TSA Backlash Week: The Wall Street Journal Weighs In

It's probably worth noting at this point that TSA Backlash Week isn't a conservative or liberal phenomenon. It's got just about everybody angry, with nobody outside the TSA itself offering much in the way of a vigorous defense of body scanners and patdown. So it's interesting to note the Wall Street Journal is publishing a critique of the TSA, a piece from Wired's Noah Schachtman.

Money quote: "But the larger question is whether the TSA's tech-centric approach to security makes any sense at all. Even the most modest of us would probably agree to a brief flash of quasi-nudity if it would really ensure a safe flight. That's not the deal the TSA is offering. Instead, the agency is asking for Rolando Negrin-style revelations in exchange for incremental, uncertain security improvements against particular kinds of concealed weapons."

TSA Backlash Week: The Senate Hearing

"The Senate Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security will hold a Transportation Security Administration Oversight Hearing tomorrow." Josh Rosenau has details.

TSA Backlash Week: Resources, And A Reminder From Penn Jillette

My friend Robb sends along links to a couple of websites helping build resistance to the TSA's intrusive security procedures:

FLY WITH DIGNITY: "Wre an organization seeking advocacy and recognition of the TSA’s and DHS’s actions against our privacy and right to refuse unwarranted search." Pictures seem a little overwrought, but I otherwise agree with them. Sign the petition!

NATIONAL OPT-OUT DAY: "The goal of National Opt Out Day is to send a message to our lawmakers that we demand change. We have a right to privacy and buying a plane ticket should not mean that we're guilty until proven innocent. This day is needed because many people do not understand what they consent to when choosing to fly."

Robb also sends along this 2002 post from Penn Jillette, which reminds us we've been building to this point for a long time:

Last Thursday I was flying to LA on the Midnight flight. I went through security my usual sour stuff. I beeped, of course, and was shuttled to the "toss-em" line. A security guy came over. I assumed the position. I had a button up shirt on that was untucked. He reached around while he was behind me and grabbed around my front pocket. I guess he was going for my flashlight, but the area could have loosely been called "crotch." I said, "You have to ask me before you touch me or it's assault."

He said, "Once you cross that line, I can do whatever I want."

I said that wasn't true. I say that I have the option of saying no and not flying. He said, "Are you going to let me search you, or do I just throw you out?"

I said, "Finish up, and then call the police please."

When he was finished with my shoes, he said, "Okay, you can go."

I said, "I'd like to see your supervisor and I'd like LVPD to come here as well. I was assaulted by you."

He said, "You're free to go, there's no problem."

I said, "I have a problem, please send someone over."

It goes from there. Most of us haven't expressed Jillette's level of outrage about these procedures, which is why we've arrived at this point. It's TSA Backlash Week!

Ben and Joel Podcast: Dominic Tierney and 'How America Fights'

Joel is joined by Dominic Tierney. He is an assistant professor of political science at Swarthmore College here in Pennsylvania, and is the author of three books: The newest is "How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires and the American Way of War." The book informed his recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, and it forms the foundation of his speech Friday at Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia -- check the FPRI website for details.

Topics discussed in this podcast:

• What are the "crusade" and "quagmire" traditions of American warfare?
• Isn't it pretty easy to get Americans to go to war? And isn't it easy to sour them on the experience of war?
• Is there a good reason for America to conduct "nation-building" missions in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq?
• What did the Founders see as the role of the American military?
• Would re-orienting the military to a nation-building role make us more vulnerable to peer competitors like Russia or China?
• Where will the U.S. be nation-building next?

Click here to listen.

TSA Backlash Week: One Hundred Naked Citizens

Gizmodo: "At the heart of the controversy over 'body scanners' is a promise: The images of our naked bodies will never be public. U.S. Marshals in a Florida Federal courthouse saved 35,000 images on their scanner. These are those images." Click the link to see the images.

For what it's worth, these images might actually tamp down public concern about the scanners: You can barely tell that people are depicted. But it would be a shame if the response was a collective shrug. For one thing, some scanners can show a person's body in rather greater detail. And in any case, TSA Backlash Week is long overdue. It's time we had a conversation about the government's ability to presume we are all criminals once we decide to fly on a plane.

TSA Backlash Week : Josh Rosenau

My friend Josh is angry: "I'm not a criminal. There's no probable cause to search me. I've flown at least a couple times a year pretty much every year since I was born, and much more than that now that I get to travel for work. If I were a threat to aviation, I think it would've become clear by now. Before 9/11, I carried two pocket knives on every flight. I took a railroad spike onto a plane one time, with airport security's knowledge and permission. I am not a threat to American aviation, and feeling me up or looking at me naked will not make anyone safer. And it certainly shouldn't make anyone feel safer to know that the government can feel them up or strip them naked just because they want to come home from a business trip (let alone that they can be fined $10,000 for rejecting either option)."

TSA Backlash Week: Brendan Skwire On The Case

Brendan doesn't just blog about his complaints. He takes them directly to his senator!