Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
Mollie's post reminded me of a question I've been trying to understand for some time. Why do Americans put up with this ridiculous ritual humiliation at the airports? We all know that it's absurd. You can make a bomb out of solids. You can fashion a weapon just as easily from a broken-off wine bottle (component parts conveniently dispensed on airplanes) as from a pair of tweezers (routinely confiscated). We know perfectly well that the no-fly list is a joke, that the screeners aren't paying attention, that this is all for show, and that the key to stopping terrorists is good intelligence and passengers who are prepared to take them down.
So why do we put up with this? It's a massive economic drain. The number of potentially productive American man-hours wasted daily on this is outrageous. Flying is an ordeal. It's surely costing lives, because people choose instead to drive. Yet I've heard no politician promising, if elected, to do away with this superstitious theater of the absurd. I rarely see op-eds decrying this state of affairs. I see no petitions, no grass-roots campaigns, no protests; the issue seems to be a political non-starter.
Don't Americans pride themselves on being a rational people? The world laughed at Turkey when the news broke that airport officials here had sacrificed a camel on the tarmac to celebrate their achievements in airplane maintenance, but in all honesty I can't see that our approach to aviation safety represents some triumph of sweet Western reason by comparison.
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May '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
We can look for bombs or we can look for bombers. The former requires inconveniencing everyone. The latter requires less equitable inconvenience, weighted to those who fit the profile of every 9/11 terrorist. Legally--and to some extent politically--that's a nightmare. It shouldn't be, but it is. Think Arizona. Think Holder.
Only another attack (or two, or three) will change this fact of life in America 2010.
Jul '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
Several years ago I worked with a young man who was a Native Hawaiian. However, he could easily pass for a Saudi. We were in Seattle and he had to fly to San Francisco to meet his parents who were flying in from Honolulu to have a family get together. My friend who, other than his name, met the perfect profile of a terrorist from physical characteristics was never questioned either in Seattle or when he left San Francisco. However, when leaving San Francisco, his fifty year old parents were subjected to an extensive search of their persons and baggage. The PCBS that has been introduced originally by the Bush administration makes the entire process absurd and pointless. The hiring practices exacerbate the situation. I traveled in the Middle East years ago and remember having to get to the airport at 5AM for a 9AM flight so that we could be thoroughly searched. That was real. What is happening here, now is absurd. I simply don't fly. That is the only way I can protest.
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
What happened to voting? We all feel this way. Isn't democracy supposed to give us an effective way to protest unpopular policies? Why are prominent politicians so completely silent about this? Doesn't it seem like a vote-winner for sure?
Aug '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
You're exactly right, we're squandering massive resources and labor hours on a fool's errand, trying to counter the last attack: shoe bombs, liquids, underwear, etc. Al Qaeda is no doubt working on new methods to destroy us.
Meanwhile, the Israelis have had almost 100% success for decades by focusing on passengers individually, using eye contact, probing questions, and clever observation of responses. We would speed up the screening process enormously by doing the same.
Why do we act so stupidly? That is a question for the ages. The America I knew as a child led the world with smart and successful ideas; innovation and invention in the face of knotty problems. The decline has been precipitous, and we can only hope and pray that it's reversible.
Jul '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
Doesn't it seem like a vote-winner for sure?
No. Candidate Joe Smith is AGAINST flight safety!
The usual suspects will write stories on how pre-flight scanning actually deters terrorists and other nefarious activities.
May '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
I think you might be overestimating the relevance of flying to most Americans. A small percentage of Americans fly constantly, but for most, it's a once-a-year (or even much less) experience. Just not that big a deal, I'm afraid.
If everyone were an international woman of mystery, Claire, we'd be in business.
Aug '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
Claire Berlinski
What happened to voting? We all feel this way. Isn't democracy supposed to give us an effective way to protest unpopular policies? Why are prominent politicians so completely silent about this? Doesn't it seem like a vote-winner for sure? · Aug 12 at 5:57am
Maybe we're picking our battles right now. Many of us can choose to never -- or almost never -- fly. It's harder to choose never to make an income (taxes) or need health care (ObamaCare).
On the other hand, I've met Americans who feel a sort of patriotic pride at being "good at" getting through TSA security. This sort, when friends swap TSA jokes or horror stories, register disdainful puzzlement, wondering aloud why it's so hard for their friends to follow a few simple rules -- utterly ignoring the fact that you can follow all the TSA rules and still be singled out for breaking them by TSA staff, and that the rules aren't very effective anyhow. I've noticed folks with TSA-compliance pride tend to be statists.
Jun '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
Scott Reusser: We can look for bombs or we can look for bombers. The former requires inconveniencing everyone. The latter requires less equitable inconvenience, weighted to those who fit the profile of every 9/11 terrorist. Legally--and to some extent politically--that's a nightmare. It shouldn't be, but it is. Think Arizona. Think Holder.
Only another attack (or two, or three) will change this fact of life in America 2010. · Aug 12 at 5:32am
I think Scott nailed it. We can't go back to the pre-9/11 security regime but no politician can make the case for profiling with quickly being labeled a racist. As long as a troublesome minority can make itself hard to distinguish from a more general population (Mao's guerrillas as fish swimming in the see of the peasantry) that disproportionally impacted population has to be willing to accept and support the policy. For example, Hispanic US citizens would have to support of a policy of border enforcement AND be willing to carry their passports. Moderate Muslims would have to accept that their community is being used by violent extremists AND be willing come early to the the airport
Jul '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
Good questions, Claire. I suspect that we put up with the humiliation and the economic hardship because the state has become all powerful. A friend at SFO, a PhD physicist, after objecting to some irrational request by a TSA apparatchik, was hauled into a windowless room where he was kept for 3 hours and told "constitutional rules do not apply here." Indeed they don't and short of hiring a lawyer and wasting more of his time there was nothing he could do or did. Incidentally, all of this makes me dubious when I hear that Americans won't put up with Obamacare and the consequent lines and reduction in service. The only solution is to vote the buggers out of office, reduce the grip of the government and restore some sanity into our lives.
