• Tag Archives airports
  • Warning: Rant About Hands On Security At Airports

    Samhain                                              Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

    Boxers or briefs?  Hands on or a nude photo?  When did TSA become T&A?  In Minnesota we often use “you can only take off so many clothes.” to explain our preference for cold weather over hot.  You can always add more layers.  Here’s a real problem with the hands on approach to security:  you can only take off so many clothes.  Inch by inch the guberment has let its security obsession get us to just that point.

    It’s nonsensical to ask for no security, but when the creeping hand of government has moved up my crotch, well then by gum, they’ve gone to far.  It reminds me of that mythical frog sitting on the stove in gradually warming water.  The security water has begun to boil and we’ve been the frogs.

    A complete rethink has to come.  When thousands of ordinary travelers find themselves treated as terrorists until proven innocent, there has got be a better way.  In no other part of our quasi-libertarian culture would anything even close to this heavy handed be tolerated, but because it’s air travel we’re asked to bend over backward.  Well, actually not yet.  But it could be next.

    All funning aside.  Living in a security state has a long and high profile career in science fiction, but it’s not the vision of the future I wanted to see come to pass.

    My basic response to all this is to ride the train, drive or just not go, though the last couple of times I’ve flown I’ve actually found the whole process less onerous than before, but this new wrinkle seems designed to push us back in time, not forward.