In past columns, I have lamented how our government has not only stripped away core civil liberties from citizens, but that citizens have become increasing passive and accepting of the loss of such freedoms. A new poll conducted by Harris Interactive offers a particularly chilling measure of just how passive and accepting citizens have become to the new realities of our internal security system. The poll found almost one third of American adults would accept a “TSA body cavity search” in order to fly. Moreover a majority believes that it is reasonable to criminalize the act of disobeying any TSA agent.
The survey was conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of Infowars from November 5-7 among 2059 American adults. People were asked: “Given the recent reports concerning the threat posed by terrorists who plan to implant bombs within their own bodies, how willing, if at all, would you be to undergo a TSA body cavity search in order to fly?” Thirty percent said yes.
Notably, the Supreme Court recently gave prisons and jails virtually carte blanche to conduct strip searches on anyone who have been arrested and jailed in Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, 566 U.S. ___ (2012). In a 5-4 decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that officials may strip-search individuals who have been arrested for any crime before they are simply put in a cell, even minor offenses. The dissenting justices noted that a recent study conducted in New York under the supervision of federal courts found that out of 23,000 people searched, only one inmate had hidden contraband in his body in a way that would have avoided detection by x-ray and a pat-down. That did not matter to the majority which stripped away protections for citizens, even those arrested for the most minor offenses.
Decisions like Florence are part of a broader erosion of expectations in our society. Citizens are becoming used to government intrusions and searches.
Citizens now treat security officials as naturally posing unchecked authority over their lives. Almost 60 percent found that a law allowing for the arrest of citizens would be appropriate if they disobey any order by a TSA agent.
The fact is that there has always been a sizable group of Americans who accept and even relish a dominance by authority. There are some who simply favor more authoritarian measures and readily embrace the loss of freedoms. However, if accurate, this poll is a chilling measure of the erosion of the expectations of privacy and rights by average Americans in the expanding internal security state.
Source: Infowars
It is a very sad thing indeed that so many citizens of this country have been willing participants in the destruction of our liberties. The simple act of NOT demanding an end to these infractions makes them a participant. Everyone who is able to speak up for themselves must. I fear for our futures.
You’re right, I should have written more clearly. And I am not an expert on history. I think it is true though that there were people who were aware that bad things were happening but didn’t protest and then bad things happened to them. see Martin Niemöller
Kay S, you say “I agree with your statement “Americans always think that it happens to someone else”. So did the Jews in Germany in the 1930′s; they didn’t expect Auschwitz.”
The comparison is illogical.
If you were to have polled the Jews in Germany in the 1930s and asked, “Would it be OK with you if a bunch of people living in Germany and the rest of Europe were shipped off to concentration camps to be starved, beaten, tortured, separated from their families, forced to work as slaves and then killed and buried in mass graves?” you would probably NOT have 30 percent of them saying, “Fine, great” for the reason that they imagined there would not be Jews among the victims. THAT is the more logical way to compare Americans polled about their travel rights and privileges to Jews in Germany in the 1930s.
The Jews were not taken aback by Auschwitz because they didn’t expect it to happen to THEM; they were taken aback by Auschwitz because, like normal people anywhere, they couldn’t imagine it happening PERIOD, and they would have opposed it vigorously (if they were not terrorized into hushing up in horror, as were many non-Jewish Europeans) if given any opportunity to object.
Asking normal Americans, “Would you object to a body cavity search before being allowed to board a plane?” is about what THAT PERSON would accept or object to for that person’s own experience. The fact that 30% of American people said YES is a shocker to me.
It would be comparable to asking a normal German Jew in 1930, “Would you object to being deprived of life, liberty and property in a particularly horrible manner rather than continuing to go on with your own particular life tomorrow?”
I’m a Jew. I don’t really believe 30% of the German Jews would have said, “No problem” to that one.
Kay,
We agree on a lot of things you post….. I agree with you on these postings…. And thank you…
If and when I ever choose to fly again, sure, a good looking blond TSA agaent can worm her tongue up my butt… but it would have to be done in privacy…… ;-O Until then, if I can’t drive to where I’m going, then I’m not going to go there
Completely acceptable until it happens to them! 1/3 of American are fearful sheep who have decided that the terrorist should win. These are the same people are mostly willing to allow warrentless searches and wire taps, indefinite detention. In short, to placate terrorists the are willing to turn our country into a police state. Sad very sad.
“…the chilling effect “weapons of compliance” have on protest-minded Americans.” Isn’t a cavity search a sort of “weapon” of compliance?
