This Is America?

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Mon, 25 Jul 2005 19:00:39 -0700

This Is America?

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This kind of stuff has been going on long before the excuse of 9/11.

It has been changing little by little for over 20 years now in many

areas of our daily life in the USA.

 

 

 

Monday, July 25, 2005 3:24 PM

This Is America?

 

 

 

 

This Is America?

Published in The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty - July 2002

by James R. Otteson

 

I have long had an uneasy relationship with airport security. Before

September 11, I resisted the demand that I produce a government-issued ID,

believing that it smacked too much of the " Papers, please " of the former

Soviet Union that Hollywood movies used to mock and we free Americans used

to laugh at.

 

I also used to withhold permission to search my bags. On one occasion

before

September 11, in the Birmingham, Alabama, airport, the security guard was

nonplussed when I answered no to her perfunctory request for permission to

search my briefcase. I told her, and then her supervisor, and eventually a

man who identified himself as the head of security at the airport,

that I am

protected by the Constitution from unreasonable searches and seizures. I

showed him the Fourth Amendment in the copy of the Constitution I always

take with me when I travel. It meant, I said, that unless they had

either a

warrant or probable cause to suspect me of some crime, they had no

right to

demand to search my bag. They admitted that they had neither, but, in what

was then a shocking revelation and now seems only to have been ahead

of its

time, the chief of security said: " Well, you have your law; I have mine. "

 

That was before September 11. Since then, all sanity—not to mention quaint

notions like individual liberty, rights, and privacy—is fast going the way

of the Edsel.

 

Several weeks ago in the airport in Traverse City, Michigan, my wife, my

children of 8, 5, and 3, and I were all " randomly " selected for a complete

search of all our belongings. I have never been subject to more

humiliating

treatment in my life. We all—including my three-year-old son—had to

take off

our shoes, and hand them over for " inspection. " I had to take off my sport

coat and belt as well; and I had to hand over my wallet for it to be—well,

who knows?

 

I made my usual protest about protections from unreasonable searches and

seizures, but they fell on deaf ears. " We're just following orders, " I was

told. That was the defense Nazi war criminals used, I said. Following

orders

does not relieve you of responsibility for your own actions. " Are you

calling me a Nazi? " one demanded. " You call me a Nazi again and you're

never

getting on that plane! "

 

Whose orders are you following? " The FAA's. " The FAA has instructed you to

detain and search innocent American citizens and their families?

" Where have

you been lately, buddy? Haven't you heard of what happened in New

York? " But

wasn't that tragedy, like most terrorist activities against America,

perpetrated by people who were not native-born American citizens, and who

were not traveling with their wives and small children?

 

By this point I was surrounded by approximately half a dozen security

guards

and several armed National Guardsmen. I was informed that if I did not

" shut

up, " I would be made to " go Greyhound the rest of [my] life. " I asked

whether I was suspected of a crime. I was informed that asking so many

questions " about the Constitution and all " was making me suspicious. " This

is America now, buddy. You better shut up and get used to it! "

 

I asked whether they now intended not only to violate my right to be

free of

arbitrary searches and seizures, but also my right to free speech. I was

then told—through clenched teeth—that if I said " one more word, " they were

going to " lock me up " and make me " go Greyhound the rest of [my] life. " " I

have that power, " one security guard growled at me ominously.

 

My children were frightened and on the verge of tears, and my wife, also

growing uneasy, implored me to simply let them do what they wanted to

do. So

after a tense moment I stood aside, escorted by two armed National

Guardsmen

while several security guards searched through our bags. I had to stand by

silently while all of our things were taken out and examined, no doubt

with

extra thoroughness to punish me for my impudence. My shirts, pants, and

socks were unfolded. A man with no gloves on rifled through my wife's

intimates; he even fingered through her feminine products.

 

After some 20 minutes of searching, they finished, and allowed us to go up

the one flight of stairs and walk the 50 feet to our gate, where one

of the

very same people who had searched us downstairs now searched us again

before

we were allowed to get on the plane.

 

Security Reduced

 

What has become of us? A once free and proud people lets itself be subject

to this kind of totalitarian treatment? Searching my children, my

wife, and

me does not increase security one iota: as anyone with any common sense

could see, we are obviously not a threat. Indeed, wasting time searching

people like us squanders the opportunity to check people who actually are

likely suspects. So it might in fact reduce our level of security.

 

I flew again just recently. During yet another " random " search of my

briefcase, the security guard found a leather thong with weighted ends

that

I use to hold books open while I read them. (I am a college professor, so

this comes in quite handy; my mother gave it to me as a gift many

years ago

) The guard decided it could be used as a " blackjack " —apparently a device

used to hit people on the head—and called his manager over.

 

I explained to the manager, as I had explained to the guard, what I use it

for. I even got a book out of my briefcase and demonstrated. The manager

said, " That's fine. Let him through. " " But, " the guard protested, " he

could

use it to knock somebody out! " And he provided his own rather dramatic

demonstration of how one might use it. The manager replied, " It's no

different from a fist—are you going to cut his arm off? Let him

through. " I

thanked the manager for her common sense.

 

Thus there is still some of that in airports—but it is increasingly

uncommon

And the new security measures being adopted, which do not increase

security

and instead serve only to inconvenience law-abiding Americans, are quickly

stamping out the last vestiges of reasonableness—not to mention liberty—at

our airports.

 

The terrorist threat is real. As September 11 showed, it is all too

real. We

should not let our political sensibilities trump our good sense when

actual

lives are at stake. And we should not let our precious liberties—the very

liberties that make this country worth dying for—be usurped by petty

tyrants

who are " just following orders. "

 

The invasive and unconstitutional tactics of such airport security are an

alarmingly large step toward creating just the kind of totalitarian

society

our enemies hope to create. We must not let it continue.

 

James Otteson is a professor of philosophy at the University of Alabama.