I opt-out of backscatter and millimeter-wave screening every time. I think the TSA is a waste of money and I'd love to see the government take a more calculated approach to security instead of the typical CYA behavior. With that said...
His form of protest is to miss a flight he already paid for and hike/bum rides back to Texas? And asking for donations? This guy is a software engineer at Automattic. He's a WordPress developer. His blog is mostly pictures of vegan meals and unboxings: http://ryan.boren.me/. Considering his lifestyle and likely income, asking for donations seems to be rather poor taste.
Again I agree with his opinions, but his protest is not accomplishing anything useful. The net effect will be to transfer some money and resources from sympathetic people.
I don't want to give the impression that I agree with everything he says - I don't entirely share his dystopic views on the state of the world, and my views on the TSA are more in line with yours - but I think you're being rather ungenerous. The closest he comes to asking for donations is to say:
Several people have already offered places to stay and donated money for travel costs. Thank you so much and be assured that any extra money will be passed on to civil liberties organizations trying to claw back our freedom of movement. I intend to at least double my usual contributions this year.
If you mean the donations link at the top of the page, that's clearly for people who want to send a small something in thanks for Wordpress, and I wouldn't call it distasteful. The world would be a sad place if gift giving were relegated to being soley for charitable causes.
You're right, and I didn't notice that (in my defence, the link is not underlined and the link text is really dark on the non-mobile version of the site, so it was easy to look over). That is a bit more of a call to action than I initially thought. I still don't think it was in quite as bad taste as AngryParsley suggested though.
> Again I agree with his opinions, but his protest is not accomplishing anything useful.
I think a refusal to fly due to security policies is a pretty strong message. If it has come to that, it shows how serious the problem has become and maybe his example will make people do something about it rather than quietly subdue.
One morning at SFO, I was waiting for my pat down, as requested.. The scanner was bogged down with an individual who was continually having to remove jewelry, a watch, a belt, etc as he was re-scanned and re-scanned.
I didn't notice it at first, but a line of individuals (mostly adults) started to form behind me very far away from the scanner. It grew to over a dozen people and it was as if they were just trying to find a place to belong while waiting for their turn.
After getting over my initial shock of the lemming behavior, I noticed the TSA worker frantically waving at me to lead the line through the metal detector.
It was a nice moment to 1) escape a pat down AND a scanner, and 2) in a figurative sense, lead these individuals through a less privacy-invasive screening. But, I was just saddened by how outnumbered I am by people readily willing to give up their rights to privacy.
I concur. After having an awful experience with the TSA a couple days ago, I've also given up flying. The entire process is just insulting. And while I'm sure there's many reasons the airline industry is in trouble, I would wager this is a contributing factor.
Nice move. I did it once to return from Denver to SF, and caught the train. A wonderful experience.
Meanwhile I don't bother visiting the USA much. I could not imagine returning to a life of constant travel there.
I have just gone through the scanners this week, and will do so again next week; I find it more annoying then anything else. However, I do find myself thinking that the Greyhound buses of 30 and 40 years ago had a lot to be said for them--no-hassle travel, and for that matter comfort at least equivalent to coach seats with the current spacing.
I hate that quote. We gave up freedom for safety the minute we instituted government so we could have a society where nerds like Zuck could have tremendous wealth even though he can't very well physically defend it against bigger, stronger people. We are so many sheep in the midst of a handful of wolves, and we wanted a society where the sheep could rule, and so we traded some freedoms we had in the statute of nature (the freedom to use force) in return for collective safety.
This isn't a matter of whether you give up freedom for safety. It's about how you balance the competing concerns of freedom and security, both of which are important. I certainly agree TSA doesn't strike the right balance, but it's not because its a trade of freedom for security but because it gives you very little security in return for the onerous and invasive process it creates.
Obviously part of the reason you hate that quote is that it's a misquote.
It was written in 1755 by a then-loyal subject of George II. It's uncertain --- maybe even a little unlikely --- that Franklin was even its author. The quote is taken from a letter from the whole of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the governor of Pennsylvania. Franklin denied authorship of the compilation from which it's taken.
The quote itself is: "Thofe who would give up essential liberty to purchafe a little temporary safety deferve neither liberty nor safety".
