Government and the media bombard us with examples of real or often just imagined threats and expand them so that they become as big as our worst nightmares. As more of us buy into an overblown story, it takes on a life of its own and often becomes the accepted truth. FULL ARTICLE by Chris Waidele
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/14999/fear-and-control-the-tsa-case/
Fear and Control: The TSA Case
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“HEY, is that a bomb in your underwear or are you just happy to see me?!…I kid, I kid!!!…but seriously, we are going to have to do a full cavity search”
I agree with the author 100%. However, as a member of the choir to which Chris is preaching, I believe that the article does not go far enough in exposing the actual lie we’ve been told concerning the TSA’s intrusive security measures. Exposing this lie, I think, will go long way towards waking up those who blindly accept the expanding police state, prompting them to take a second look at what we are being subjected to, and to explore the possibility that there are hidden agendas in play. Now let’s be more specific.
The story we’ve been told to justify radiation scanners and TSA groping is a patent lie. It is the fable of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be “Christmas day bomber” (aka “the crotch bomber”). We all know this story—so we think.
According to the official version, (in a nut shell) prevailing security measures were inadequate to stop Abdulmutallab from boarding a commercial plane he planned to blow up over Detroit. Luckily, the bomb hidden in his pants was a dud and the young man succeeded only in setting his pants on fire. Whew! Close call!
The big, outrageous lie is that the prevailing security measures were applied to the boy and proved inadequate to detect the bomb. We now know that Abdulmutallab’s father had warned the U.S. embassy in Nigeria, informing U.S. officials, including a CIA representative, that his son was associating with terrorists and may be a threat. Thanks to the congressional testimony of Patrick F. Kennedy, we now know that the State Department responded to this information by attempting to revoke Abdulmutallab’s visa. However, an official from an undisclosed intelligence agency (which Kennedy refused to name) told State to stand down and not revoke the visa, because the revocation would put an end to a larger investigation.
This information was for the most part ignored by the corporate-controlled mainstream press. It was, however, picked up by Detroit News (the original article is conveniently no longer available online http://detnews.com/article/20100127/NATION/1270405/Terror-suspect-kept-visa-to-avoid-tipping-off-larger-investigation). Though no longer available for free, this article was covered by other sources here http://tarpley.net/2010/02/11/state-department-admits-detroit-christmas-bomber-was-deliberately-allowed-to-keep-us-entry-visa-board-his-flight/
and here http://www.infowars.com/u-s-counterterrorism-officials-insisted-that-crotch-bomber-be-let-into-country/).
Moving on…
Thanks to an eyewitness’s account, we also know that, at the airport, Abdulmutallab was accompanied by a “sharp dressed man”; and, under this man’s guidance, he was allowed to bypass normal screening procedures and board the plane. This is worth repeating: the crotch bomber was allowed to bypass normal screening procedures!
Not surprisingly, the eyewitness’s story was largely ignored or dismissed by the mainstream news media, as the information was initially (and inexplicably) rejected by U.S. officials (see http://haskellfamily.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-about-flight-253-has-been.html) but was later implicitly confirmed in muted fashion, as indicated at the end of this related article http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/female-suicide-bombers-heading-yemen/story?id=9636341, which references Abdulmutallab’s guardian angel (see eyewitness’s reaction to the government’s changing story http://haskellfamily.blogspot.com/2010/01/initially-discounted.html).
So there we have it. There seems to be a lot more to this story than the government is willing to admit. Is the government lying to us (again) to accommodate a hidden agenda? I encourage you to do your own research and arrive at your own conclusion.
We should also keep in mind that the former head of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, runs a consulting firm and just so happens to have a client in the company that manufactures those radiation screening booths that are suddenly in demand and desperately needed to ward off crotch bombers and like-minded others (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123102821.html).
I am reminded of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”. The TSA is of course, Prince Prospero.
The sad part is, despite all the uproar recently, as soon as one terrorist action is successfully stopped everyone will claim that it was all worth it. And if, god forbid, some crazy person were to actually succeed again, the public would be clamoring to give up their freedom in exchange for security. The public is just too fickle to maintain the current outrage for too long.
