I absolutely, vehemently, unequivocally detest when my rights and freedoms are infringed upon for any reason, but most especially because of an (usually unfounded) assumption someone makes about me.
I’ve ranted previously about pre-paying at the gas pump because it’s assumed that I’m a thief. I’m moving up the scale of judgment and stupidity a bit here. The other night I went shopping at the local Wal-Frickin’ with the missus. We got some groceries for The Boy’s birthday celebration, a few party supplies (paper plates, napkins, gift bags for the schwag, etc.) and a set of 4 wooden TV trays. After we’d checked out, as we were heading towards the exit, the greeter (who looked for all the world like a bored high school kid, resting her lethargic and terminally bored face onto the palm of her hand as she leaned on the desk in front of her and presumably tried not to drool or fall asleep or both) asked to see my receipt.
Now I’m no dummy. I know my rights and I’m pretty aware of privacy laws in the state of Utah.
“What do you need that for?” I responded.
You see, I know that I’m perfectly within my legal rights to dismiss her with a “no thanks” and continue walking to my car. I also know that it’s Wally-World’s policy to check receipts on electronics and large items, even though they have no legal standing to do so. I’ve read plenty of horror stories of people being detained and even having the police called because they refused to allow a Wal-Mart employee to check their receipt.
“Because you’ve got a large item – that table-thing there” she said, pointing to the cart. “We check all the receipts on stuff like that” she continued, as if that made everything ok.
It was late, and I was tired and ready to be home, so I opted to just let her check the receipt rather than risking the inevitable ruckus that would have followed my refusal. She checked the receipt and I was on my way.
Is having a Wal-Mart greeter, being of either the iconic octogenarian or self-important adolescent variety, check my receipt really that big of a deal? I guess it depends on how strongly you feel about your individual privacy and rights.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a privacy zealot or anything, I just feel that one of the basic tenets of our great nation and one of our most valuable freedoms is our individual rights.
Let me switch gears for a minute here, and I invite you to ask yourself if you feel the same way in just a moment, and perhaps more importantly, why or why not.
On December 25, 2009, 23-year-old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate and explosive device on a Delta/Northwest flight from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan. He failed, and is currently in custody, but his actions prompted a massive jump in airline security measures and an outcry from the media and political institutions for greater measures in screening airline passengers. One of the proposed measures is the x-ray-like “full-body scan” (image below). Now, it’s not that I take issue with somebody checking out my junk. You wanna see it? I got no problem with that. What I take issue with is the fact that because one man did something stupid, everyone immediately feels like stricter measures are needed, and by and large, people are willing to simply hand over the freedoms that hundreds of thousands of men and women have fought and died for.
click for larger image
Let me just put this in perspective. It’s estimated that approximately 730 million people travelled on commercial airlines in 2008. Assuming that statistic holds (more or less) true for 2009, we can safely say that there’s a 1 in 730,000,000 chance that a terrorist will end up on a plane and try to do something bad.
By comparison, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were 13, 846 alcohol-related deaths in 2008. The estimated US population that year was 304,059,724. Now, not taking into account that only a certain percentage of that number is licensed drivers of legal age, and using the whole raw number, that’s 1 in 21,960.
Funny, but I don’t hear anyone screaming as loudly or ardently about drunk drivers as I do about some guy that burned his johnson off trying to blow up a plane.
If you want to really put this in perspective, a law requiring a full-body scan prior to boarding a plane (presumably in the interest of making the flight safer), is pretty much the same thing as requiring every vehicle in America to be equipped with a BAC device that would prevent the vehicle from starting pending a ‘pass’ result with an acceptable blood-alcohol rating.
Never had a drink in your life? Doesn’t matter. Everyone gets screened equally when it comes to airlines, and if this is such an acceptable exchange of risk versus rights, why would the same not hold true with vehicles? After all, the numbers just don’t lie. Approximately 3,500 people died on 9/11 – the worst aviation disaster of all time by a long shot – which is only about 25% of the number of drunk driving deaths annually.
And yet, because of media fear-mongering and our innate need to feel “safe” (whether it’s an illusion or not doesn’t matter), we’re willing to simply hand over our freedoms, no questions asked.
I imagine the men and women who have died protecting those freedoms would take issue with that.
December 29th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Nice use of math!
December 29th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Very interesting. Very good points. And I go to the airport ALL the time and kinda don’t want anyone looking at digital images of my booby-shapes. LOL
December 29th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
It’s ironic that we elect people to represent us who simply vote our rights away, that have previously been paid for by blood, sweat, tears and time.
The same people who can place ourselves in debt paying for programs for the rest of our lifetimes, and lifetimes of our posterity.
What other freedoms have you lost today?
Think about it.
December 30th, 2009 at 12:16 am
Isn’t x-rays, enptying your pockets, and metal detectors a privacy intrusion? Isn’t it a matter of degrees?
