Fall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Samhain Moon<\/p>\n
Bon Aire, Ga.\u00a0 Up early yesterday to make the US Airways flights from Minneapolis to Atlanta.\u00a0 Unremarkable except for a TSA officer in the jetway in Charlotte while loading for the Atlanta flight. Travel brings out an ornery side of me, well, air travel.\u00a0 So, when I got to the TSA officer I said (something it would be better to have said in my head), “Just another way to make travel annoying?”\u00a0 He said, “Another layer of security. And I’m doing it for free.”\u00a0 Me, (again something better kept in my head), “I don’t care.”<\/p>\n
Might not have been so vocal but I’ve been reading Dave Eggers new book, The Circle.\u00a0 This is a thinly disguised critique of Google and online culture.\u00a0 In particular it attacks the insistent need for transparency, for personal knowledge spread out over the web and instantly available for all.\u00a0 It cranked up my already strong sense of personal privacy, created in part by my introverted nature but also by my political stance far to the left of the norm.\u00a0 I’d also had my first taste of Foucault in the last week which, like the Eggers, lays bare the unintended consequences of otherwise well meaning systems.<\/p>\n
In the instance of airport security for example I realized we have been trained for submission as we line up passively, wait for someone to check\u00a0our tickets and i.d.\u00a0\u00a0We\u00a0then take off clothing, even our belts, allow our bodies to be probed by x-ray and agree to be judged by ill trained, low paid TSA personnel.<\/p>\n
This is, ironically,\u00a0an antidote for the toxin of terrorism. Those who would take our liberty have, through the judo of fear, managed to convince us\u00a0to take our liberty away through our on own efforts.\u00a0 Security, in exactly the degree to which we apply it, reduces our freedom and reinforces fear.<\/p>\n
Training for submission is the opposite of democracy, yet it seems to appear everywhere these days.\u00a0 The NSA debate now swirling has a large component of I don’t care if they watch. Well, I care.\u00a0 I care because they care to sweep my data up.\u00a0 Like the TSA the expectation is\u00a0that we will embrace this is training in submission to those who know better than we do.\u00a0 Well, I don’t think they know better and I’m not willing to share my data unasked and with no safeguards other than “Trust us.”<\/p>\n
Anyhow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Samhain Moon Bon Aire, Ga.\u00a0 Up early yesterday to make the US Airways flights from Minneapolis to Atlanta.\u00a0 Unremarkable except for a TSA officer in the jetway in Charlotte while loading for the Atlanta flight. Travel brings out an ornery side of me, well, air travel.\u00a0 So, when I got to the TSA officer … Continue reading Rant about State Security<\/span>