Considering every terror attack stopped since 9/11 was by a civilian, it’s hard to justify the organization.
Well, I think Von Mises would have approved of patdowns, scans and every other measure that might help fight the true enemies of liberty, namely the terrorists.
The idea that counter-terrorism is futile and worse than terrorism, that crime should not be fought with whatever is available, just because criminals may find a way around the safety measures and they are not deadly enough for the moment … I don’t know, it sounds more like new-leftie Michael Moore types than libertarians. Get real, guys, this is not about some hippies selling pot, these are potential mass murderers waiting for their chance. Without security there’s no freedom.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
What if the airlines decided to do the patdowns and scans because customer polls indicate that most customers feel safer that way and prefer to put up with the inconvenience than risk a terror attack? Would they not be just as free as when they choose a brand over another one? Value is subjective, remember? As a customer, I prefer more inconvenience but a safer flight, not the other way around. It’s my free choice, I’m not any less free than the one who decides to take the risk. The fact that the State is involved just muddles the issue, but there’s nothing essentially unlibertarian about wanting more security at the expense of more personal inconvenience.
Comments meant for Larry.
Martin, your “safer” flight is affected by other “risky” flights. You share the airport, for instance. The riskier flights present more negative consequences for all other flights while incurring fewer costs externalized by safe, inconvenient airlines. I’m also assuming that many people would rather not pay for “excessive” maintenance or costly FAA pilot training requirements. Somebody has to decide what is excessive and what is adequate.
Maybe the owners of property and the people damaged by falling jet debri from a flight they didn’t agree to would prefer a security check at the airport instead. Competing airlines with varying levels of security impose external consequences upon one another as well.
The only absolute freedom in this case would be zero security. Unless you are arguing that point, you are just as unworthy of justice as anyone else trading away their “essential liberty”. Your subjective value for liberty is in conflict with my subjective value for liberty. I’m not advocating further intrusion, just illustrating the fact that you don’t get to choose the level of “safety” anyone else tolerates anymore than I do.
Maybe the TSA, and the government in general, is a substitute for the force you and I may be compelled to use in defense of our passions. There has to be something you feel is worth fighting for? I would probably pay someone directly to feel you up at an airport if it definitely would save my life and home. I’m guessing at some point you would lose interest in explaining to me verbally what your freedom means to you. We Liberals (the government interventionist type) are just as self-interested as the Libertarians. Maybe that’s the problem?
You may be surprised, but I don’t think that the acceptable level of risk has anything to do with being libertarian or statist. It’s a matter of personal preference and mutual tolerance, the same as acceptable noise levels. No matter how libertarian two neighbors are, if they differ too much in the noise levels they find acceptable, they will have coexistence problems. The same happens with the risk for third parties of any industrial or personal activity. You can be a security-obsessed libertarian, or a foolhardy statist.
Martin,
Opening your suitcase or even having it run through an x-ray, to some, is an unacceptable intrusion. Considering the underwear bomber, being frisked by airport security isn’t a completely illogical reaction in my opinion. Considering the weapon of choice was a simple box cutter, banning finger nail clippers may not be as unreasonable as it seems.
Somebody has to compromise. Shoplifters object just as strongly to Wal-Mart bag checking as loyal customers that feel offended by such procedures. Understandably in both cases.
IF these measures succeed in reducing incidences of theft, loyal customers benefit at a cost in privacy and convenience. If Wal-Mart decides to drop the bag checking, those of us that currently accept the “frisking” incur the cost of others’ privacy and convenience.
Wal-Mart is under market pressure to respect it’s cutomers and provide demanded prices. Neither of which is possible without security. Apparently, the bag checking isn’t detrimental to Wal-Mart. Or maybe it’s just a non-existent elephant. Either way, Wal-Mart probably knows better than I.
My question is how do you solve the conflicts? What if it is toxic waste rather than noise? Why should I tolerate second-hand smoke that I passionately believe kills, so someone else can be free to blow it in my face? Why should I stay home or change jobs because of the many people that do not respect my desire to not breath cigarette smoke? Believe it or not, big non-smokers and big smokers get their way more often than not. That’s just the way of this shitty world.
