rekindledflame said:Monad said:rekindledflame said:allenkerky said:Tachii said:
^ Of course you can.
:/.
"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security."
A quote by Benjamin Franklin. I really hold true to that because if you allow the state to take more and more liberty, eventually, you have to fear the state. So eventually the people protecting you, also become the people oppressing and hurting you.
Most power eventually becomes abused, so you have to be careful the power you allow your government and society to have over you (the people)
Do you view airport security or border patrol as a legitimate violation of your personal liberties as a United States citizen?
It's all about being reasonable. No one said that there shouldn't be an airport security but the airport security shouldn't be anal invade too much in you privacy or make you feel humiliation.
Security should still treat you as an equal human being and not like an already probable terrorist.
Things like taking your fingerprints making you take your shoes off, searching your PC files, touching you or your kids too much or going through your bags by throwing stuff around etc shouldn't exist.
People should be able to go on their vacations or visit their family easily and not be afraid of security bullies. We should not let our lives being ruled by terror and fear.
Besides most of those crazy additions of humiliation and annoyance to passengers hardly do anything to increase security. It's more like they are designed to keep you scared than actually keep you secured.
If someone made a movie in the early 90's about the shit they do now people will have joked about it and say they don't expect such Owelian things to ever really happen but here we are. People forget that many things happening starting from the US and spreading will be considered an over reaching imagination some years back. I mean wtf, knowing everything you do, say or write and they even approved of killing people without trials, that's some crazy shit out of stories we used to read about crazy fascist future societies.
Of course and I certainly agree it can and usually is a hassle to travel. Also, I'd add airport security can not ask nor force you to show the files on your laptop just in case one ever asks, customs on the other hand, can require it if entering the country. Most of these cases however do not represent the majority. The majority will not be fingerprinted, nor will the majority have to give access to their pc files. While everyone has to take their shoes off there is precedence for that.
Sometimes these things will of course happen and it's certainly frustrating, hell I've wished horrible things on many border guards, but I think this is being blown out of proportion. I
would like to believe that security officials in majority of cases have received the proper training (specifically CBA) to be able to make the right judgement call majority of the time. However, understandable sometimes they will not, and will make mistakes that might be viewed as harassment, and it's these cases that will be remembered, rather than all the times one traveled without incident.
The particular article in my mind, displays a bad judgment call, but I think this topic in general is trying to portray this as far more common than it actually is, as if it is a norm.