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
feemeister,
I think that two hyperlinks is the limit on this blog.
If you have more than two links, the post goes (forever?) into moderation – totally regardless of the content of the post.
Mike S,
I agree with the thrust of what you say.
A strong “movement” to change the order of things would have more chance if there were more reacting to the result with:
“Great the Romney didn’t make it, but what a huge pity that we had to have Obama as the only other option that looked feasible.”
Perhaps Darwinism will apply to movements. They will have to realise that they need to adapt.
“Perhaps Darwinism will apply to movements. They will have to realize that they need to adapt.”
SlingT,
This is quite true in its implications. The problems I’ve seen in in movements I’ve been in and movements I’ve observed, has been that they become rigid ideologically. If something doesn’t fit into their pre-conceived ideology, even if it might solve a problem they want solved, will be rejected without consideration.
I’ve had people who I was agreeing with in conversation, attack me because I didn’t put my points exactly as they had been taught that they should be phrased. Back in the 60’s, when I was involved in radical union politics one of the groups that amused me the most was the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) faction who were Maoists. Their party line was so rigid that every six months, or so, there would be a purge, which would include their leaders. Eventually, they dissolved because of this, they had purged themselves out of business in their efforts to remain ideologically pure. Since one of their constant slogans was “organize” it was also fun to see them turn off the people they were trying to recruit. I was invited to a dinner one night at the home of a PLP couple. There was no grass, no alcohol and no dessert. All there was was a constant attempt to indoctrinate me to the cause. I waited until a discrete time after dinner and made excuses to leave early. months later during a debate on some issue or other at the union delegates meeting, one of them actually called me “a running dog of capitalism”.
The other thing with movements that have to be watched for is that movements on the Left attract almost as many sociopaths with a “will to power” as on the Right. Although these ego driven psychos may seem to stand for the same things we do, it is only their perception of their best route towards gaining power. If that route is blocked, they take on another guise. Jerry Rubin, of the Yippies and Chicago 7 trial, wound up in the 80’s running social mixers for the privileged. Also Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers, wound up as a designer of “Haute Couture” dresses.
Dredd,
Not only you but LeeJCarrol and I beiieve in the possibilities of advnced nanotech on cell level. I put forward your bacterial symbiosis as a possible factor in stimulating and guiding the growth of nerve cells in the brain from implanted electronics to target cells which might be useed benignly or malignantly. We are dependent on you to watch the bacterial world for developments.
OK? Was tired and more so now.. Naptime.
Scan any copied text carefully to find concealed links. Hope it helps.
I put a comment up last night at 8, and it is still awaiting moderation. Does anyone know what I might have done wrong? (I wasn’t mean to anyone. No video. It has a couple sites on it. This is the first time I ever had a post say that. I’m wondering what I did that was ”illegal?”
Dredd,
If you would be so kind as to read her comments and my comments it might be apparent. Including book references, SA June issue references and examples, then it might clear up. 😉
If your trip is less than a thousand miles you should consider driving a car. To board a plane one must get there very early, find a pakring space or find a ride to the entrance of the terminal, get the luggage to the desk, deal with a line and a line of crap, go through the security checkpoints and get a finger up the arse, walk a mile to the gate, wait, listen to fellow passengers yak on their earplug cell phones, look at the old stewardesses who should have retired, get on a plane next to a 300 lb snoring nun, sit on the runway, listen to yakkity yak about buckle up, worry about a plane being flown by the goof who says he is the Capt speaking, fly through storms and bump and hump and listen to the nun snore and blow snot on your shoulder, get to the ogther end and almost crash land, wait on the tarmac, dislodge, walk past the smug crew, go in, find luggage, walk a mile, get a cab or a ride to the next spot on earth not infringed by the above.,
The effect on someone in the path of a Category Five and a Four depends to a great extent on how well they are sheltered.
For some/many there would be no great difference between a Five and a Four in practical terms. It’s just a bigger noisier number.
It’s selective – even within a small geographic area. So it is with NDAA/TSA/etc.
Tormados seem to kill more people than hurricanes?
http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_23.pdf
The incumbent Authoritarians in the Executive and Security functions are the elements that drive the societal weather conditions.
Big Brother Obama is a slightly less warm ocean than Big Brother Romney.
SlingTrebuchet: “Good news people, there was a danger of a Category Five Huricane, but it’s only going to be Category Four or maybe even Three ….. *applause*”
***
If you’re directly in its path that can be a hell of a difference. The difference between life and death in fact.
Mike S : “No doubt Romney would have been a tenacious guardian of our freedoms.”
Obama is ‘not as bad as Romney might have been’.
‘Not as bad’ does not make him ‘good’.
Good news people, there was a danger of a Category Five Huricane, but it’s only going to be Category Four or maybe even Three ….. *applause*
“Obama is ‘not as bad as Romney might have been’. ‘Not as bad’ does not make him ‘good’.”
SlingT,
It does make him “good” in this respect: he will do less harm to fewer people.