Note the words "essential" and "a little temporary". The letter to the governor isn't an extended treatise on the rights of man; it concerns the utility of a bill funding the protection of far-flung frontier settlements in the context of the French & Indian War. The words mean what they say: it's bad to trade essential freedoms for small amounts of temporary security. The PA assembly wasn't interested in helping us with situations involving ephemeral freedoms or large amounts of transient security or small amounts of important security.
It doesn't help that this quote started a centuries-long game of telephone almost immediately.
You are of course right in the broader sense. The quote as it's usually deployed on message boards is borderline nonsensical. Benjamin Franklin signed the US Constitution, which is the world's oldest enforced contract regarding the exchange of liberties for security.
Let's have both. Freedom planes for me, with sane boarding procedures, and safety planes for you, with 4 hour waits while everyone is xrayed, strip-searched, and cavity inspected.
I don't begrudge you your choice of guaranteed safety, hopefully you will not begrudge me mine of privacy and freedom.
I take the train because I can't stand the TSA, and I'm willing to take my chances that someone fires an RPG at a train somewhere along the 500 miles of completely out in the open track on the Northeast Regional.
My point is that the TSA is bad not because "zOMG any impingement on freedom is bad!" but because it's just bad. They are too invasive for the imagined security benefits they provide against improbable threats.
But going from that to "those who trade freedom for safety deserve neither" is silly. I purposefully choose to live in a city (New York) that has a massive police presence. Why? Because I think its a reasonable trade-off of a little freedom for substantial security. Manhattan is like Disneyland now, and it's great, and I don't care if I would theoretically be more free if there weren't a cop on every corner. We trade freedom for security all the time--it's called organized civilization, and it's a good thing.
> Freedom planes for me, with sane boarding procedures, and safety planes for you, with 4 hour waits while everyone is xrayed, strip-searched, and cavity inspected.
Thank you for trying to skew the Overton Window in such an obvious fashion. Let's try something else:
For you, there are Liberty Planes™, with no metal detectors, no bomb detectors, and no sky marshals. In addition, alcohol is served on every flight. For the rest of us, air security is scaled back to what it was September 10, 2001. Fair?
Blaming it on the lay people rather than working to change the mindset and the elected officials that enable this will go nowhere.
I hadn't been to heathrow in years. Liquids, a kid going loose, and a few other incidents started there. They still use metal detectors and you only need to remove your shoes under some cases. They do require that most devices the size of a kindle or larger be out on its own.
Contrast that with SFO which uses private contractors and used to be less inane than the typical TSA. Now, they are in someways worse. Serious attitudes when opting out. TSA, generally consistent in that it is the exception path in the policy.
In order to change things like TSA in the US, it will need to start with voters and electing candidates that have a clue. Unfortunately, in the US, we have two minority voting blocks - the informed voter that votes what they feel; and the idiot voter that votes what they are whipped up by some emotion into doing so -- this category typically caters to the Bush is an idiot, Obama is a Muslim, or Obama wants our guns crowd. The silent, non-voting crowd could help out here.
Deciding to drive or train may work for you, but it changes very little.
Isn't the actual quote more lengthy? As in: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." from Memoirs of the life and writings of Benjamin Franklin (1818).
It makes the difference (it refutes the "we give up freedom by being civilized" argument that's floating around) but it still works concerning the TSA and such.
The actual quote is a lot better, because it immediately invites debate over what is an 'essential liberty', which is entirely the point. That is, in fact, the entire point of having a government in the first place.
As far as I'm aware, the new full-body scanners don't record a detailed picture of your body – they just flash green for OK, or red for 'potential bad guy' (at least this seems to be the case in Amsterdam). Thoughts?
His form of protest is to miss a flight he already paid for and hike/bum rides back to Texas? And asking for donations? This guy is a software engineer at Automattic. He's a WordPress developer. His blog is mostly pictures of vegan meals and unboxings: http://ryan.boren.me/. Considering his lifestyle and likely income, asking for donations seems to be rather poor taste.
Again I agree with his opinions, but his protest is not accomplishing anything useful. The net effect will be to transfer some money and resources from sympathetic people.