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
Scott Reusser I think you might be overestimating the relevance of flying to most Americans. A small percentage of Americans fly constantly, but for most, it's a once-a-year (or even much less) experience. Just not that big a deal, I'm afraid.
If everyone were an international woman of mystery, Claire, we'd be in business. · Aug 12 at 6:26am
Scott, there are about 760 million passengers a year--roughly two million passengers a day--so even accounting for the brie-eating-out-of-touch-coastal elitist/ordinary-honest-folk divide, I'd guess the average American is doing a bit more flying than you reckon. But point taken.
Jul '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
I haven't seen a candidate willing to make it an issue. Talking about using "profiling", a skill the FBI has spent a great deal of time developing, is apparently thrown into the realm of racism. I really don't understand why there is so much fear of simply stating that the vast majority of hijackers have been young, Middle Eastern men, between the ages of 18 and 35 and paying particular attention to them when they are flying. However, mentioning these characteristics as a target population makes you a racist. Am I missing something? There seems to be very little backbone in any of the candidates I have met or spoken to. As pilgrim says, law abiding people will accept that there is a reason for the profile and accept it.
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
Look, forget profiling, for the sake of argument--why can't we just at least abandon this absurd policy on liquids? Every time a bottle of mouthwash gets thrown in a TSA trash can the collective intelligence of the people is impugned and a Dignity Fairy dies.
Jul '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
It has definitely gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Jul '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
Let's indeed forget racial profiling and adopt Israel's methods: highly trained, private, not government, employees, series of checks as one goes through the airport, eye to eye contact, interviews, observation of behaviour, not some mindless inspections of bare feet, nail clippers or contents of the luggage. It is the behaviour of the passengers as they move through the airport, not their ethnic background per se, that is what the Israelis focus on and we shd too. Is there no politician willing to point out the obvious?
Aug '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
Claire Berlinski: Look, forget profiling, for the sake of argument--why can't we just at least abandon this absurd policy on liquids? Aug 12 at 6:59am
Ah, but sacrificing our liquids to the TSA priests is the new American form of communion.
How's this for a Crazy Anthropological Theory:
Human beings need ritual. As much as people feel a drive to individuate, they also have a drive to comply, to be in communion with one another by submitting to the same ritual. Ritual can be provided by non-state, traditional institutions such as religion, manners, traditional courtship, etc. But in a culture where these institutions play a diminishing role in community life, it's only natural that complying with the arbitrary demands of the state should fill the ritual void the diminution of traditional institutions leaves behind.
Not only is security theater as arbitrary a safety measure as sacrificing a camel, but perhaps by its very arbitrariness, it fulfills the same ritual craving as camel-slaughter.
Jul '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
Claire, we are a different generation. I remember a time when the absurdities we accept as daily fare were unheard of. I remember when the airlines served food and the seats were capable of containing a full grown human being. I grew up in New York where individual rights were definitely far fewer than in other parts of the country, but even that seems to be a relative paradise compared to what has been happening nationwide since the Clinton years. They went from nickel and diming to full fledged attacks on individual freedom and dignity. Asking for just the last little bit back is an admission that you have given up. I haven't. I have just chosen to fight in my own way for all of the freedoms usurped by regimes which seem progressively more inclined to the fascist agenda. I include Bush in that. He did nothing to stem the tide other than ending the Clinton Assault Weapons Ban by not signing on to it. For the rest we might just as well have had another progressive. We need a real libertarian to run and win. Then maybe your Dignity Fairies will return.
Aug '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
Hear. Hear. Getting on a plane these days is such a dehumanizing process, I avoid it whenever possible, and dread it whenever it becomes necessary.
May '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
Because these policies aren't the product of legislation, but unelected bureaucracies' legislation, there isn't an easy fix, and a potentially crusading politician of either party will hesitate to start the fight because he can be painted as “soft” on national security by the self-interested bureaucracies involved.
In broad strokes, Democrats like more unionized government workers, even if they're standing around doing nothing; Republicans are “for” security, no matter how dopey; politicians of both parties are terrified of the accusation of bigotry which they fear will be flung by any opponent if more rational, profiling-style security were used.
A friend of mine—a twenty-something, female, Jewish, American Ph.D. student returning from Israel via Turkey—just had her Arabic dictionary confiscated by these geniuses. I feel safer!
Aug '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Ah, but sacrificing our liquids to the TSA priests is the new American form of communion.
How's this for a Crazy Anthropological Theory:
Human beings need ritual . . . Aug 12 at 7:39am
Not too crazy. I think people endure what they know is ineffective because to not go through the motions would be to admit that you are on your own and no one is looking out for you. For most people (not just Americans) that reality is the more difficult one to endure.
May '10
Re: Why Do Americans Put Up With This Airport Security Nonsense?
Claire Berlinski
What happened to voting? We all feel this way. Isn't democracy supposed to give us an effective way to protest unpopular policies? Why are prominent politicians so completely silent about this? Doesn't it seem like a vote-winner for sure? · Aug 12 at 5:57am
Voters have little influence over their politicians on the vast majority of issues because of priorities. A handful of issues take priority over everything else, so politicians need listen to voters on only those issues. Anything else is a gift. And we can threaten them with opposition only one year out of every four or six (just once or twice per decade).
Most of the time, federal politicians are our rulers, not our advocates. The best way to reverse their petty and short-sighted regulations is to strip them of regulatory authority by making reduction of government one of those few voting priorities.