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Opt-Out Day an Unqualified Success
The statist media's spin on National Opt-Out day is that it was a failure:
As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport said 39 (out of 47,000) fliers opted out of the scanners. All continued to their flights after being screened, while at LAX, there were 113 opt-outs across eight terminals, which was less than 1 percent of the total travelers screened.
(ABC.)
In the spirit of Defending People (by sticking it to The Man), let's look at that analysis.
There are many ways to measure success. It could be measured, as its organizers say, by awareness raised. In those terms, it was a glowing success. People, including congresscritters (PDF) are asking tough questions. (But The Fourth Estate is not-God forbid; the Government's rooster will not vacuum itself.)
More Statistics
Marc A. Thiessen, writing in National Review Online, is apparently shocked. Shocked:
The current uproar could happen only in a country that has begun to forget the horror of 9/11. Indeed, it appears many in the country have forgotten. A new Washington Post–ABC News poll found that 66 percent of Americans say that "the risk of terrorism on airplanes is not that great." Sixty-six percent.
What does "not that great" mean? Here (PollingReport.com) is the polling question to which 66% responded "not that great":
"Are you personally worried about traveling by commercial airplane because of the risk of terrorism, or do you think the risk is not that great?"
So "not that great" means "not so great that I am personally worried about traveling by commercial airplane," which, given the minimal danger of boarding a commercial aircraft even in 2001, is a perfectly rational position to take. Even in 2001, the risk of terrorism was not so great that it would have made sense to drive a hundred miles or more instead of flying.
Domestic Extremists, Unite!
The memo, which actually takes the form of an administrative directive, appears to be the product of undated but recent high level meetings between Napolitano, John Pistole, head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA),and one or more of Obama's national security advisors. This document officially addresses those who are opposed to, or engaged in the disruption of the implementation of the enhanced airport screening procedures as "domestic extremists."....It labels any person who "interferes" with TSA airport security screening procedure protocol and operations by actively objecting to the established screening process, "including but not limited to the anticipated national opt-out day" as a "domestic extremist." The label is then broadened to include "any person, group or alternative media source" that actively objects to, causes others to object to, supports and/or elicits support for anyone who engages in such travel disruptions at U.S. airports in response to the enhanced security procedures.....For "any person, group or domestic alternative media source" that actively objects to, causes others to object to, supports and/or elicits support for anyone who engages in such travel "disruptions" at U.S. airports (as defined above) in response to the enhanced security procedures, the [applicable DHS administrative branch] is instructed to identify and collect information about the persons or entities, and submit such information in the manner outlined [within this directive].
Okay, But Let's Haggle About the Price
"I just want to arrive safely, and they are welcome to take pictures of me, my wife, and my daughters." That's from the comments to Ruth Marcus's Don't Touch My Junk? Grow Up, America.
I can't make this stuff up:
a. Sometimes I understand why people are afraid to use their names on the internet-postsucks99‘s wife and daughters might not already know what a spineless beta he is.b. In the future, "whatever it takes" will include cavity searches. Please prepare your womenfolk. Your statist overlords thank you for your advance approval.c. "Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!"
Transportation Economics [Math Fixed]
Suppose that it's 1 January 2001, and you know that at some point in the next 12 months terrorists will take down four airplanes, killing more than 500 passengers. You have a job that requires you to travel from Houston to Newark at least once and up to twelve times. By road, you live 20 miles from the Houston airport and work 10 miles from the Newark airport.
Which would be the safer travel plan?:
To drive once; or
To fly twelve times?
(Never mind the added danger of being murdered in Newark, or of slipping and falling in an unfamiliar hotel tub. We're just talking transportation safety.)
In 2001, by far the most dangerous year in recent history for U.S. commercial aviation, there were 0.85 fatalities per million passenger emplanements and.0096 fatalities per million highway passenger miles.
It's a 3,242 mile driving round trip. So each time you drive you've got a 31-in-a-million (3,242 ×.0096) chance of dying on the highway.
Tom DeLay, Convicted Felon
Tom DeLay has been convicted of Money Laundering and Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering.
He'll be going to the court for punishment; range is 2-20 on the conspiray and 5-life on the substantive offense. I think probation's a safe bet.
Submit!
What's another word for unquestioning compliance? Submission.
And what's the Arabic word for submission? Islam.
Islam is about submission to the will of God, but Islamic fundamentalists want people to submit to what they say is the will of God. So-assuming that they are no more inerrant than the rest of us-what they want is unquestioning compliance with them.
So in a way, when you think about it, these guys want the same thing from us:
Lie Back and Think of England
LA Times Editorial Board to the public: "Shut up and be scanned." I kid you not. (Matt Welch at Reason has collated a list of other editorial boards publicly supporting TSA's new "Scan or Grope" policy.)
Aside from "scanners are safe" and "Scan or Grope keeps us safe," here's the LA TImes's analysis of the objections to Scan-or-Grope:
There's no bright line to indicate where our quest for security becomes intolerably invasive of our privacy, but we're still pretty sure the TSA hasn't yet crossed it. Although the pat-downs are seriously embarrassing, they're also usually voluntary - to avoid them, you just have to go through the scanner....So, it's reasonable to ask, what's next? Anal probes at the airport? It's safe to say that if the TSA gets to that point, it will have crossed the line, and it might be time to explore less invasive methods. Meanwhile, though, a full-body scan isn't a terribly high price to pay for a measure of peace of mind.
The Big DIfference
Quoth a TSA screener talking to Flying With Fish: "There is a big difference between how I pat passengers down and a molester molesting people."
Let's try that on for size.Imagine two people. Both of them wear TSA uniforms and work in the security line in Terminal C at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental airport. Both of them gripe the same way about their job in the break room and wear the same reluctant expression when they grope passengers. But while A is an ordinary hardworking person who is just doing her job, B is a stone cold sociopath who gets a dopamine rush from feeling unwilling strangers' bodies in intimate ways.
What's the big difference? A and B have different specific intents and feel differently about their actions, but even A can't detect any difference between what B is doing and what A is doing. And neither can the other six-billion-plus people on the planet-except, perhaps, for B. B can tell the difference because she already knows she's different.
Moral Foundations: Four Out of Five Ain't Bad
With Gaterapegate, the TSA has ticked at least four of the five boxes in Moral Foundations Theory (I mentioned the theory, but I see that I never wrote the promised followup):
Harm / care;Fairness / reciprocity;Ingroup / loyalty;Authority / respect; andPurity / sanctity.
Harm / care? Check. TSA wants us to step into a machine that will irradiate us. Sure, they say it's perfectly safe, but not everyone agrees. And besides, this is a population that is concerned with the radiation from high-power lines.
Fairness / reciprocity? Check. TSA wants to be able to grope us, but we can't grope them.
Authority / respect? Check. This foundation involves deference to legitimate authority. People to whom authority and respect are important (generally political "conservatives") will defer to legitimate authority. But legitimate authority is not despotic, exploitative, or inept. (See Jonathan Haidt and Jesse Graham, When Morality Opposes Justice: Conservatives Have Moral Intuitions that Liberals may not Recognize, 2006.) When TSA is seen as having these traits, the authority / respect balance shifts, and becomes about the individual being treated with respect: these people work for us; how dare they do that?
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