Your post here completely assumes the very point that it’s arguing. Terrorism results in the loss of innocent life; that much is so obvious as to hardly require iteration. But the issue is not whether or not we want terrorism to occur, as you seem to be suggesting; the real matter is, rather, how terrorism should be dealt with. The idea that an unwieldy and almost entirely unresponsive federal police-agency should institute a massive apparatus of inconvenient and disgustingly invasive procedures is not a self-evident consequence of the fact that terrorism confronts a “free” society. Indeed, it is a point that demands extensive support, support which you have failed to provide. Your suggestion that individuals could, like “customers,” shop for different policy options, exposes the fundamental flaw in your argument: citizens are never, to their governmental superiors, customers. (One need only think of the numerous legislative measures which have recently passed in spite of massive public opposition, as exemplified by the TARP bailouts and the recent health care bill.) It is only through the operation of a free (i.e., free market) security apparatus, managed by the airlines themselves, that a genuinely responsive system could possibly be developed. Do I, and probably most Austrian-influenced thinkers who frequent this website, think that private agencies could provide cheaper, more effective, more varied, and more desirable forms of airline security? Hell yes. That argument lies at the very core of the classical liberal idea, whether it be called “the invisible hand,” “spontaneous order,” “chaos theory,” or anything else of the kind. And this makes us un-libertarian?
As the 19th century French liberal Frederic Bastiat noted, interventionists accuse their opponents of wanting their country to starve, if they oppose massive food subsidies and bureaucracies. Similarly, you seem to think that opposing state security is the equivalent to opposing security per se. It is not.
A few other observations regarding your highly unpersuasive post:
1. Do you honestly think that Ludwig von Mises would have approved of the police-state-like measures implemented by the TSA, which include the indiscriminate governmental usage of harmful radiation and sexual harassment, and which require that hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars be funneled into politically-well-connected corporations? Have you read Ludwig von Mises… ever??
2. When you call your opponent names, this is called an “ad hominem” attack — which is considered by those fluent in the conventions of argumentation to be a highly bogus logical fallacy. In the future, you may want to consider not calling your opponents “new-leftie Michael More types” or suggesting that they’re fixated on “hippies selling pot.” It destroys any potential that you have for appearing to meaningfully seek the truth through debate.
3. Many adherents of the Austrian school consider the U.S. government’s military interventions abroad to be the very source of terrorism. (This PowerPoint presentation provides a good summary of the argument.) If such is the case, then the TSA’s interventions would simply be compounding one governmental misdeed with another, which would hardly support your suggestion that “Without [government] security there’s no freedom.” For more on the ways in which one intervention leads to others, I would encourage you to read von Mises’ important essay, “Middle of the Road Policy Leads to Socialism.”
Christopher,
Chill, mate. I’m not a commie agent.
I didn’t call anyone names, I just said that the specific line of reasoning that seemed to be implied in the article is more akin to new-leftism than libertarianism. I take it that Mises.org promotes libertarianism, not new-leftism, hence my protest.
BTW, the “argumentum ad hominem” fallacy is not calling someone names, it is to presume that an argument is invalid for reasons outside the argument itself, namely the personal characteristics of the opponent. If I call you a Michael Moore fan or a similar kind of abuse, granted, it proves nothing, but it doesn’t prove me wrong either.
My post was not about defending the government. I was just questioning the statement that increased security measures, including patdowns and scans, are intrinsically a loss of freedom. Given that the alternative is more risk of a terrorist attack, a perfectly reasonable and honorable citizen, and also a libertarian, may well decide that he personally prefers a little more inconvenience in exchange for less risk of imminent violent death.
There are many reasons why private companies let the government take care of security, instead of doing it themselves. This is unfortunate, but I reject the conclusion that we should do without security altogether, or demonize new security techniques just because the government is using them at present. When I say that I as a customer place security before convenience, I mean that literally, not as an allegory of my voting decisions.
I hope I’ve made my meaning more clear now.
