The broad and vague ruling that enables the TSA to do anything they want in airports[0] can (and will) be applied to just about any public event. It's probably just a matter of a few years or so before the TSA is searching us at virtually all public gatherings. And there isn't a damn thing we can do about it.
The headline should read "everywhere _in the US_".
Your comment should read "all public gatherings _in the US_".
There is indeed something you can do about it. You can go live in a country where there is no TSA. (This has the added benefit of your productive energies no longer helping fund the TSA, as well, for incomes below about $92,000.)
A dozen countries have a similar standard of living as the US, and many of those are substantially more free.
> "There is indeed something you can do about it. You can go live in a country where there is no TSA"
In other words, give up?
I find it ludicrous (and terrifying) when statements like this are made. This isn't some web-app whose terms of service you don't like, it's a nation state. People throughout history took to the streets to win freedom/voting right/etc. If no-one's left fighting back then expect to get trampled. Soon there'll be nowhere left to move.
> This isn't some web-app whose terms of service you don't like, it's a nation state. People throughout history took to the streets to win freedom/voting right/etc.
Historically, it was much harder and more expensive to move your entire life to another country (and maintain your social and economic ties). People were vastly better off staying put.
Today, that's simply not the case. I moved across an ocean to avoid participating in the US economy in a positive way (insofar as that is practically possible being a denizen of the Internet) for under $1500 and all while maintaining my personal and professional connections to those still resident there.
Perhaps this antique notion of "taking to the streets to win freedom" was the appropriate choice, then.
I know for a fact that today it is not only demonstrably ineffective, but also entirely unnecessary.
The problem is that after a while you'll notice that every country's government is partly corrupt and every country has ridiculous laws that, at some point, are going to affect you.
It might be less bad in Luxembourg than it is in the US, but it is a common trend that if a small group of countries move their laws and regulations in a particular direction, other countries with a comparable culture and standard of living are prone to follow sooner or later.
You can keep fleeing to the next non-sucky country, but in theory, you're going to run out of countries at some point. Maybe not in your lifetime, so your solution is practical, but if it becomes widely adopted, I think we're going to get a problem.
Afaik, there's no indication that countries whose people leave en masse change their laws, regulations and institutions to try and fix it. Thus, I doubt that "voting with your feet" like you can do in a market economy works with countries. Try and find a Macedonian with a university degree in Macedonia, for example.
> You can keep fleeing to the next non-sucky country, but in theory, you're going to run out of countries at some point. Maybe not in your lifetime, so your solution is practical, but if it becomes widely adopted, I think we're going to get a problem.
Eventually, some countries are likely to decide they want to suck less, or get changed by revolutions etc, and then you can switch to one of those.
It's complicated, of course. The smaller the ruling elite, the less prosperous the whole country will be, but the ruling elite itself is just fine with that.
> is a common trend that if a small group of countries move their laws and regulations in a particular direction, other countries with a comparable culture and standard of living are prone to follow sooner or later.
You can move to a country with a different culture, or at least different enough. Some of them are in the East, like Hong Kong and Singapore, but there are some in the West too, like Iceland. According to Transparency International they are less corrupt than the US.
> I moved across an ocean to avoid participating in the US economy in a positive way (insofar as that is practically possible being a denizen of the Internet) for under $1500 and all while maintaining my personal and professional connections to those still resident there.
The education that gives you the skills that allow you entry to another country cost significantly more than $1,500.
Don't you still need to file tax returns in the US?
Agreed. And to take it a step further: the US is still a powerful force in both world politics and military might. If all the people in the US who care about these issues simply give up and leave, do you really think the remainder of the US will simply let everyone else in the world live they way they want to?
We can already see the effects of this trend in how the US tries to "harmonize" copyright/patents/etc. law in other countries with its own. Any time I'm in an airport in a country where the US deems security insufficient, there's extra security at the gate for flights to the US. These things spread slowly, but surely.
I believe that it has to get worse in the US before it can get better, and I refuse to use violence to accomplish my goals.
Therefore, it will take several years, and will require the vast majority of the people who comprise the US's competitive advantage over other countries leaving, first, before the true change really starts.
