November 23, 2010
Airline travelers are increasingly upset by the TSA’s latest invasive and demeaning tactics, as government officials seem deaf to the outrage. Story after story fills the news with tales of travelers humiliated at airport security checkpoints and fed-up with a massive bureaucracy out of control. In protest, the LPMN is urging resistance to the government’s new body scanners and enhanced pat-downs.
By a unanimous 8-0 vote, the LPMN Executive Committee has endorsed National Opt-Out Day on Wednesday, November 24. We strongly support this nationwide day of civil disobedience against the TSA’s new body scanners, police-state tactics, authoritarian heavy-handedness, and attitude of guilty before proven innocent. The American people are not the enemy. Attacking liberty is not the answer. Libertarians wholeheartedly agree that forcing people to submit to naked body scanners which emit potentially harmful ionizing radiation is not acceptable.
Furthermore, we suggest that anyone subjected to the new groping pat-downs would be well-reasoned to dial 911 for the police, to have the offending TSA bureaucrat arrested on charges of criminal sexual assault. That someone may be wearing a uniform or acting on orders from their superiors is no excuse for engaging in criminal behavior.
Our condemnation of these outrageous new tactics should not be construed as support for the TSA’s previous tactics. These have included copying private data from travelers’ laptops, seizing personal items, and searches of personal belongings without a warrant. Privacy is a basic human right, not a privilage. The freedom to travel is also a basic right. We point out that the right to privacy is explicitly guaranteed by law under the Fourth Amendment, which states “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The right to travel without government interference is also protected under the Ninth Amendment. Government bureaucrats conducting warrantless searches as a condition of allowing travel are doing so illegally, in defiance of the highest law of the land.
Drastic changes are needed. Rather than forcing all travelers to endure increasingly harsh security measures, Libertarians propose a better solution. Each traveler should be free to make their own choices. The TSA should be abolished, the federal government’s airport security monopoly should be dismantled, and security functions should be re-marketized, with responsibility for security given to each airline. Airlines should also be free to choose their own security methods. This would allow each individual to choose an airline which provides the best security with the least intrusiveness, from among multiple airlines with different security policies. Individuals who don’t mind strict security measures could travel with the benefit of potentially greater safety. Individuals who dislike such measures could also travel, accepting the potentially greater risk. Ending the government’s security monopoly would let all travelers choose the security regimen they prefer. In addition, the airlines and any private security firms they hire could be held accountable for their actions by customers, in stark contrast to the government’s massive TSA bureaucracy which seems all but unaccountable. A genuine free-market system would also allow introduction of different technologies or procedures, some of which are already in practice in other countries and have been more effective and less intrusive than the TSA’s authoritarian methods. In a free society, airline customers could vote with their feet on the best security methods.
Most importantly, the threat of terrorism will not go away until the root causes of terrorism are addressed. Libertarians continue to call for the federal government to end its support of foreign dictators and withdraw all U.S. troops from foreign lands. There was no foreign-based terrorism in the U.S. prior to the government’s heavy-handed interference in other countries beginning in the 1960s.
Concerned about the relentless expansion of government control and the erosion of individual liberty? Consider joining and becoming active in the Libertarian Party of Minnesota. Libertarians stand in support of liberty on all issues, all the time. Libertarianism is a philosophical and political movement promoting individual freedom, voluntary interaction, genuine free markets, and peace.