What the TSA Patdown Searches Are Really About
You can hardly watch a TV news show, listen to a radio broadcast, pick
up a newspaper, or read the Internet without hearing about the
aggressive Transportation Security Agency patdown searches at airports.
The TSA and all relevant officials tell us that they're really for our
own protection. But are they? In truth, the searches have virtually
nothing to do with increased airport security.
You can hardly watch a TV news show, listen to a radio broadcast, pick
up a newspaper, or read the Internet without hearing about the
aggressive Transportation Security Agency patdown searches at airports.
The TSA and all relevant officials tell us that they're really for our
own protection. But are they? In truth, the searches have virtually
nothing to do with increased airport security.
Several years ago, my four year-old daughter was pulled aside in one
such screening because she happened to be the Nth person in the line to
go through security. Though she was traveling with me, her mother, and
sister, she was subjected to 40 minutes of terrifying interrogations and
inspections of all her personal effects, though not a bodily patdown.
The startling part of it was the mindlessness of it all. The guards
were simply being good Nazis. Today, it is no longer mindless. It is
part of a sustained campaign to condition the American public to being
humiliated by government officials in the name of national security.
Physical humiliation of the subject is the first act that an
interrogator performs on a victim. You can see this in the pictures
from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The prisoners were made to perform all
manner of humiliating acts: wear women's underwear on their heads;
masturbate in front of female guards; pile onto one another naked;
submit to rape by their guards; etc.
The humiliation destroys a prisoner's dignity. It is from his innate
sense of dignity that a person finds the indignation, and therefore the
capacity, to resist abuse. It is our dignity that the TSA and the
government must strip from us if they wish to reduce our capacity to
resist their aggressive encroachments on our civil liberties. And it's
working.
It's amazing how many people say that the searches are worth
it--something upwards of 75% if the news reports can be believed. They
have already internalized the submission to authority that makes an
authoritarian state so effective. And they create the public pressure
for others to submit as well.
These are the same people who tell questioners that they don't mind if
the government secretly reads their email because they have nothing to
hide. The suggestion is that those who do protest wholesale invasions
of privacy, even for such quaint reasons of guarantees against such
invasion rooted in the U.S. Constitution, must have something to hide.
This is what makes an effective authoritarian state self-policing, as
was Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Resistance to abuse is a prima
facia sign of guilt.
It is not an accident that the matter is saturating the media to the
point of exhaustion. The message is very straightforward and all
reinforcing: you need to be afraid; we're doing this for your own good;
and don't resist for resistance is futile.
Not a day goes by any more that some incident, somewhere, by somebody is
portrayed as a threat to U.S. national security and, therefore, a
reason why civil liberties must be reduced even more.
The ultimate absurdity of this was seen in the summer of 2009 in the
discussion about escalating the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. The
National Security Agency reported that there were "at most 100" Al Qaeda
fighters in Afghanistan.
So, on the basis of this existential threat, the U.S. sent in another
100,000 soldiers and civilian support personnel. That's 1,000 soldiers
at a million dollars a year apiece for each cave dweller posing mortal
threats to the U.S. way of life 11 time zones and a 6,000 mile ocean
away.
The absurdity has become palpable. The government doesn't even try to
hide that it reads our email and listens to our phone calls, that it has
suspended habeas corpus, the longest standing protection of a people
against the abuses of a rogue government. It no longer denies that the
president claims the right to murder Americans for any pretext, without
due process of law, so long as he deems that person a threat to national
security.
The truth is that the government is not fighting wars against terrorists
any more. It is creating, provoking, escalating wars and then using
the resistance as the pretext to create a police state capable of
conducting a war against its own people.
Of course, it will be so much easier if it can convince the people to
surrender their rights willingly, voluntarily, to submit as the cattle
that must be their ultimate, inescapable fate. Public, inescapable,
physical humiliation is just one of the ways to condition people to that
subservience.
It's working.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Robert Freeman is the Founder and Executive Director of The Global Uplift Project, a leading provider of educational infrastructure for the developing world. He is the author of The Best One Hour History series whose titles include World War I, The Cold War, The Vietnam War, and many others.
You can hardly watch a TV news show, listen to a radio broadcast, pick
up a newspaper, or read the Internet without hearing about the
aggressive Transportation Security Agency patdown searches at airports.
The TSA and all relevant officials tell us that they're really for our
own protection. But are they? In truth, the searches have virtually
nothing to do with increased airport security.
Several years ago, my four year-old daughter was pulled aside in one
such screening because she happened to be the Nth person in the line to
go through security. Though she was traveling with me, her mother, and
sister, she was subjected to 40 minutes of terrifying interrogations and
inspections of all her personal effects, though not a bodily patdown.
The startling part of it was the mindlessness of it all. The guards
were simply being good Nazis. Today, it is no longer mindless. It is
part of a sustained campaign to condition the American public to being
humiliated by government officials in the name of national security.
Physical humiliation of the subject is the first act that an
interrogator performs on a victim. You can see this in the pictures
from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The prisoners were made to perform all
manner of humiliating acts: wear women's underwear on their heads;
masturbate in front of female guards; pile onto one another naked;
submit to rape by their guards; etc.
The humiliation destroys a prisoner's dignity. It is from his innate
sense of dignity that a person finds the indignation, and therefore the
capacity, to resist abuse. It is our dignity that the TSA and the
government must strip from us if they wish to reduce our capacity to
resist their aggressive encroachments on our civil liberties. And it's
working.
It's amazing how many people say that the searches are worth
it--something upwards of 75% if the news reports can be believed. They
have already internalized the submission to authority that makes an
authoritarian state so effective. And they create the public pressure
for others to submit as well.
