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The TSA wants to be everywhere in 2013 - here's why we shouldn't let it

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Re: The TSA wants to be everywhere in 2013 - here's why we shouldn't let it

#31

Post by sneak »

jmspring wrote: post #19
city41 wrote: post #10

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. [0] http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyingwithfish/2010/11/20/how-...

A public that is passive and follows "the rules" enables this, unfortunately.

c.f. Milgram experiment. It's human nature.

Germany is way more rule-following and is way more free than the USA.

Re: The TSA wants to be everywhere in 2013 - here's why we shouldn't let it

#32

Post by sneak »

gasull wrote: post #25
jmspring wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A public that is passive and follows "the rules" enables this, unfortunately.

In 2011 and 2012 we had Occupy Wall Street and Anonymous. Probably the broadest protest movement online and offline in a long time, if not ever. And the politicians won. Wall Street won. The TSA won. They all have more power than 2 years ago. If the broadest peaceful protest couldn't make it, what possibly can?

You could not be more correct.

I took this photo yesterday: http://i.imgur.com/ilLp1.jpg

Re: The TSA wants to be everywhere in 2013 - here's why we shouldn't let it

#33

Post by sneak »

cgag wrote: post #29
gasull wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2011 and 2012 we had Occupy Wall Street and Anonymous. Probably the broadest protest movement online and offline in a long time, if not ever. And the politicians won. Wall Street won. The TSA won. They all have more power than 2 years ago. If the broadest peaceful protest couldn't make it, what possibly can?

Violent protest.

You really, really don't want to be resident there ifwhen it actually comes to that, brother.

Consider emigrating. It's much better, safer, and more effective than violence.

Re: The TSA wants to be everywhere in 2013 - here's why we shouldn't let it

#34

Post by sneak »

saraid216 wrote: post #27
gasull wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure why you think Singapore is not a democracy, though. It's a an "hybrid regime", "partly free": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore#Government_and_polit... Maybe that's what the US is too already.

> Maybe that's what the US is too already. 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 authoritaria…

Without a free press, elections are meaningless.

Re: The TSA wants to be everywhere in 2013 - here's why we shouldn't let it

#35

Post by jrogers65 »

gasull wrote: post #25
jmspring wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A public that is passive and follows "the rules" enables this, unfortunately.

In 2011 and 2012 we had Occupy Wall Street and Anonymous. Probably the broadest protest movement online and offline in a long time, if not ever. And the politicians won. Wall Street won. The TSA won. They all have more power than 2 years ago. If the broadest peaceful protest couldn't make it, what possibly can?

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.

http://www.crvp.org/book/Series01/I-39/ch18.htm

> 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."

Re: The TSA wants to be everywhere in 2013 - here's why we shouldn't let it

#36

Post by saraid216 »

sneak wrote: post #34
saraid216 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe that's what the US is too already. 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 authoritaria…

Without a free press, elections are meaningless.

That's not actually true.

Re: The TSA wants to be everywhere in 2013 - here's why we shouldn't let it

#37

Post by amirmc »

sneak wrote: post #30
city41 wrote: post #10

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. [0] http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyingwithfish/2010/11/20/how-...

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 th…

> "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.

Re: The TSA wants to be everywhere in 2013 - here's why we shouldn't let it

#38

Post by smutticus »

How many people here are willing to get arrested?

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.

Re: The TSA wants to be everywhere in 2013 - here's why we shouldn't let it

#39

Post by smutticus »

anigbrowl wrote: post #21
ta234234 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

targeted to be blown up 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 ma…

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 borderlin…

Google for 'operation flex' if you want to see how the FBI uses your tax dollars to fight terrorism.

Re: The TSA wants to be everywhere in 2013 - here's why we shouldn't let it

#40

Post by kelnos »

amirmc wrote: post #37
sneak wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

> "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 trampl…

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.

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