Our government has been in control of the elite for many years, if not the entire history of this country. Since o one has come along with viable options to redress this so far, I personally will always choose the option that will least hurt most of the people. I’ve been waiting a long time for a movement to coalesce of people who want to turn the system around. It hasn’t happened on the “Left” simply because too many people there will simply ot support a movement that is not perfectly tailored to their own beliefs. The belief of those who will only support their particular idea of perfection is that they will not make common cause with those who aren’t “perfect” by their lights.
I disagree with many of Obama’s policies, such as preventive detention, drones etc. However, I am not so self involved with my own viewpoint, as to be unable to understand that one can be a decent person,yet see things differently than I do. There are many “Hawkish” people who honestly have convinced themselves that their actions protect the country. They are wrong in my opinion. Yet I can still support them electorally if many of their other beliefs coincide with mine.
It is all well and good to hate Obama’s national security policies, but the fact is that from his own statements Romney’s own positions would go further than Obama’s. This was underscored by the fact that his foreign policy and security advisers were all former G.W. Bush insiders. On the other hand Obama’s domestic policies were far more enlightened than Romney’s. As I’ve stated here innumerable times before, when a movement arises that has a decent chance to overturn this Country’s Corporatist Plutocracy, I’m with it.
I’ve in the past though followed far too many “Movements” that pretended to
change the country, but they all failed due to their inability to organize a mass movement and because they were unable to reach out to people who did not perfectly match their political viewpoints. In the words of “The Who”, “I won’t get fooled again”.
Well the idea w the administration is to influence them. I was sort of glad about CIA Director Petraeus before forced to resign because of concern that he might be blackmailed about his affair because what they are saying is exactly what I have been saying about how I think that the USMS imprisoned me because they were blackmailed with cell phone photos of them getting lap dances when they were guarding former judge Nottingham.
Something else might happen that will really get people to focus on civil rights, due process etc. In the context of body cavity searches it could be a finding that someone is taking photos and selling them, that an imposter is paying to do the searches, or that random airport personnel have peep holes to watch some sort of security searches.
lol
It’s nice to see you haven’t laid off the ironic sarcasm though, Mike.
AY/Mike,
And thus we have the “fast road/slow road” discussion once again.
Gene,
No more discussion from me since I’m still basking in my Obamabot euphoria.
Here is what TSA believes is on the mind of every American who might want to fly the friendly skies.
AY, word.
Mike S.,
Really how much worse could Romney have been about protecting our freedoms than Obama….. On that theater I think they are both POS…… Unless they somehow benefited they don’t care….so long as its not them that are affected….
AY,
How much worse? Reduction of women to second class citizenship. Voter intimidation and nullification. Return of the Cold War with Russia.
Suppression and criminalization of gay people. No abortion, period. More war. More defense spending. End of the Safety Net. Destruction of Social Security/Medicare/Obamacare. I could go on and on, proving iy by listing Mitt’s own words and the Republican Platform.
idealist707 1, November 9, 2012 at 5:19 pm
Now Dredd has only to realize that with his bacteria world. Uh, Dredd, what about it?
===========================================
What about what?
I just said upthread:
CQ CQ CQ … This is John Conners … CQ CQ CQ … 😉
“Parts are parts … cavities are cavities … probes are probes …”
feemeister,
re: ”moving us forward”. I didn’t pay any attention to the campaign slogans so I misunderstood. Sorry.
First off, keep in mind that this was a “Push Poll”. Asking the question in a clean way may have elicited a different answer or different percentages.
I’d also bet that a few days of a flying strike over the TSA methods that hit the airlines in the pocketbook would see some changes made in the way TSA worked.
From Wikipedia:
Push Poll: “The term is also commonly used in a broader sense to refer to legitimate polls that aim to test political messages, some of which may be negative. Future usage of the term will determine whether the strict or broad definition becomes the most favored definition. However, in all such polls, the pollster asks leading questions or suggestive questions that “push” the interviewee towards adopting an unfavourable response towards the political candidate.”
***
Kay, regarding Amtrak, TSA can ask to set up anywhere but apparently if the responsible authority asks them to leave or denies permission they have to leave. I need to do some more look-ups on that though:
From article:
“…. Here’s some background. The TSA’s appearance at train stations, bus stations, subways, and ferries may be “an ominous sign,” but isn’t new. Its so-called VIPR teams have been conducting random, unwarranted searches at venues other than airports since 2005.
After the debacle in Savannah, Georgia, where TSA agents simply took over the Amtrak station and searched whomever they liked, including passengers after they got off the train, Amtrak Police Chief John O’Connor hit the roof. He told the TSA that its employees would never be allowed to set foot in an Amtrak station again without first asking permission, and if said permission was granted, they would have to be accompanied by Amtrak police.
That’s why our reader saw TSA agents at New York’s Penn Station. So no, they haven’t been banned.
On the other hand, if the TSA is told to leave by the owner of the real estate in question — train stations, subways, even airports — they must leave. That is a legal fact.”
http://tsanewsblog.com/3679/news/amtrak-and-the-tsa/
***
Also:
“Union Station TSA Agents: Journalist Recording Their Activity Accused Of ‘Terrorism’ (VIDEO)”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/27/union-station-tsa-agents-_n_1710029.html
Great, forgot the video;