Our Security and the TSA

...Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people -- a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence. -John Jay, Federalist Paper, No. 2 (emphasis added).

The above passage was written centuries ago and, unfortunately, not many Americans have read the brilliant Federalist Papers. Despite this, they remain relevant even today, especially in these troubled times. They remind us how gifted our Founders were, and that we are one of the most powerful countries on earth, if not the most powerful; some of the greatest things to which we can lay claim are our freedoms and liberties.

The reality is, there are serious security issues that threaten us in our very own land, but these are not the first occasions of these threats. They are the first threats of this magnitude. The point of terrorism is to scare the citizens of a country, to make them doubt themselves, their brethren, and their security. To cause a collapse of national and personal values and beliefs with threats of violence. We cannot allow them to succeed.

Let us not be cowed into giving up our liberties by those who don't value life. Let us not be intimidated by those anti-American, anti-West terrorists who are threatened by our Judeo-Christian ideals and ethics. Let us not submit to their way of life - one that praises intimidation, glorifies death and murder, and worships fear and coercion.

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. -Benjamin Franklin

In our fears, we have allowed the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to go too far; we have permitted the federal government to restrict our freedoms. It is our own fault. In our trepidation of insulting the Other, we have embraced the wayward and evil concept of political correctness. The combination of our actions has blinded us to the solution to the problem of terrorism. The insistence upon political correctness has led to the illusion of security, and not the actuality of it.

Americans, do not be deluded. YOU ARE RIGHT! You are correct in your disgust of the assaults on your body and on your liberties! A certain level of security can be attained, but not the way we are handling it right now.

Before we delve into the solution, let's briefly review the law regarding the Fourth Amendment:
In 1968, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of Terry v. Ohio. Then Chief Justice Warren, joined by seven other members of the Court, held that it is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment for an officer to detain and search a man's person for a weapon in absence of a search warrant, so long as the officer acts upon a reasonable belief based upon objective factors that the man is armed and dangerous.

According to Peter Siggins, Chief Deputy Attorney General for Legal Affairs in charge of all the legal work of the California Department of Justice, in the weeks following September 11, 2001, "federal, state and local law enforcement officials worked feverishly to investigate those responsible for the most reprehensible crime on American Soil and to assess our state of vulnerability to further acts of terrorism. As part of those efforts conclusions about the ethnicity and national origin of the prime suspects was inescapable. This crime was committed by a group of foreign nationals of middle eastern descent" (emphasis added).

The United States Congress passed the USA Patriot Act, an omnibus bill containing reforms to federal criminal procedure, laws relating to foreign intelligence surveillance, wiretaps and interception of electronic communications, laws relating to the gathering of documentary evidence, and DNA and immigration laws. The Act makes it easier for federal investigative agencies to obtain wiretaps on multiple electronic devices, and procure electronic and documentary evidence from ISPs and cable and telephone companies. It relaxes prohibitions on the sharing of information obtained in investigations by different federal agencies. Section 412 of the Patriot Act permits the attorney general of the U.S. to detain aliens he certifies as threats to national security for up to seven days without bringing charges (the standard to establish grounds for detention are based on Terry).

According to a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted in the weeks after the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight headed for Detroit, Americans widely endorse the use of profiling to single out airline passengers for more intensive security searches before they board U.S. flights, based on their age, ethnicity, or gender.

As well they should. There is no need to curb our rights.

Israel, a country that is surrounded by its enemies, has solved the problem. El Al, the national airline of Israel, collects $2.1 billion in revenue, and has 1.9 million passengers fly annually, and not one flight leaving Ben Gurion Airport has ever been hijacked.

How has Israel solved the problem?

Ethnic profiling. They work smarter, not harder. El Al has utilized sky marshals for over thirty years on each and every airplane so that potential hijackers and terrorists know that their life is over if they behave in a threatening manner. They don't make passengers take off their shoes or belts, and passengers can even bring liquids onto flights. El Al is proactive. They think like the terrorists and anticipate trouble. They are realistic; they target the potential enemies instead of the 99.9% of flyers who are innocent. And if it makes you feel better, rename it. Don't call it ethnic profiling - call it criminal profiling.

The solution is not to physically assault little old ladies and barefoot munchkins who can barely speak; there is no reasonable belief that those individuals are armed and dangerous. The solution is not a personal assault prior to a flight, whereby had any other civilian committed a full body pat-down, it could have constituted a felony.

Teachers profile students in order to increase educational success, managers profile employees in order to increase productivity, and life coaches profile in order to find business leaders.

Profiling can help in certain situations, and it will help in ours. Proper profiling (not just racially and religiously, but also regarding personality, etc.) will give us back our privacy rights, our liberties, and our security.

Let's liberate the idiocy of political correctness, and take back our bodies, our country, our values, and our freedoms.