You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!
Fear of flying in today’s America.
George Orwell was right. He was just 25 years ahead of his time.
Big Brother is not only watching, Big Brother is shoving his hand up our collective keesters, pulling out encrypted data bases of private information and I don’t think we care. In fact, we are adamantly demanding that our flatulent law makers hold congressional hearings to make flying even more restrictive.
Why more restrictions? Let’s start with the threat of terrorism; actual acts versus potential threats.
Whether there is an explosion or not, the terrorists win. Let me explain.
Though the latest Christmas day plot in Detroit was unsuccessful, in many ways the underwear bomb that didn’t explode worked just as it was intended.
It frightened us. It made us feel vulnerable. It reopened fears of security inadequacy. Planes are routinely grounded now because a passenger acts “oddly.” We stand in security carousels that resemble bread lines of the great depression.
Just to fly to Akron.
Airport personnel now make us put our figurative genitalia in a vice that squeezes so hard it hurts. What do we do? We grin and bear it because everyone would rather be “inconvenience than dead.”
I’ll drink to safety over death any day. But I also wonder if I am sacrificing many of the freedoms that I am entitled to simply because a crazy man’s underpants didn’t ignite?
News of the failed bombing dominated world news. Fear that has been there since 9 1 1, gurgling in your stomach, once again surfaced like so much stomach bile burning your esophagus.
Security threats on the national terrorism color charts suddenly turned as dark as tornado warnings on your local weather channel. Security scrutinization at every airport for tens of millions of fliers intensified instantaneously, like TSA fire ants gnawing their way up your pant leg.
For terrorists, a failed attempt is almost as good as a successful attempt. Thank God nobody died. But the end result is the same. Fear of flying. It’s been years since the shoe bomb failed and we have simply accepted the lines at the TSA screening checkpoints. We take off our shoes and suffer the indignity of TSA screeners with less education and social status eye balling us, deciding whether we need to be wanded in secondary inspection.
And there’s more to come my crazy friends.
Soon we will walk through machines that will be able to tell women the sex of their unborn babies and tell men whether they have prostate cancer. The machines will see your junk, supposedly to see if you are hiding a gun or bomb next to your loins. The check points are so invasive, soon we’ll feel as if we are going to prison instead of going to visit grandma.
And the intrusion doesn’t end at a cavity search, they are beginning to probe our data bases too.
What do I mean?
According to a published report on the topic:
Domestic travelers have become familiar with intrusions and searches at Transportation Security Administration security checkpoints. But as the ACLU has recently discovered, international travelers are not only having their laptops seized and searched by Customs and Border Protection, but agents are making copies of files and giving them to third-party agencies. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the government, which turned over hundreds of pages of documents revealing startling information about how much access—and how little oversight—agents have to your laptops when you travel.
According to the report; agents searched over 1,500 devices, including laptops, thumb drives, cell phones, and DVDs. Last year, agents transferred 282 files from these devices to third-parties. Under current policy, CBP is not required to justify the searches. Interestingly, of those files, only four were justified under “national security” concerns, and apparently encrypted files were sent to unknown agencies for “translation/decryption”.
George Orwell are you listening? 1 9 8 4! It’s finally here.
When the government can look up my ass while accessing my personal information, then the Orwellian vision of totalitarianism is enveloping us like a blanket of apathy.
It’s happening right now, but we are obdurate to it because it’s happening under the guise of safety. We’re like pigs standing in line for slaughter and we don’t even know our freedoms are about to be chopped into pulled pork sandwiches. “As long as we arrrive safely,” we’re willing to sacrifice convenience and freedoms.
Who said terrorists haven’t succeeded since 2001? That’s all they’ve done is terrorize us. Everything has changed. Shampoo in a carry on bag is now a threat? A nail file on a child’s key chain is now a security issue? A watch list? A 1000 yard stare? A long beard and dark skin? It’s all now a reason to feel uncomfortable and threatened.
Big Brother is watching. He is everywhere now, thanks to the interconnectivity of the internet. He can send you a ticket for running a red light through the mail. He knows your buying habits because you own cable tv.
Nowhere is Big Brother more prevalent and citizens more passive than at the airports. It’s here that we are physically touched, and probed and lined you up like the lambs we are becoming.
Safety for all Versus the Freedom of the individual.
The see-saw of rights is no longer balanced.
Mr. Orwell, we’ll need you to step into secondary inspection please, your junk looks suspicious.
And that is crazy