down in Vietnam were paraded naked through streets of the villages, to the treatment of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq war, those wishing to exercise dominion over others have consistently used forced nudity as a psychological tool to subjugate individuals.

The fact that the airport security scanners are using ionizing backscatter radiation to peer beneath the clothing of airline passengers and crew doesn't make the procedure any less intrusive.  Contrary to the mild and foggy images used to sell the scanners to the public, the actual digital images are graphic enough to enable the viewer to discern if a man is circumcised or if a woman is having her period.

Furthermore, assurances that the images would never be stored or disseminated have already been proven false with the case of an Indian film star whose naked images were made available after a trip through London's Heathrow airport.  The TSA's own documents make clear that the machines possess the capability to store and transmit the images of scanned passengers.

Even the stance the traveler is required to assume while in the body scanner is reminiscent of one who is surrendering with their hands in the air.

The new enhanced and invasive pat-down being used at airports across the nation appears to be a not-so-subtle punitive measure that is being used to punish those who choose to opt out of baring themselves before the state.  Upon stating your intention to opt out of the scanner, you can expect the TSA employee to announce loudly "We have an OPT OUT!", at which point you will be directed to a screening area where the so-called enhanced pat-down will occur.  This may or may not be in full view of other passengers.  The pat-down itself has been described by a number of recipients as ranging between vigorous and rough with clear and deliberate contact with the breasts and genitals through the clothing.  Any protestation, any tears or recoiling from the screener's fondling fingers and the pat-down has to start all over again.  Make a big enough fuss and you'll be detained while law enforcement comes over to escort you out of the airport.    

Many TSA workers appear to be providing credence to the findings of the Stanford prison experiment that showed that in a situation with prisoners and guards, some of those placed in a position of authority over others will gravitate toward sadistic and abusive behavior toward those over whom they have power.  As in the Milgram Experiment in which individuals ignored their own consciences when prompted by an authority figure to inflict (what they believed was actual) harm via electrical shock upon another person, TSA employees have shown a clear tendency excuse the distress of those they're screening by claiming that they are only following policy.

With 450 body scanner machines expected to be in operation by the end of this year and another 500 expected to be installed next year, an even more disturbing thought is the prospect of such scanners being utilized for screening people at courthouses, bus & train stations or even outside sporting venues.  If we meekly submit and allow body scanners to become the norm for travel now, it's reasonable to expect that the state will find excuses for the use of them to become even more widespread in the future.  What then?

 Sheldon Richman of the Future of Freedom Foundation notes:

“Many of us grow up believing that government reflects the will of the people. But skeptics know better. Government has assumed more and more control over private life not because the people demanded it, but because power-seekers and privilege-seekers sought outlets for their ambitions. They then propagandized the public until a sufficient number of people came to believe government control was good for them."

Of course, the justification for what too many Americans meekly accept as necessary government misbehavior stems from the successful fear-mongering that predictably followed the 9/11 terror attacks.  9/11 "changed everything" we are told ad nauseam as the government scrambles to deal with the threat of terrorism by treating all of us as potential terrorists.  The folly of the TSA's current see-you-naked/feel-you-up approach to thwarting terrorism is best illustrated by the fact that the Israelis, who have a stellar record for terror-free airline flights, don't use the body scanners because they are considered nothing more than security theater.

Now some good news.  The overbearing state, which tends to act as if the only choices are between security and terrorism, is finally experiencing serious backlash to its latest ramping up of invasive security policies.  A revolt is brewing--not among the timid passengers--but among the airline crews who are also being subjected to unreasonable demands upon their dignity.  Flight attendants have filed a grievance with their union over the enhanced pat-down procedure that they are being forced to endure just like the passengers.  And a particularly courageous airline pilot named Michael Roberts has chosen to put his career on the line by saying "enough" to TSA functionaries who sought to run him through the same gauntlet of nuclear nudity and physical groping.   These are but two examples of fighting back, but they should serve to inspire those of us who prefer independent thought and liberty over timid groupthink to seriously question how we can make a similar principled stand for the freedoms we cherish.

We still have much for which to be grateful in terms of our freedoms and opportunities in this nation, however, it is a foolish belief that any government will keep cherished freedoms perpetually secure without first being checked and balanced to define its proper role. Ignorance of this principle has produced a dangerous complacency in which far too many Americans mistake merely giving lip service to liberty for the positive action required to defend it.

For my part, I cannot stand by while strangers in uniform molest me or my family members, therefore, I will no longer patronize any airline nor will I subject my family to the demands of the security apparatus until such time as the TSA ceases treating all airline passengers as terror suspects or worse.  If enough people refuse to lend legitimacy to a system that systematically abuses them, it will have no power over them and eventually fade into obscurity.