On: For the First Time, the TSA Meets Resistance

[psadauskas]

I would love to stand up to it, but I'd really just rather get to my vacation place. If it didn't cost several hundred dollars for a plane ticket to get to that point, I would just drive down to the airport and do it. I guess we could all print fake boarding passes, though.

[mixmax → psadauskas]

They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Martin Niemöller

[sliverstorm → mixmax]

That's a quote about discrimination. I don't see how it applies; we are all being discriminated against equally in this case.

[mixmax → sliverstorm]

It's a quote about standing up to tyranny, and the fact that if you don't speak up when someone else is discriminated against you may be next in line.

I think it applies very well in this case.

[hurfadurf → mixmax]

It's a quote about slippery slopes that uses discrimination as an example. As is popular with that quote, we could adapt it into something a bit more applicable:

They first made us run our shoes through the X-Ray machine, and I complied because it wasn't that big a deal.

Then, they installed the full-body scanners, and I complied because I just wanted to get home for Christmas.

Then, they started requiring social security numbers when buying plane tickets.

Then, they began keeping all air travellers' fingerprints and retina scans on file...

The question is not against whom they're discriminating (clearly, that's not applicable in this case), it's to what length they (and, by extension, we) are willing to go.

[rapind → hurfadurf]

While you're slippery slope description is entirely valid on it's own. It's not the gist of the quote.

This is about apathy towards injustices that don't directly impact you and a lack of foresight. I.e. Wow that's so wrong, I'd raise a stink if it happened to me.

[sliverstorm → mixmax]

Yes, but it all hinges on when they 'discriminate against someone else'. They are discriminating against EVERYONE, is my point. But oh well.

[Dove → sliverstorm]

The 'someone else' is air travellers. When a major terrorist plot succeeds using a car, cell phone, or computer, a different group will suffer.

The question at hand is, "What is acceptable in the name of defending ourselves against terrorism?" And "How effective do these measures have to be to be worth the tradeoff?" and "Who is accountable for measuring and deciding that?"

It makes sense to make a principled case even if the problem currently limited to air travellers. If "oversight is unnecessary, just do whatever you think will keep people safe" gets enshrined in popular opinion, it's going to be ugly when they get to the internet.

[gizmomagico → Dove]

"How effective do these measures have to be to be worth the tradeoff?"

More effective than "security theater".

[Dove → gizmomagico]

If only someone were accountable for measuring that . . .

[sprout → psadauskas]

>I guess we could all print fake boarding passes, though.

That would actually be really effective. What's a good upcoming holiday to pull that as an act of civil disobedience? Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving might be an ideal day to reassert our belief in freedom as a people. Not flag-waving, not heavily political, just stopping by the airport to wish our loved ones off with a fake boarding pass.

And refusing the scanner.