November 06, 2012
From The Scott Horton Show
http://dissentradio.com/radio/12_11_02_whitehead.mp3
“Constitutional attorney and author John Whitehead discusses the US government’s authorization of drone aircraft for domestic law enforcement and surveillance (public and private); the estimated 30,000 drones of all shapes and sizes that will be in service by 2020; the fate of former Marine Brandon Raub, who was forcibly institutionalized for controversial Facebook postings; the many veterans being pestered by FBI and DHS for exercising their First Amendment rights; The Rutherford Institute’s model legislation for preserving civil liberties and slowing the drone invasion; and the chilling effect “weapons of compliance” have on protest-minded Americans.”
From Jonathan Turley’s source article:
“Despite the fact that this policy is already underway in some instances, a full 65% of American adults found TSA workers touching genitals “completely” or “somewhat unacceptable”. A further 35% of American adults found this “completely” or “somewhat acceptable”. More Republicans than Democrats (12% to 9%) were likely to find this “completely acceptable”.
Asked how the TSA is performing in its screening duties at U.S. airports, 77% of American adults said the federal agency was doing an excellent, good or fair job. 23% of American adults thought the TSA was doing a not very good job or a bad job in its duties. Despite sustained negative media coverage of the agency’s activities, of that latter netcategory, only 9% in total thought the TSA was doing a “bad job”.
More Democrats than Republicans (84% to 73%) responded that they thought the TSA was doing an excellent, good or fair job.”
Here’s the link to the full poll:
http://www.infowars.com/poll-nearly-one-third-of-americans-would-accept-tsa-body-cavity-search-in-order-to-fly/
What InMW said.
People believe that it won’t happen to them. Cavity searches are for others.
“Internal security system”, you say? In general, think “Stasi”, because we already have one. Many (most?) Americans simply don’t realize it, yet. Unbelievable things goin’ on in America. And it isn’t just “the bad guys” who are being targeted.
“However, if accurate, this poll is a chilling measure of the erosion of the expectations of privacy and rights by average Americans the expand internal security state.”
It’s so much worse than many think.
@Anonymously Yours
One fact not immediately obvious is that rights become rights because citizens of the past fought for their recognition as rights because they were important. People today read about various rights and think that they don’t sound important.
The individual rights, such as a right not to be subjected to body cavity searches without a compelling reason, all support each other like a wall made of struts that is very strong and light. When struts are removed the wall of rights that protects us weakens.
The right not to be subjected to body cavity searches is related to a right to travel. If we don’t defend this right in airports, then we might be subjected to body cavity searches when we cross state lines in cars.
The public is assuming discrete and private body searches but we might be subjected to cavity searches in view of others. People are already filing in Court that they were subjected to body searches in view of other prisoners for the purpose of humiliation only.
It’s impossible to be dignified during a body cavity search. When people’s dignity is removed the guards feel contempt towards them and are more likely to engage in other rights abuses such as forcing them to dance naked. That has already been found to have occurred in U.S. jails. I read a case about that just recently. Women prisoners were forced to dance naked in front of hundreds of people. That leads to gang rape.
Photos of body cavity searches could be put into national data bases and/ or published on the Internet.
You could be subjected to a body cavity search in the presence of your child.
@InMW
I agree with your statement “Americans always think that it happens to someone else”. So did the Jews in Germany in the 1930′s; they didn’t expect Auschwitz.
I’ve been doing my best to warn my fellow citizens that what happened to me could happen to them, but Rafflaw, Gene, and some of the other regular participants in this blog don’t believe it. Let me state it again:
“I am an American citizen. My father was a WWII vet and is interned at Arlington National. I don’t have a criminal record. I got my bachelors and masters degrees at MIT. I am a female caucasian and have blue eyes.
The U.S. Department of Justice detained me for 5 months without a criminal charge, an evidentiary hearing, a bail hearing or a government prosecutor. The USMS entered non-existent criminal charges against me into their NCIC, Warrant Information Network and Prisoner Tracking System computer systems. The USMS has refused to release a PTS Form 129 for me for Western Wisconsin where I was detained for three weeks. Even though I was not charged with a federal offense, I was classified as a maximum security prisoner and strip searched.
The first time that I sued DOJ, its first lawyer David C. Rybicki misrepresented that the purpose of the Prisoner Tracking System doesn’t require a criminal charge which conflicts with DOJ’s Privacy Act Notice in the Federal Register.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2004-04-28/pdf/04-9647.pdf#page=2
(see Federal Register Vol 69 p. 23213)
Rybicki misrepresented that I was detained for “failure to appear” but the “subject report for Sieverding, Kay” shows that I was detained for “obstructing court order-based on probable cause” and “bail” which are both criminal charges, yet there was no oath or affirmation that there was probable cause, as required by the 4th Amendment, and the DOJ Criminal Division claims to have no records of me at all.