These are the same people who tell questioners that they don't mind if
the government secretly reads their email because they have nothing to
hide. The suggestion is that those who do protest wholesale invasions
of privacy, even for such quaint reasons of guarantees against such
invasion rooted in the U.S. Constitution, must have something to hide.
This is what makes an effective authoritarian state self-policing, as
was Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Resistance to abuse is a prima
facia sign of guilt.
It is not an accident that the matter is saturating the media to the
point of exhaustion. The message is very straightforward and all
reinforcing: you need to be afraid; we're doing this for your own good;
and don't resist for resistance is futile.
Not a day goes by any more that some incident, somewhere, by somebody is
portrayed as a threat to U.S. national security and, therefore, a
reason why civil liberties must be reduced even more.
The ultimate absurdity of this was seen in the summer of 2009 in the
discussion about escalating the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. The
National Security Agency reported that there were "at most 100" Al Qaeda
fighters in Afghanistan.
So, on the basis of this existential threat, the U.S. sent in another
100,000 soldiers and civilian support personnel. That's 1,000 soldiers
at a million dollars a year apiece for each cave dweller posing mortal
threats to the U.S. way of life 11 time zones and a 6,000 mile ocean
away.
The absurdity has become palpable. The government doesn't even try to
hide that it reads our email and listens to our phone calls, that it has
suspended habeas corpus, the longest standing protection of a people
against the abuses of a rogue government. It no longer denies that the
president claims the right to murder Americans for any pretext, without
due process of law, so long as he deems that person a threat to national
security.
The truth is that the government is not fighting wars against terrorists
any more. It is creating, provoking, escalating wars and then using
the resistance as the pretext to create a police state capable of
conducting a war against its own people.
Of course, it will be so much easier if it can convince the people to
surrender their rights willingly, voluntarily, to submit as the cattle
that must be their ultimate, inescapable fate. Public, inescapable,
physical humiliation is just one of the ways to condition people to that
subservience.
It's working.
Robert Freeman is the Founder and Executive Director of The Global Uplift Project, a leading provider of educational infrastructure for the developing world. He is the author of The Best One Hour History series whose titles include World War I, The Cold War, The Vietnam War, and many others.
You can hardly watch a TV news show, listen to a radio broadcast, pick
up a newspaper, or read the Internet without hearing about the
aggressive Transportation Security Agency patdown searches at airports.
The TSA and all relevant officials tell us that they're really for our
own protection. But are they? In truth, the searches have virtually
nothing to do with increased airport security.
Several years ago, my four year-old daughter was pulled aside in one
such screening because she happened to be the Nth person in the line to
go through security. Though she was traveling with me, her mother, and
sister, she was subjected to 40 minutes of terrifying interrogations and
inspections of all her personal effects, though not a bodily patdown.
The startling part of it was the mindlessness of it all. The guards
were simply being good Nazis. Today, it is no longer mindless. It is
part of a sustained campaign to condition the American public to being
humiliated by government officials in the name of national security.
Physical humiliation of the subject is the first act that an
interrogator performs on a victim. You can see this in the pictures
from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The prisoners were made to perform all
manner of humiliating acts: wear women's underwear on their heads;
masturbate in front of female guards; pile onto one another naked;
submit to rape by their guards; etc.
The humiliation destroys a prisoner's dignity. It is from his innate
sense of dignity that a person finds the indignation, and therefore the
capacity, to resist abuse. It is our dignity that the TSA and the
government must strip from us if they wish to reduce our capacity to
resist their aggressive encroachments on our civil liberties. And it's
working.
It's amazing how many people say that the searches are worth
it--something upwards of 75% if the news reports can be believed. They
have already internalized the submission to authority that makes an
authoritarian state so effective. And they create the public pressure
for others to submit as well.
These are the same people who tell questioners that they don't mind if
the government secretly reads their email because they have nothing to
hide. The suggestion is that those who do protest wholesale invasions
of privacy, even for such quaint reasons of guarantees against such
invasion rooted in the U.S. Constitution, must have something to hide.
This is what makes an effective authoritarian state self-policing, as
was Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Resistance to abuse is a prima
facia sign of guilt.
It is not an accident that the matter is saturating the media to the
point of exhaustion. The message is very straightforward and all
reinforcing: you need to be afraid; we're doing this for your own good;
and don't resist for resistance is futile.
Not a day goes by any more that some incident, somewhere, by somebody is
portrayed as a threat to U.S. national security and, therefore, a
reason why civil liberties must be reduced even more.
The ultimate absurdity of this was seen in the summer of 2009 in the
discussion about escalating the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. The
National Security Agency reported that there were "at most 100" Al Qaeda
fighters in Afghanistan.
So, on the basis of this existential threat, the U.S. sent in another
100,000 soldiers and civilian support personnel. That's 1,000 soldiers
at a million dollars a year apiece for each cave dweller posing mortal
threats to the U.S. way of life 11 time zones and a 6,000 mile ocean
away.
The absurdity has become palpable. The government doesn't even try to
hide that it reads our email and listens to our phone calls, that it has
suspended habeas corpus, the longest standing protection of a people
against the abuses of a rogue government. It no longer denies that the
president claims the right to murder Americans for any pretext, without
due process of law, so long as he deems that person a threat to national
security.
The truth is that the government is not fighting wars against terrorists
any more. It is creating, provoking, escalating wars and then using
the resistance as the pretext to create a police state capable of
conducting a war against its own people.
Of course, it will be so much easier if it can convince the people to
surrender their rights willingly, voluntarily, to submit as the cattle
that must be their ultimate, inescapable fate. Public, inescapable,
physical humiliation is just one of the ways to condition people to that
subservience.
It's working.