Any type of security or law enforcement encroaches upon some degree of liberty in its most literal sense. But without enforcement, we have no laws, but only philosophies.
Walmart doesn’t take away freedom because one can shop at Target. No one is forced to fly on a plane.
I guess I see it as a social contract. When you go to Walmart, you are agreeing to abide by the property owner’s rules. I think the same is true for airlines. Don’t like security measures? Amtrak, Greyhound, or Avis are also choices.
December 30th, 2009 at 5:45 am
On This matter, I get to disagree for several points.
Whilst the chances of an airline incident are, as you point out, MUCH smaller, the damage and potential damage caused by one of these incidents is far greater. Infrastructure damage, loss of life, etc. One plane crashed into a football stadium could be devastating.
Regulation of who controls aircraft is similar to regulating fissile material. We, for good reason, do not allow the general public to stockpile their own low grade radioactive weapons.
Private property interests versus Public property interests –
Flying on a commercial jetliner is a private citizen, engaging with a private enterprise, albeit a very highly regulated one.
The private enterprise may set the rules by which you get to partake of its services. The rule is: You cannot take a weapon onboard, and you are subject to a very intrusive set of heightened search method’s in order to insure such.
That being said. . .we can always opt-out of flying, and instead drive.
The intrusiveness of the full body scan does make for interesting discussion.
The Constitution’s privacy guarantees do not allow the govt to release your face details and and dick measurements on the full body scan. Those arent necessary to determine if you’re carrying a weapon. Nor do they allow the govt to read all of your email and personal papers, simply because you’ve chosen to board a plane.
BUT they do allow the govt and the airlines to search your body to insure you are not carrying a weapon.
The full body scan is actually one of the least intrusive ways to do that. You’ve always been subject to a full pat down search before boarding a plane. I flew just yesterday and I watched as TSA in various Airports stopped to to do full body pat downs of people.
In some airports every person got a full body extensive pat down, in addition there were random full body pat downs at the gates. I was patted down once.
We have always been subject to those security measures before boarding a plane. Even pre-9/11. For time and labour efficiency purposes neither the Govt. nor the Airlines chose to exercise that level of screening. Post-9/11, it would seem that insuring that no explosives are on board the aircraft is higher priority.
Enter the full body scan. . . We’ve all seen the scene from Total Recall where passengers boarding a plane walk through a full body scan machine and its simply a wall where the passengers walk by, and on the other side the screeners identify if there are weapons the person.
These full body scans do not identify the person’s face and genitalia, nor do they provide private medical data, or anything else for that matter. They simply determine if you are carrying anything on your person, since you’ve already consented to be searched to identify anything on your person, the full body scan allows this to happen without having 4 agents dig through your stuff, whilst two more feel you up and cram their hands in your crack, and crotch trying to feel if you’ve attached some thing to your undies.
At he end of the day I’ld much rather the time convenience, the far lower labour costs associated with, and the less intrusiveness of the full body scan, than the alternative.
December 30th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Wow, looks like you touched on a good one here J… Although I do not mind having my reciept checked or getting basically stripped naked at the airport it does concern me as to what is happening in this (used to be Great) Nation we call America. If someone was to go into wal-mart with a bomb on them and explode, what will happen then, soon we will have to go through a full body scan to go shopping at the Grocery store?? America, unfortunatly is turning slowly into the old russia. We are starting to become Socialist, and the sad thing is, The goverment has got som many people confused as to what they are doing, that we have to go to them to get the answers, and that my friends is how it all starts! FEAR AND CONFUSION!!
December 30th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Let me be clear: it’s not the intrusion on my privacy specifically that I object to (although I DO object to that), but more the uneven application of blanket policies of intrusion based on flawed perceptions and reactionary tactics rather than a reasonable and logical approach based on quantifiable data.
James, the example you use of a plane being potentially more dangerous is exactly what I am talking about. As I said in my post, actual data doesn’t support this perceived “greater” danger. As I stated, the 9/11 terrorist attacks were the worst aviation disaster in history with around 3,500 casualties. The next-highest death toll on the list of aviation disasters is around 500 – 85% LESS than the worst disaster of all time. In comparison to drunk-driving deaths, getting into a car is infinitely more dangerous (not even considering all of the other factors besides drunk driving that could result in fatalities) than getting onto an airplane.
All I’m saying is that our reactionary measures for airline screening are way out of proportion with the actual risk, and it’s essentially the result of our flawed perception of the actual risk involved. Just notice your thoughts the next time you get on a plane – how often do you have the thought “I wonder what could happen”? I know from a personal standpoint, I rarely have those thoughts when I get behind the wheel, but I tend to think about the possibilities of death and disaster much more frequently when I fly (which admittedly isn’t that often).
And I take issue with it because it’s the same mentality that led to the passing of the Patriot Act, which basically amounted to We The People handing over our rights to our government without any hesitation because of some greatly exaggerated threat of danger and our pathetic need to have the illusion of safety.