You don't undo things like the NSA's global wiretapping efforts with a direct, frontal assault. If they cared about the fact that it is blatantly, totally illegal, they never would have begun it in the first place.
You have to attack the roots, and that's the economy, and the tax base. This will likely not be solved in my lifetime, unfortunately.
I was finding some of your comments in this thread inspiring, but you are completlely wrong in this one.
To change the USA politically, it's necessary to change it culturally.
Attacking the roots means attacking the ideas, not the economy.
Say the economy totally collapses, which seems to be the strategy you're advocating. Will the outcome you want come about? No; we will see more facism; the collapse will be blamed on the country not being godly enough by the conservatives, and on capitalists being too greedy by the liberals, who will insist on running even farther from economic freedom (and prosperity).
The solution is to change the ideas of the society to be more principled and pro-freedom.
I do agree with you that it's unlikely to be solved in our lifetimes, though. Changing a culture traditionally has taken generations. Now we're in the information age, so that might help, but there are too few fighting for good ideas; the vast majority of people are accepting more bad ideas, and most people who are fighting are fighting on the wrong side.
> Say the economy totally collapses, which seems to be the strategy you're advocating. Will the outcome you want come about? No; we will see more facism; the collapse will be blamed on the country not being godly enough by the conservatives, and on capitalists being too greedy by the liberals, who will insist on running even farther from economic freedom (and prosperity).
You say "we", as if in that scenario you'd still be there.
I see no other practical method of getting the US government off the fiber backbones and out of the closets of carriers short of undermining the country's competitive advantage in the world economy, and even that will take dozens of years.
The USA PATRIOT Act was 10 years old in October of 2011. The 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th amendments are dead and buried, and the only response to new laws further abridging those rights we used to have under them is "lol" (e.g. The Daily Show, Colbert Report).
It's delusional to think that it's going to somehow get better when doing so would require large popular support from people who really don't give a fuck about anything and can't be effectively reached en masse save via military-industrial-complex controlled mass media channels that dissenting opinions aren't given access to (e.g. the most recent series of presidential debates).
> I see no other practical method of getting the US government off the fiber backbones and out of the closets of carriers short of undermining the country's competitive advantage in the world economy, and even that will take dozens of years.
They're never going to stop doing that, unless we have a complete cultural upheaval. They'd get rid of all other government spending, and then try to tax at up to 100%, to continue domestic spying and other basic violations.
In other worlds, in a total collapse, the last sphere of "economic" activity still existing would be the bad stuff run by government thugs.
> can't be effectively reached en masse save via military-industrial-complex controlled mass media channels that dissenting opinions aren't given access to
If you think there's some kind of conspiracy to control the media, the burden of proof is on you. The incompetence and bizarreness you're observing is because our intellectual culture is just that bad.
I mean, intellegent people still learned about the "major" alternative candidates (e.g. from the Libertarians and Greens) in this election. Things are still way better than in the time of pamphlets and horses and stuff.
But yes, I'm with you that it's possibly too late for the US, and I'm open to leaving in the future, even though I actually love it here and wouldn't prefer to live anywhere else.
It was pg who wrote (in Good Bad Attitude, H&P p. 55):
> It would be ironic if, as hackers fear, recent measures intended to protect national security and intellectual property turned out to be a missile aimed right at what makes America successful.
Short of violence, I would like to do everything possible to accelerate that realization in the minds of as many Americans as possible.
I think the best way to do that is to respond appropriately: leave, and go live/work in, support, and pay taxes to other countries instead.
Can you imagine the next Facebook or Google being started somewhere that isn't the USA? I can. Those that are paying attention are starting to realize just how bad the situation there has become.
I was actually talking about it with my roommate: if the next big companies could pop from other countries than the USA
And it's actually hard the believe and here is why:
- The USA is one big country one over 300millions people, one main language, one main culture, one currency ... and a shit lot of money ready to be invested
- When you start a company in France only 60 million people few investors, a small startup world, ...
And if i want to expand my company to europe, i need to get the different languages, different culture, different bank and sometimes different currency.
And if you want to invest it's harder because the VC system is different, they are not much a big fan of competition.
It's a pain is the ass to grow big quickly there and also the mentality is different.
