Listen to this: "My freely chosen bedmates and doctors are the only ones allowed to see my naked body or touch my genitalia." For a sane person in a sane country that's the ultimate in "no shit, Sherlock" statement. But not where I live.
Not the United States of America. Not since 11 September 2001, when the government reacted to an attack on its citizens by lashing out against the very citizenry it claims to protect. No bureaucracy better embodies that reactionary principle than the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), whose contempt for American citizens has grown so great that they now require we submit to government agents either photographing our, to them, visibly naked bodies or groping us in molestation-style patdowns if we ever want to fly again.
I'm sick of the craven cliches TSA apologists have cited these past nine years:
"They protect us from terrorists."
No, they impose pointlessly superstitious security theatre, trample Americans' constitutional rights and make foreigners feel sorry for us. TSA protected nobody with its infamous "bathroom bans" after last year's Christmas terror attempt; rules like "keep your lap empty and your hands visible at all times" only demonstrated the agency's willingness to treat ordinary citizens like serial killers in supermax prison.
"You gave up your rights when you bought an airline ticket."
I never gave up any rights. The government stole them while cowards egged them on.
"TSA agents are just doing their jobs."
A lousy apologia and historically ignorant to boot; the civilised world established at Nuremberg that "just following orders" cuts no ice. And my fellow Americans are realising "it'll stop terrorists" cuts none either, at least not to justify low-grade sexual harassment as standard behaviour for government agents.
It's not hyperbole to call the enhanced patdown a low-grade sexual assault; if you don't believe me, go find some woman's boobs or man's balls, start cupping and squeezing them according to new TSA standards, and count how many offences you're charged with. Last month, an agent openly admitted that the purpose of the aggressive new patdowns was to intimidate people into choosing the nude scanners instead.
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