The issue is choosing an appropriate level of security… the government can’t do that because they don’t have price signals to tell them how much security is too much.
If you prefer an airline that does full cavity searches of every passenger then good for you, but even that would not make bombings impossible. The ONLY way to balance convenience and security is to allows people the freedom to decide…
Also, just out of curiosity, how invasive would the procedures need to be before you would object? How much power would the government claim over citizens’ basic ability to move from place to place before you would think it was too much?
Well, the government is subject to the price signals up to some extent. If it goes too far, citizens emigrate and so it loses some “customers”. But I digress.
My point really was that, well, according to the polls, most customers agree with the safety measures if they help prevent terrorist attacks, and they obviously do. I’ve seen no powerful argument to the contrary.
Personally, I would prefer airports to segregate Muslims from everyone else, and have no-one question them about why they did a patdown to this passenger and not to that one. Even if I were the one who gets the patdowns, I would prefer it that way, because it would reduce delays and increase security.
Ideally, I would like them to have ecographic imaging systems to avoid cavity searches, but only for suspect passengers. I don’t know how much inconvenience I would consider too much, it would depend of how serious the Islamic threat seems at each moment.
Statistics of past terrorist attacks can’t predict future threats. If a securitity flaw is not corrected, the attacks will become more frequent and more vicious. Terrorism is human action, Misesians, of all people, should remember that.
You see, having to fly is stressing enough without the terrorists, so I’m all for keeping them out of planes with the best techniques available, even if it doesn’t seem to make economic sense to you. I venture to say most Western citizens without a political agenda think that way.
So, instead of attacking these security technologies with dubious, suspiciously Michael-Moorish arguments, I would prefer to read articles about how the free market would make a better use of them. Also, what small, realistic legal changes would help keep us safer. It would be nice, also, an economic explanation of why airlines don’t implement those measures, if most people want them. I have my own thoughts about that, but I’d like to see more ideas about the subject.
I just don’t buy the dogma that I must ignore the obvious Islamic threat, or else I’m a slave and a tool of the govenment.
“Personally, I would prefer airports to segregate Muslims from everyone else, and have no-one question them about why they did a patdown to this passenger and not to that one. Even if I were the one who gets the patdowns, I would prefer it that way, because it would reduce delays and increase security.”
How do you propose identifying Muslims and non muslims? A big government database of everybody? It wouldn’t take that much cunning on the part of a terrorist to recruit someone who looks “American” or to hold someones family hostage and force them to commit an attack.
But we digress into the paranoid world that the article was warning us of…
Maybe this is a suggestion of some sort of modern day Star of David badge.
Perhaps the state should issue “Grope me, I’m a terrorist” badges to all Muslims?
Martin,
The chances of dieing in a terrorist attack on an airplane are 1/25000000… that makes being killed by lightning 20 times more likely. Therefore, let me rephrase this argument to deal with a much more pernicious threat:
You see, having to go outside is stressing enough without lightning, so I’m all for keeping people safe from lightning with the best techniques available (Mandatory rubber suites? Lightning rods every dozen meters?), even if it doesn’t seem to make economic sense to you. I venture to say most Western citizens without a political agenda think that way.
“Given that the alternative is more risk of a lightning strike, a perfectly reasonable and honorable citizen, and also a libertarian, may well decide that he personally prefers a little more inconvenience (putting on a rubber suit every morning) in exchange for less risk of imminent violent death.
There are many reasons why private individuals let the government take care of lightning protection, instead of doing it themselves. This is unfortunate, but I reject the conclusion that we should do without lightning protection altogether, or demonize new security techniques just because the government is using them at present. When I say that I as a customer place lightning security before convenience, I mean that literally, not as an allegory of my voting decisions.”
Remember that lighting is 20 times more deadly than terrorists, so the argument above is actually relevant to more people then the one you used.
Seriously, though, the issue is that the government is FORCING everyone to submit to degrading searches regardless of their security preference, and they are FORCING airlines to use the same procedures for everyone.