If a tree falls on your house and splits the roof wide open, allowing snow and rain to fall onto your bed, is it giving up to go and live in another building until the damage is repaired?
There are plenty fighting back - just not in the USA, as the window for meaningful and peaceful dissent there is now closed.
If you don't see that this is true today, I urge you to research the history of the US federal government's suppression of dissent over the last 20 years.
It's awful to argue this by analogy. If your house is full of termites, you leave, cover the house with a tent, and fumigate the inside. Should we leave the US, kill anyone who's left, and come back to a deinfested US?
Even under your analogy, you're giving one interpretation. You could be over-exaggerating the effect of the tree because you're a perfectionist who runs from the least bit of trouble. The tree might have fallen, broken a couple of roof tiles, an eave, and a window. Sure, snow and rain can come into the bed, which is right next to the window, but a tarp can easily cover the damage and you can stay in the house while you get someone to fix it.
Just because you say that the situation in the US is unlivable doesn't mean that others generally agree with your view, or even that you are right. No amount of argument by analogy, no matter how visceral, will help.
I can explain it: It is not "giving up" to leave a physical location that is uninhabitable.
When you can't freely transfer money or have private electronic conversations (telephone, SMS, email, whatever) as a median citizen not under suspicion of a crime, you must leave the place in which you are, just as you would have to leave your private home if it were completely flooded or exposed to the elements.
I completely disagree with that and the recent events in the middle east tend to prove i'm right.
People stood up for their right and gain more freedom.
They didn't leave the country they stayed and did what they believe was the right thing to do for the country they love.
And it seems to work.
And by the way the people who already left the country and are actually living in europe did nothing because they now have a jobs, families, ... So they have way more to lose by fighting for the right of they original country than doing nothing.
Sure it does. OWS was everyday people visibly and peacefully saying that they are unhappy with the way life is treating them. They were then treated as terrorists by the FBI. This sends the signal that unless you are willing to be treated as an enemy of the state, don't complain. Saying this is "uninhabitable" for normal, happy, productive people is not a widely held opinion, but it is rational.
How do you compare OWS and a house crashed by a tree. It doesn't make sense at all.
The fair comparaison with a house crashed by a tree would the hurricane Katrina.
American illusion of freedom isn't something easy to grasp for people from "less free" countries who are, for instance, able to travel freely to Cuba.
American expats who moved permanently abroad have to file their taxes with IRS forever. In any European state your last contact with the country's Revenue is for the last year you lived there (unless you still have income in this country). You don't have to file anything, ever. You're free to go.
From that standpoint, Americans are effectively property of their government.
You can go live in a country where there is no TSA.
This is possible/easy only if:
1. You have enough knowledge, skill sets to get a job in the "dozen countries"
2. Or, have enough money to start a business
3. Don't have family commitments, kids etc
4. The U.S is still the best place to be, if you are in tech and few other sectors
Also, it amounts to giving up. What if you relocate to a new country, and the same thing happens there too? There is no guarantee that it wouldn't happen.
That said, could you please list the dozen countries you mentioned? Just curious to know.
I'd be very interested in it too. I've heard lots of good things about Canada, but there aren't many tech jobs there (at least compared to the U.S, I might be wrong)
While I agree with your similar standard of living statement, I'm not sure that I could name a country that is "substantially more free" with a comparable standard of living. We may have differing definitions of free, but things like relatively unrestricted free speech, minmal taxation, gun rights, etc are all very important and many countries just don't have them in the same degree as we do here.
They may have similar, or in many cases higher, standards of living, but I don't think you can make the argument that they're "more free." Not that America is really all that free anymore either....
A Ghandi-style peaceful protest would fare better than what the occupy movement did. I went to the one in London and saw that the protesters were following police orders to, for example, stay in one place. This is not the way to make your voice heard and it's not what Ghandi did.
You can have an active, non-violent protest. This entails disobeying any and all orders from the authorities (e.g. blocking major roads and refusing to move unless taken by force), blocking access to important buildings, blocking access to police and government vehicles, using smoke bombs - anything which causes chaos but does not physically hurt anyone. The point is to cause as much of a problem as possible without enacting bodily harm to another.
