As Thanksgiving approaches and students begin a mass exodus from Charlottesville that rivals its Biblical counterpart, we all begin to look forward to visiting family members, watching unhealthy amounts of football and eating even more unhealthy amounts of home-cooked food.
As many of us do not have the luxury of living within driving distance of the University, hundreds of students must resort to air travel to get home this week. For those lucky few, have fun waiting in line for hours while a government official from the Transportation Security Administration begins his comprehensive search through your belongings for evidence of nefarious activities. So are TSA searches just a necessary product of our post-9/11 society to be dealt with for our own good, or are our civil liberties being deliberately contravened for the purposes of our security?
Since 9/11, several terrorists have been caught trying to smuggle explosives onto airplanes to execute yet another series of attacks on our country. To subvert many of our security measures, terrorists, exhibiting a rather MacGyver-esque creativity, have tried to use explosives hidden in shoes, underpants or even converted into liquid form. The government has placed restrictions on liquids and gels and require all passengers to take off their shoes for inspection prior to boarding. As for the underpants issue, we have devised body scanners to see who has bombs in their britches. Unfortunately, many citizens have expressed concerns about their privacy because these machines produce what are essentially nude images of travelers, which are then stored in government databases for a limited time. Director of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano - affectionately nicknamed "Big Sis" by individuals who are not too keen on the idea of these government-sponsored peep-shows - has repeatedly stressed that this is purely the nature of the age we live in and that every measure is being taken to both ensure our security and the dignity of air travelers. Of course, we are still bombarded with stories about four-year-olds being patted down, grandmas forced to empty their purses and nuns taken in for additional questioning.
There are a myriad of problems with the way in which the TSA performs its duty. Former Dulles International employee and third-year Engineering student Allison Light said, "I think we all want to be protected and, for the most part, the TSA is doing a good job. However, the TSA seems to use scare tactics. Unless you're a friendly face, most TSA officers bark orders and are unnecessarily harsh with travelers." The question is not purely about their questionable demeanor, however, but whether they really need to resort to such harsh tactics such as confiscating even the smallest amount of liquid and searching even the most innocuous individuals.
Much like Japanese internment camps during World War II, many an evil has been perpetrated for our security. The question of whether these actions are a constitutionally prohibited search or seizure is often discussed with relation to the actions of the TSA. These arguments are countered by the rationale that individuals are told ahead of time about the risks of trying to bring liquids onto a plane and that the TSA is a legal government organization charged with protecting our security. It is with the latter that we could find potential issues. Should the TSA be given so much authority to search and to confiscate with reckless abandon just because it is a chartered government entity? The ramifications of such a policy are staggering, but we are beginning to see these consequences surface.
Because of the subjective nature of what is deemed a "security threat," the TSA is given an amazing amount of leeway to prevent a repeat of 9/11. Many accuse the TSA of using scare tactics: having the government present you with a realistic security threat it is trying to eradicate and having us, as patriotic and frightened citizens, sheepishly consent to the edicts of Big Brother and Sister. This is a valid opinion, but such arguments fail to realize that most people have an issue with the manner in which the TSA conducts security searches - not merely because the TSA is conducting them.
It is evident that the TSA could use a little more finesse and common sense while they try to keep us safe. We must try to find that very tenuous balance between ensuring our freedoms and our security; that line is not easily drawn and can oftentimes lead to dangerous practices such as profiling.
Personally, I think we can probably start with admitting that grandparents, nuns and invalids are probably not too keen on perpetrating international war crimes, but who is to say?
Given the nature of our enemy, perhaps I am just a bit na
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