Art Carden offers a way to improve security, the federal budget, and improve government treatment of citizens at the same time: abolish the TSA
“For fiscal conservatives, it’s hard to come up with a more wasteful agency than the TSA. For privacy advocates, eliminating an organization that requires you to choose between a nude body scan or genital groping in order to board a plane should be a no-brainer.”
The folks behind “National Opt-Out Day” chime in, “You should never have to explain to your children, ‘Remember that no stranger can touch or see your private area, unless it’s a government employee, then it’s OK.'”
UPDATE: Here’s a video of a TSA screening terrorizing a 3-year old at a checkpoint.
It’s in the nature of bureaucracies, especially those in the public sector, to be annoying, says a writer at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Meanwhile, Timothy Carney says to follow the money.
UPDATE 2: Steve Chapman (Chicago Tribune) has an opinion piece with a snappy title: government in our pants.
Here’s the lead: “When it comes to protecting against terrorism, this is how things usually go: A danger presents itself; the federal government responds with new rules that erode privacy, treat innocent people as suspicious and blur the distinction between life in a free society and life in a correctional facility; and we all tamely accept the new intrusions, like sheep being shorn.
Maybe not this time.”
And an expert in airport security in Israel–which knows a thing or two about dealing with terrorists–says “I don’t know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines.”
From The Detroit News: http://apps.detnews.com/apps/blogs/watercooler/index.php?blogid=1088