You said “It would be nice, also, an economic explanation of why airlines don’t implement those measures, if most people want them.”… the answer is that not using all the measures approved of by the TSA is ILLEGAL. Airlines don’t implement other measures because they can’t, and that is because of people like you who use your own fear to justify taking away freedom from others.
One last note: Exposing passengers to radiation from the new scanners will certainly contribute to cancers… it is arguable (the government has not provided enough information to make these calculations possible) that the number of people who will die from cancer due to these new scans is greater than the number of people who have died from plane bombings. Does that affect you “you can never be too safe” viewpoint?
Anthony,
“Remember that lighting is 20 times more deadly than terrorists, so the argument above is actually relevant to more people then the one you used.”
Where is your source? I’ve found this one:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-world/2008/05/30/scientists-calculate-odd-ways-to-die-115875-17495916/
300,000,000/1 SHARK ATTACK
250,000,000/1 FALLING COCONUT
9,300,000/1 DYING IN TERRORIST ATTACK
10,000,000/1 KILLED BY LIGHTNING
3,500,000/1 DYING OF A SNAKE BITE.
So, should we be afraid of snakes in big Western cities? Can we swim in shark-infested waters without fear? Statistics can be twisted in many ways. The risk of dying in a terrorist attack in a small village may be small, but in a big city they are much higher. And, as you see, terrorism is now more of a threat than lightning.
More to the point, terrorists act, which lightning doesn’t. If they find a security hole and we don’t plug it, they will do more and more of it. You don’t cut the electricity of an electric fence just because few people tried to cross it. That’s the main difference.
“the answer is that not using all the measures approved of by the TSA is ILLEGAL. Airlines don’t implement other measures because they can’t, and that is because of people like you who use your own fear to justify taking away freedom from others.”
You misunderstood my point. I’ve seen many polls saying that, despite the hype, most people welcome the patdowns and scanners as a response to increased terrorist threat. My question was why did airlines wait for the government to do it, then. I have a few possible answers.
As for cancer, I’ve looked it up, and most scientist agree that the risk is either negligible or very low. Only one of the two types of scanner, the backscatter X-ray scanner, may pose any risk at all, and the radiation is 1% of what you get in dental X-rays, which is much lower than other types of X-ray.
The most substantial argumentation in the article was:
“A more accurate narrative is that any terrorist with the most basic intelligence will know the security procedures and find a way to circumvent or avoid them. More importantly, total security is an illusion: it would require ever-increasing intrusions into our private affairs by people who could become, in real terms, much more of a threat than terrorists.”
So, let’s use no security measures, because the terrorists may find a way around them. Let the police have no guns, because the terrorists may get guns too. Do you realise how empty and fallacious the argumentation is?
Also, no evidence is provided for the claim that patdowns are more of a threat than terrorists. If it were new legislation on freeedom of speech, habeas corpus or something like that, I could see the point, but not here.
I do fear that the government may try to get new powers and use them to supress freedom, but I think inane argumentation with no sense of proportion is counter-productive.
Yes, that’s more clear now. I essentially agree with Anthony’s response to you: it’s impossible to know whether these measures are good, precisely because there is no market in airline security. By analogy, if the government required that all cars be equipped with immensely uncomfortable seats that included a complex and obnoxious series of straps, and that caused back problems, then, yes, they’d probably make us pretty secure, and, yes, it’s at least imaginable that these would exist on a free market. But its extremely unlikely, and we libertarian types absolutely would be justified in complaining about the law requiring them.
In defense of my previous comments:
First of all, you never clarified in your first post what you now suggest was your primary argument: specifically, that the “Fear and Control” article is arguing using the reasoning of the new left, rather than the reasoning of libertarianism. It would be helpful, in any event, to know what exactly you mean by this. It’s not really clear what it is about this article that reminds you of Michael Moore.
Secondly, absent this elaboration — that you were referring to the reasoning or principles of the argument in particular — your post really does sound like an ad hominem argument, if not necessarily a textbook example of one. All you really said was that the approach makes us sound “more like new-leftie Michael Moore types than libertarians. Get real, guys, this is not about some hippies selling pot, these are potential mass murderers waiting for their chance.” So, in other words, because this sounds like a new-left, Michael Moore-type argument, and because we’re fixated on “hippies selling pot,” we must be incorrect. If you had said, “Well, this argument relies on __________________, which has nothing to do with the libertarian principle of non-aggression, and which appeals to principles that Socialists follow,” or something to that effect, then your position would have been a lot clearer.
