Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Society

Poll: One-Third of Americans Would Accept Cavity Searches By TSA

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

130 thoughts on “Poll: One-Third of Americans Would Accept Cavity Searches By TSA”

  1. idealist, this guy in this video does a great job of explaining more about where TSA are now located, and gives more details about the poll that was done by Harris. I had forgotten the other thing. Most Americans think the TSA is doing a bangup job. But then, that would probably be because they listen to MSM where the bad things they do are not reported.

  3. I heard some really scary stuff about Homeland Security. I heard they bought a lot of exploding killer bullets and that they built a lot of still empty detention centers.

  4. bettykath, I wasn’t referring to a post by the ”moving us forward” line. That was taken from the Obama campaign! I’m assuming that since he brought in all those things mentioned, that that’s his idea of moving us forward!

  5. Congress stopped declaring war in the resolution after the fraud of Bay of Tonkin. See Ellsberg “secrets”. He received the live cables at max five minute intervals during the “attack”, and also revealed the lies which were told by Johnson. Nothing new, but nice that you remind us.

  6. leejcarrol,

    We are lucky recipients of medical tech.
    But nefarious tech, they have been dreaming of this since Aldous Huxley’s time.

    Just wait until they put a micro cell into it, then they can track where you are, and depending on other traced factors cut the pain nullifier on and off to onwz0re you, a SF story by Cory Doctorow. Get it a
    your library: “Eight stories and more”

    Nefarious? Love that, reminds me of old movies. And you, your use of it covers the whole shebang they are playing against us.

    PS We could, as in the story get control of it, and with some bacterial help get it attached to some brain centers which might lead to self indulgement, etc.
    But Doctorow says the bacteria can be commanded to cure cancer, cure colds, and build muscles too.

    Now Dredd has only to realize that with his bacteria world. Uh, Dredd, what about it?

  8. feemeister 1, November 9, 2012 at 2:00 pm

    bettykath, I don’t understand this. How does this kind of thing move our country ”forward?” I just don’t get it!
    ——————————

    I wasn’t suggesting that anything in that post just before yours was moving us forward. Forward to me does not mean greater enforcement of the police state.

    btw, Within 24 hours of the election Obama bombed Yemen.Obama has done the drone attack on them in the past. When did Congress declare war on Yemen? Did I miss it?

  9. I’ll believe this when Nate Silver tells me this is so. Until then, I believe you all have been punked which, I guess, is pretty scary on it’s own merits.

  11. Pingback: One-Third of Americans Willing to Submit to Body Cavity Search at the Airport | Barticles

  12. Stop this in a truly American Fashion. Advertise the TSA is offering cavity searches for free and ill bet there is one third of American who would line up for the procedure and there not going anywhere on a plane. That when it would either stop or become Americas favorite pastime.

  14. Idealist, you might want to just stay put!

    Check this one! This is the wonderful FEMA camps for those displaced from a disaster (what will they do when they start piling the dissidents in them?!

    http://www.app.com/viewart/20121109/NJNEWS/311090027/Oceanport-sandy-shelter

    And just in case you thought you were safe because you didn’t do anything wrong, there are people that have SWAT teams kick their doors in in the middle of the night, because they GOT THE WRONG ADDRESS! And God forbid you should try to defend yourself from people busting your door in; that’s not allowed. You have to be shot and tasered like a good little guilty person until proven innocent!

    And here’s another one for Florida (I give up)! This is in ST PETE, which is supposed to be the old folks town of Florida. I know these are super necessary!

    http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/story/20046476/2012/11/08/armored-truck-with-cameras-will-roam-st-pete-neighborhoods

    I’d like to find out how these things fit in with batshit conspiracy theories. These are IN YOUR FACE! Along with the 18 month old toddler on the NO FLY list! If you come here, you’re really taking your chances (and you would have been REALLY taking your chances if they hadn’t pulled that baby off that flight)!

  15. @ idealist

    I’m not looking for legal advise on this blog, more for publicity which I think I need to get the government to act legally.

    I was shocked last night because I found something that I never knew that no one ever told me and that really affects all the orders against pro se litigation. That is there is a Rule of Evidence # 201 Judicial Notice of Adjudicative Facts. So it turns out that a court can take notice of a court order or of a filing, but it can’t take notice of another court’s findings of fact. I found this in Section 1983 LItigation: Federal Evidence, 4th Edition, Vol. 3” by Martin A. Schwartz published in 2009 by Aspen Publishers. See Taylor v. Charter Medical Corp.162 F. 3d 827 (5th Cir. 1998) and Wyatt v. Terhone 360 F. 3d 446, 450 (4th Cir. 2004). So a court could notice that you filed150 lawsuits or that you filed documents with swear words but it can’t “notice” that you filed a “frivolous” complaint in another court. But the fact is that Courts do violate Rule 201 with pro se litigants by making assumptions that court fact findings in other courts are correct and should be repeated. See also Rule 54(a) “A judgment should not include … a record of prior proceedings.”

    It doesn’t even make sense that a court would not want to do a de novo review of a pro se case, unless they just hate pro se litigants because of prejudice or a feeling that they have too much work to do, because logically pro se cases are going to have a higher error rate because of the dirty tricks that lawyers frequently play on pro se litigants or failure of pro se litigants to know and plead their issues perfectly so a de novo review is more likely to find errors.

    ——–

    Another issue no one has brought up is Amtrack. When you buy an Amtrack ticket you basically agree to be searched, if you refuse you lose your ticket, I think is how it works.

  17. Gene said, “I don’t like people I don’t know touching me much less performing an invasive body cavity search. You better be my doctor acting on reasonable medical grounds or someone I love a lot to even try that. I promise you won’t like my reaction otherwise.”

    You and me both, we’d end up in jail. I refuse to fly and end up driving hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles.
    —————-

    Obama could change things, but I have no expectation of it. The use of drones, the persecution of whistle blowers and journalists, the deportation of undocumented aliens, warrantless eavesdropping on phones and internet and email have all escalated hugely under him. Don’t expect him to give up the NDAA or his kill list. But do expect him to expand the use of drones to the US, and expand a NAFTA-like trade agreement to the Pacific.

  18. About the electric shock bracelets? Why are we surprised?

    See, all those TV shows about all those kindly, caring, loving, selfless cops and authorities is paying off. “Wear my bracelet so I can protect you.”

    The approved answer is: “Oh thank you.”

    Nielson ratings can easily tell us what percentage of the American Public will go along with this.

  20. ” Almost as much effect as it has on what detergent you use and your Cheetos and Coke consumption.”

    But thanks to grocery store “discount cards,” the kind of detergent I use and my cheetos and coke consumption is already a matter of record and nobody needs to “search me” to figure it out. People who want to “search me” have to either put me in line at an airport, arrest me for nonpayment of a ticket I paid, or secretly notify me to be in court on October 1 and then issue a capias for my arrest for not showing up. And none of it would have happened if it weren’t for those terrorists depriving us of our freedom and trying to prevent us from speaking English, which I am obviously still practicing.

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