Rybicki misrepresented that I “beleaguered federal and state courts alike with abusive, contumacious and frivolous litigation for years” but current DOJ counsel Tricia D. Francis emailed me yesterday that DOJ is opposed to having an evidentiary hearing on whether that is true. DOJ did not supply any court filings in support of its prejudicial statement and Rule 201 prohibits judicial notice of findings of fact by other courts. Rybicki asked Federal Court judge John D. Bates to violate Rule 201 because he thought that I wouldn’t be able to figure out that he asked the Court to violate the Rules of Evidence.
The second time I sued DOJ, Rybicki misrepresented (twice!) that the Joint Automated Booking System does not require a criminal charge. That contradicts its Privacy Act Notice of the ‘Categories of Individuals Covered by the [JABS] System’
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2006-09-07/pdf/E6-14828.pdf#page=1
(see Federal Register vol. 71 p. 52821)
This affects you because if you don’t have $100 K to file a lawsuit in federal court with an attorney, you could be subject to violations of the rules of evidence, obstruction of justice, and booking and imprisonment without a criminal charge, an evidentiary hearing, a bail hearing, or a government prosecutor. Even if you don’t file a lawsuit in federal court, Judge Bates already ruled that the Joint Automated Booking System doesn’t require a criminal charge so based on that case law you can be fingerprinted and information about your body including photos of any part of your body can be entered into a national database. Even if you are an attorney, you can lose your bar license in a secret procedure and then be subjected to the abuses of and discrimination against pro se litigants as happened to former Jewish lawyers in Germany during the Holocaust.
Pursuant to 28 USC 1746, I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.”
For those interested in the 60 percent read:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
Written in a manner which makes you laugh (sometimes) and after 25 years study, it explains the nut cases around you that love punishment of other people and the folks who punish them.
this is why I dont fly.
Oh well. Whomever would submit to this has no right to be a citizen of this country.
Uh Oh! Surgically implanted. And my pacemaker bulges obviouly, and I thought that would save me from a scan.
Jeeez was I wrong.
I don’t like thy kinda fore play….
One third of Americans would wear a gimp suit and be leashed
because
1) It ‘Protects Our Freedoms (TM)’
2) It’s a big fantasy turn-on, but not to be admitted — great excuse if it’s imposed by authority figures for a vaguely plausible reason.
.
“Almost 60 percent found that a law allowing for the arrest of citizens would be appropriate if they disobey any order by a TSA agent. ”
Great for people who couln’t get a job where they flipped/served burgers and asked “Would you like a drink with that?” Now they can work for the TSA and tell people that they *will* have a drink.
.
“Given the recent reports concerning the threat posed by terrorists who plan to implant bombs within their own bodies…”
The idea is that explosives would be *surgically implanted*. TSA officers sticking their fingers up the rectums and vaginas of autistic children wouldn’t be a lot of help in detecting that.
What is being suggested in the poll is yet more security theatre.
“citizens have become increasing passive and accepting of the loss of such freedoms”
Ah, the Huxley of it all:
(Wee The People). The Stockholm Syndrome is not what it is cracked up to be is it?
I am sure that same 1/3 would have a totally different reaction if you ask the same question while they were being strip searched and having their naked bodies probed by a total stranger. Americans always think it happens to someone else.
47% of Americans think that a cavity search involves having someone look with a small flashlight into one’s mouth, into an empty space where a tooth filling fell out. The other 47% tells their children that there is a tooth fairy.
47 % of Americans think that the Cayman Islands are off the coast of Florida and indeed part of the State of Florida and not a banking hideaway for the 1% ters like the Willard Bain Romney. 47% of New Yorkers think that Saint Louis is in Michigan and Kansas City is in Kansas. 100% of New Yorkers think that turdy turd and a turd is an intersection of two streets in NYC. 47% of Americans think that Theodore Roosevelt was a Democrat. 99% of Americans do not know that Franklyn Delano Roosevelt married his first cousin. Mostly all Muslims do not know that the Prophet Mohommed married a nine year old child and raped her. 99% of Americans do not know if Nazareth is on the East Bank of West Bank and they dont know the name of the river involved in that Bank and think it might be in the Cayman Islands.
Perhaps those who were polled were males being polled by a nice looking female who smilingly inquired if they would mind if someone put their index finger up their arse.