Finally, I do hope that you can at least see why it sounded as if you were arguing in favor of the state’s current usage of radiation scans and full-body pat-downs, rather than for the possibility that these methods might just be desirable in general, or that they might be used in a free market. Imagine if we were discussing the U.S. War in Iraq, and you said something like, “Murray Rothbard would wholeheartedly approve of our toppling of Saddam Hussein. Hussein was a genocidal dictator and absolutely had to be stopped by whatever means necessary. Arguing against military intervention… I don’t know, it sounds more like new-leftie Michael Moore types than libertarians. Get real, guys, this is not about some hippies selling pot, this is a mass murderer waiting for his chance. Without strength there is no peace.” Obviously, in this case, I would think that you were implying that it was right for the government to use its military apparatus in the way that it actually has — not that you think it would maybe, probably happen in a free market defense system, or that the use of pre-emptive military force might be desirable in and of itself. Your post was structured so as to suggest that you were approving of this particular historical instance, rather than making some kind of larger theoretical argument.
Christopher,
I do see why you may take issue at my post. While I tend to agree with most articles here, when it comes to terrorism, as I said, some of them strike me as new-leftie rather than libertarian. Please let me elaborate.
I would expect libertarians to recognise Islamic terrorism as blatant coercion, an immediate threat to be taken seriously and fought with all means available. The libertarian would seek to remove the security threats caused by the tyranny of political correctness, for instance, the pretense that an old nun is just as likely to be a terrorist as a group of young Iraki men. Libertarians don’t accept they are at the terrorists’ mercy; they take measures to protect themselves and their families. They embrace scanners and other security technologies. The libertarian’s enemy is not just “the State”, it’s all kind of thugs who want to impose their will by violent means.
In contrast, a new-leftie would try to appease the potential terrorists, justify their actions, and insist that the security threat is smaller than reported. He would dogmatically insist that the government is the main threat, even during a wave of terrorist attacks. Government is the authority; the new-leftie is against the authority and for the underdog, not matter how vicious the latter is (except, of course, when the underdog is the law-abiding tax payer). I don’t have Michael Moore quotes handy, but if you have read “Dude, where’s my country” you know what I mean.
Again, I’m not saying the author is a new-leftie. I’m just a bit annoyed because it’s not just one article, it seems like a frequent pattern, maybe the dominant one, and I’m just being a bit blunt about my dissent. It’s OK, we can’t expect to agree on everything.
I’ve read Human Action and some other texts by Mises. He describes himself as a “liberal” (a classical liberal, that is), so he supports the State when its actions are aimed at protecting the life and liberty of the citizens from criminals, and nothing else. That’s why I don’t think he would have any *fundamental* issues against patdowns and scans, because it’s just the State fighting crime. Many people here disagree with Mises, so it’s not so important to establish whether he would have agreed or not. I just mentioned it because the article talks about Mises.
AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!! It still amazes me how simply a government controls it’s subjects through emotionalism…………….namely FEAR! Having served in Military Intelligence with a man considered the leading authority on Comunism in the U.S., at the time. He also spoke 7 languages and had debriefed/defected every major ‘east’ bloc defector in the 50′s and 60′s. I learned a great deal about governments and their methods………….inadvertant or direct? “9/11″ was a blessing to any government wishing to engulf the focus of their subjects and divert them away from the ‘real’ threats to our American way of life………….our economic stability……………..Oh, the ‘enemy’ from within!
I find the naevity of the American public truly appalling. Seventeen(?) guys with “boxcutters” were able to control a nation’s thought processes, have them spend hundreds of billions of dollars on ‘security’ when the only thing lacking was ‘secured’ doors on the cockpit.
We will eventually hopefully realize the ‘folly’ of our focus; unfortunately it will be after the devastation of our economy.
Doug
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