
Americans Shocked to Find Their Rights Literally Vanish at U.S. Airports - pseudolus
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/americans-rights-are-literally-vanishing-at-the-airport/
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moonka
I fear that within another 10 years it won't just be airports. I wouldn't be
surprised to see this type of "security" at train/bus stations, stadiums,
movie theaters, churches, etc.

~~~
ruytlm
My understanding is that the definition of 'border zone' that CBP and others
use includes anywhere within 100 miles of the border, which covers roughly two
thirds of the US population.[0]

So you mightn't even have to wait 10 years!

[0]: [https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-
zone](https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone)

~~~
gshdg
And if you include all international airports as “borders” it’s even worse.

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codesushi42
Fascism starts at the borders/ports of entry for a couple of reasons. First,
these measures aren't meant to protect you, they are meant to keep you from
leaving. See no fly lists, the Soviet Union, Berlin Wall vs Trump's wall.

Second, it's an experiment to test practices that are later implemented on
American soil against every citizen. The public is acclimated slowly over time
to the point that they will be completely apathetic once the same policies are
officially dictated at a national level.

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true_tuna
Literally

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SamReidHughes
Title is misleading; this is taking about border control at airports.
Electronic searches way up.

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NowThenGoodBad
How is this misleading?

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SamReidHughes
The headline implies it's about the TSA, or about airports.

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pizzazzaro
Welcome to Fascism, ladies and gentlemen.

No rights, no respect for due process, nobody to call for help.

"Papers, please" was an invasion back in WWII, and here we are being
scrutinized in every modern-conceivable way. Nobody bats an eye?

~~~
iamnotacrook
Security/safety trade-off. You read a lot here about rights, intrusion etc but
this site doesn't cater for people who are representative of most people. Most
people aren't the least bit concerned about the authorities checking their id,
scanning their bags etc at the airport.

~~~
krageon
It's not a trade-off because there isn't a shred of proof that it makes things
safer. We have a term called "security theater" for a reason, and that reason
is this.

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iamnotacrook
X-raying belongings and scanning for guns/knives and swabbing luggage for
explosives is absolutely not security theatre and provides a non-zero chance
of detecting bad actors.

~~~
joshocar
I have kept a cheap pocket knife in my backpack for the last three years of
traveling and TSA has yet to find it. I don't do anything special, it's just
sitting my my bag, and I fly maybe 10-20 times a year, domestic and
international. It's definitely theater to a certain extent. Is there a nonzero
chance of catching a bad actor? Sure, but it's not much higher than zero. They
did find and confiscate a 3/8" driver socket wrench though because it was
longer than 6". Thank God they kept that off the plane...

~~~
devtul
Funny to read that, I forgot my folding knife which has a reasonably big blade
inside my backpack. Went through the security of 3 different countries, no one
found it, was mortified myself to find that huge blade when I arrived.

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davesmith1983
There is a rant/comedy clip where George Carlin explains why nobody has
rights.

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ryanmercer
If needing to walk through a scanning device, having all of my items go
through x-ray, have a dog sniff my crotch, having someone wipe down my stuff
for explosive residue, so I can get on an airplane and reasonably expect to
not have someone hijack it with a gun, bomb or box knife to hold me hostage
for a year or slam me into a skyscraper, then so be it.

I'll walk through the entire airport naked as the day I was born if it deters
even one would-be hijacker or finds one mentally disturbed individual that
wishes to do us harm (example Federal Express Flight 705 where an employee
facing termination flew jump, entered the cockpit with a guitar case
containing hammers and a speargun with the intent to kill the flight crew and
suicide with the plane so his family would get the insurance payout,
fortunately the flight crew managed to subdue him despite suffering serious
injury and safely land the plane).

An airport isn't a place where I expect privacy, or generous freedoms. I'm
getting in a manned missile with tens to hundreds of strangers. Flying on an
airplane is not a constitutional right, it is a privilege. If I have to show
photo ID and go through all the above to be able to get anywhere in the
country in hours, I'm wholly fine with that. If you don't like it, you're more
than welcome to drive hours or days across the country or get on a boat and
spend days and days travelling across the ocean and more days travelling
across a continent by car or train to get to your destination without most of
the security measures.

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BubRoss
You can reasonably expect that without any of this nonsense since it is so
rare that things like that happen.

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ryanmercer
Last year alone TSA discovered 4,239 firearms, 3,656 of which were loaded.

[https://www.tsa.gov/blog/2019/02/07/tsa-year-review-
record-s...](https://www.tsa.gov/blog/2019/02/07/tsa-year-review-record-
setting-2018)

~~~
beepboopbeep
What's your point? Keep in mind the TSA's own internal testing has found them
to be largely ineffective.[1][2]

[1][https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2017/11/09/tsa...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2017/11/09/tsa-
misses-70-of-fake-weapons-but-thats-an-improvement/)

[2][https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/investigation-
breaches-...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/investigation-breaches-us-
airports-allowed-weapons-through-n367851)

~~~
ryanmercer
My point? My point is there were 3,656 less loaded firearms in airplanes last
year in the United States than there would have been without TSA, and
20-something thousand 'dangerous devices' total kept off the flights.

That's 3,656 less chances of a hijacking, or accidental discharges
depressurizing a cabin and causing an emergency landing. Really, the number of
chances is likely higher than that considering many of those instances likely
came with one or more connecting flights.

~~~
smcg
You can still catch those firearms with a simple metal detector. You don't
need device searches or indefinite detention.

