On Waiving Our Rights

As you are well aware, the latest reaction against airline terrorism has been a rapid and vast rollout of full body scanners and the so-called ‘enhanced’ pat-downs (see: Morton’s Fork). There has been much ado about these measures used against ordinary civilian travelers and the government has been firm in its stance that these measure will prevent terrorism at a ‘small cost’ to the flying public. Notwithstanding the effectiveness of these measures, which have never been proven effective, and notwithstanding their effectiveness against opaque threats, which have similarly not been proven effective (see: Christmas Day bomber), the larger issue at hand has been the ethical condescension on the part of government officials ranging from security experts to the president himself. My favorite line from this whole controversy has been this one: “You waive some of your rights when you go to the airport.” We’re waving our rights. Oh how our founders are rolling over in their graves. The lengths they went through to ensure that each person in the United States of America (whether citizen or visitor) is entitled to certain inalienable rights, which are now being discarded because we are incapable of preventing a terrorist attack before it reaches the airport itself. The way that the government portrays this as a choice on our part is what makes it all more logically absurd. I suppose we can take the train or drive. Or If i’m going to Europe I could hop a boat, a train, and a couple buses and arrive within a couple weeks. The argument doesn’t hold water. They giving us the choice to relinquish our 4th Amendment rights knowing full well that the other option is vastly more undesirable from a logistical standpoint (see: Hobson’s Choice).

I don’t want to get into a logical argument. Instead I want you to imagine the hypothetical world in a few years. Imagine that in the intervening period there has been an attempted terrorist attack at a major shopping mall somewhere in the United States and it was foiled merely be sheer happenstance (which seems to be the case with respect to terrorist attacks these past few years). Regardless of the circumstances, the authorities now deem malls high opportunity targets for future terrorist attacks and to ensure our safety, they will now be subjecting citizens to rigorous security before entering any of them. Bags coming in must be scanned and people are similarly subjected to full body scans or pat downs. What used to be a simple affair is now a matter of national security and federal scrutiny. There is an initial public uproar but nevertheless people subject themselves to these security measures out of fear and, alas, because they want to shop (see again: Hobson’s Choice). After a little while people get used to being treated like criminals just because they want to go to the mall.

I want you to think about this scenario. I want you to think about how you would react. And while you’re saying to yourself that this is an inane thought experiment that would never be able to happen in the United States, I want you to think why not. I want you to think about what we’ve already given up in the pursuit of security and I want you to think how, with each passing month, we lose more and more of what we had before 9/11. And how we freely hand it over.

I want you to think about whether we’ve defeated the terrorists–by thinking that intrusive and unnecessary full body scans and aggressive pat downs of everyone from children to the elderly as a condition of boarding a public means of transportation has stopped an attack–or if the terrorists defeated us long ago my making us so afraid that we’ve given the government carte blanche to do whatever it deems necessary to protect us regardless of its morality, constitutionality or practicality.

Now I want you to think about any time in the history of our nation when we would have sheepishly stood by and accepted a statement such as this: “You waive some of your rights when you go to the [insert place here].”
Finally I want you to think about what your inalienable rights are worth to you. Or if you’ve already sold them in exchange for your safety.

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