Machan's Musings - Those Eager TSA Folks
by Tibor R. Machan
Maybe I am seeing things, but my impression from going through hundreds of airports since 9/11 is that too many TSA folks are plainly gung ho. They perform their jobs eagerly, often seeming to relish that bit of power they have to order people around. (One of my daughters speculated, recently, that these people have personalties attracted to such work!)
I am not one of the most cooperative folks at these security checks, mainly because I believe most of it fits the motto, "Closing the barn doors after the horses have fled." All this might have made sense before 9/11—but now it doesn’t, as far as I can tell. But that’s not all.
The inconsistency with which these security checks are carried out suggests to me that these folks are rather lost about what they should be doing in the first place. Take sneakers, for example. In one airport they must come off, in another they can stay on. And when you point this out to a TSA officer, you risk getting barred from the airport because they are so convinced that they are God’s little helpers. If you say anything, you are definitely a bad guy who is just about to undermine world peace and good will to all.
Not all these people are the same way, of course. Some have good days and will show it. But too many seem to have this attitude that questioning anything about what they do amounts to enthusiastically serving Osama bin Laden, which is just BS. After all, the bulk of us haven’t done a thing wrong, didn’t act suspiciously, are indeed not guilty of anything pertaining to national security, yet we are being treated by these TSA folks as if we had been tried and convicted of treason. Why? Because the federal government is trying to show that it’s doing something, anything, to cope with terrorism.
No, I done have some great alternative, but do I need to in order to notice that there’s something amiss with the way the matter is dealt with? Here a coat must come off, there it doesn’t matter; here you should remove your glasses, there it’s unnecessary. Here the wristwatch needs to be put into that little tray, there it can stay on your wrist. And it goes on like that, from one airport to the next. And if you assume you have a clue what the next one will demand of you, you are in for a surprise. And for threatening looks, even words, should you make mention of the fact.
Yes, words. Several times, after I make polite mention of the inconsistency of their procedures, a gruff TSA official has told me to "shut up." Other times I have been told that if I say another word, I will be arrested. And I do not mean a word like, "I am about to carry some bombs on this plane," but, rather, "Why is there no consistency in how this procedure is being administered?"
But then I am not really surprised. I recall when I was a cop in the U.S. Air Force and manned the main gate at Andrews Air Force Base night after night. I, too, had (and resisted) the temptation to lord my authority over some poor bloke who came on base at 3:00 A.M. I recall wanting to stop the car, look into it, check for IDs, and so on, not out of necessity but out of sheer boredom, and just a little sense of superiority. Even at the gate of some hospital or similar facility, the guards routinely exhibit this tendency to indulge their tiny power—never mind that there’s no reason for it at all.
But then, it is not for nothing that we recall Lord Acton’s saying, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Here, then, is the full context of this wonderful bit of understanding: "Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end ... liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition ... The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern ... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
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