> An avowed pacifist, he saw non-cooperation as a training in self-sacrifice. In Gandhi’s dictum, non-violent, non-cooperation was "a method of search for social truth."
> He cautioned that non-cooperation does not apply to service under private individuals. Its efficacy lay in voluntary withdrawal from the affairs of the State, an expression of popular discord, causing discomfort to government.
> "Satyagraha literally means insistence on truth."
You can have an active, non-violent protest. This entails disobeying any and all orders from the authorities
What you saw in London was not representative. OWS (possibly not every instance) was doing this when they were removed by pepper spray and bulldozers. There was at least one incident where an individual was hospitalized after being hit in the head by a ballistic tear gas or smoke canister. He was not attended to by the police who injured him. Perhaps they could have been organized more effectively, but I'm not convinced that there is an amateur organization capable of peacefully resisting our current federal forces.
It would appear that that's exactly what he's doing. It's not a bad tactic, though costly, and only effective if you can get dozens and dozens of thousands to participate.
None of the movements had any leadership or organized goals whatsoever. In a world where so many have so much access, those that took part in the protests were essentially cut off from many people who wanted to learn more about them.
> and passengers may avoid the search by electing
> not to fly
Tell that to the people that were threatened with fines when they backed out of the screenings once they got to the front of the line and didn't want to be groped or subjected to backscatter x-rays... The idea being that once you entered the line for the security checkpoint, that you were not allowed to leave.
I'm already thinking it's too late to prevent the US (and most of the Western World) from becoming an Orwellian dystopia. The US is already more corrupt than Singapore, a country with no democracy:
This just goes to show that democracy and transparency / non-corruption do not march in lockstep. (By the way, I just moved to Singapore from Britain. It's nice here.)
Well, yes. Given that the reason that Singapore scores poorly is due to low pluralism, low political participation, and a weak press. It's a democracy by the merits that most people prefer: legislators and executives are elected, there's a rule of law, etc. It's not a democracy in the same ways the US and virtually all non-Scandinavian countries aren't: too much authoritarianism, too little citizen participation, etc. The difference is in degree.
Well, yeah. It's exactly the lemming nature that is unwilling to try for something better. You're following it; I'm following it. The difference between us isn't that one's a cynic and one's not. The difference is that I know how much of a complete failure I am for not pushing back hard enough.
You guys are my justification for saying, "Stop trying. It's not worth it." So thanks. I've been thinking I'll try out the whole happiness thing for a bit this year. See how that goes.
Because that's what it's going to take to reverse this trend. We need hundreds/thousands of non-violent protesters politely and professionally refusing these intrusions and getting arrested for it. Until that happens these intrusions will continue.
I'm simply pointing out that until mass non-violent protest and the accompanying mass arrests civil liberties will continue to degrade. I never said it was going to happen. I just said it's what needs to happen.
I'm not condoning the TSA in any way (I also think it is a deplorable organization), but as a biologist I feel compelled to state that you receive vastly more ionizing radiation looking out the window of your plane than you do in the one of the TSA scanners.
Again, not condoning the invasion of privacy for security theater, but the "threat" of ionizing radiation is almost always over-stated.
An average human receives 10 uSv during an average day from background radiation, and 40 uSv on a cross-country flight. Living in Denver, CO for a year will expose you to 1800 uSv.
I get that and I appreciate the additional info on radiation exposures (I had not seen the 2nd link you posted before).
I was trying to imply that the argument of "it's not that bad" can quickly become moot considering that imaging companies have more powerful scanners standing by for purchase & use. It really becomes a question of how much is too much? And, for what benefit am I being dosed with an extra amount of radiation?
Unfortunately, most travelers are unaware that they are even being dosed with radiation by a scanner. No doubt, the TSA would like to keep that fact hidden.
Yeah, I agree that it is a slippery slope. The difference between their two models right now is the difference between someone throwing dust at you, vs throwing grains of rice. Neither hurt...but it could quickly escalate to throwing pennies or bricks.
And for basically no value-add, since it's the TSA.
All in all, I think the TSA is awful and would love them gone. At the very least there should be regulation on the max amount of radiation that is allowed by a machine (not sure if this exists).
That the TSA is expanding its scope should surprise nobody. It's what bureaucracies do. Also it wasn't named the ASA (Airport Security Administration) it was named something much less specific. Probably won't be long before they're patrolling interstate highways in stealth-black Dodge Chargers with officious logos on the sides.
I wonder what private contractors in Irak will do when their assignment there is over. IIRC there was many of them. Trained men with real OT experience, that used to be well-paid...
Both parties already agree. They agree that de-funding the TSA is political suicide. Especially if any sort of terrorist attack happens. Even if the public doesn't attempt to point fingers, political opponents will (during the next re-election campaign most likely).
Every time I hear about the TSA trying to expand to other places such as this, I can't help but think they are like the Westboro Baptist Church of the government agencies.. and I believe that's really saying something.
That's right TSA, congratulations on accomplishing the impossible and becoming more hated than the I.R.S.
If you only would use your power for good and not evil.
It would seem that if a sporting event is held on private property (e.g., Madison Square Garden), the TSA would need to be invited by the property owners before it could operate there.
A very small percentage of Americans ever enter an airport. If the TSA presence expands beyond that their tactics will be felt by a far greater percentage of voting americans. It may be that expanding beyond airports will be very detrimental to the TSA's longevity.
Mainly by the FBI, based on that wikipedia article.
FBI: Hey, do you want to blow something up?
Terrorist: OK
FBI: Here's a bomb, go blow something up.
Terrorist: OK
[click]
FBI: You're under arrest!
Sure, the guy committed a crime, but was I wouldn't say the event was "targeted to be blown up". It was a sting operation. A small probability threat was amplified by the FBI for the purpose of making a case. Does that justify TSA goons everywhere? The same ones that won't let you bring your bottle of Coke on an airplane?
Governments love to use "larger than life" enemies to justify a disproportionate invasion of liberty. It used to be Communists, now it's Terrorists.
When you read the actual indictments and court transcripts in cases like this, the would-be terrorists turn out to be nothing like the passive actor you hypothesize here, but rather display a fair degree of initiative; they have typically come to the FBI's attention because people around them are alarmed by their aspirations and report them to law enforcement.
There are tough legal questions about where the borderline between facilitation and encouragement lies. But someone who willingly goes through the steps required t detonate what they believe to be a fully armed truck bomb is not a mere innocent victim. The correct answer to 'Hey, do you want to blow something up?' is 'No, because that would be crazy and horrible.'
I didn't say the man was innocent. What I said was that the event the parent poster referred to was not really targeted by terrorists, but rather by an FBI sting operation. This means that the event was never in any real danger, and using it to justify expanding TSA security theater is not valid.
I think that's a faulty generalization. Since I read criminal indictments for fun I'm quite familiar with the FBI's methods. Please don't take this to mean I think they're always ethical, legal, or effective.
You shouldn't change your assessment of the risks just because you almost got unlucky. It's like suddenly deciding that lottery tickets are a good investment just because you know someone who won.
Without belittling the realization of ones own mortality which is a very healthy thing, the question here isn't whether a police state "makes us safer" (it probably does) but what level of trade off between civil liberties and privacy we are willing to make to be safer.
Since being safer is infinitely possible and impossible to measure, we should start and end the conversation with civil liberty, not with safety. Do you want the government to try to perform stings on would-be terrorists, potentially entrapping otherwise innocent people? I'm ok with that. Do you want a government agency to have sweeping search and detention rights with cause or warrant? I do not.
As others have noted, anecdotal evidence is the enemy of reason when cases of actual terrorist attack are so infrequent versus the frequent antiterrorist measures taken "at" you.
Police states are notoriously unsafe. While they may keep you safe from independent criminals, your risk of being victimized by the government itself goes way up.
Even if your premise is valid, do you believe the people at U.S. airports are "anti-terrorist teams"?
Dozens of articles refute the usefulness of the TSA, some referring to real anti-terrorist teams like Israeli ones (see some below, I can't find the best one).
Even if, like yourself, you want real security, you shouldn't like the TSA.
I'm not an U.S. citizen nor do I live there, but from the outside (plus some experiences by relatives and being shoe-searched on American Airlines) it doesn't look good at all.
[0] http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyingwithfish/2010/11/20/how-...