Most states require that a consumer who forfeits their rights when engaging in a transaction sign a waiver, acknowledging that they are cognizant of the fact they have, indeed, given up certain rights.
Whenever rights are waived, some form of acknowledgement needs to be required.
"I hereby forfeit my Fourth Amendment Rights with no guarantee that I am any safer for having done so" Signed:________Without such conscious acknowledgement, all Rights could easily be forfeited and who would notice? "Do it because your government tells you too", a philosophy that got the Germans of the 1940's into some big trouble.
This degree of yellow-spined cowardice is not something unforeseen. Benjamin Franklin was aware of the Debra J. Saunders types; the cowards that would say, "Do whatever you must! Just please don't hurt me". These types don't claim to be victims; they are natural born victims, ripe for the plucking. And to such cowardice, Franklin had this to say:
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" -Benjamin FranklinHelane Becker, an analyst and senior vice president of Dahlman Rose & Co, said she is keeping an eye on forward bookings for post December holiday travel, aircraft traffic and what happens this week.
"Pragmatically, people fly and they're not going to stop. They complain. It's in the news," Becker said.
She says "complain" yet what comes to mind is "whimper". And, as if the Stockholm Syndrome were in full swing, travelers "adapt" to the loss of the very freedoms that identified them as Americans, the very freedoms for which their Muslim attackers hate them so very much. Incrementally, they become compliant with the wishes of those who tell them that they are no longer entitled to the protections once afforded by the Constitution; Compliant, as if they never risked their own lives in battle to defend the country whose rights make it the "Land of the free, And the home of the brave". And never having done so, have little regard for the efforts of those tens of thousands who showed real courage in the fields at Valley Forge, Normandy Beach, Guadalcanal and other locales, all for the sake of principle. Principle so important, that men laid down their lives by the hundreds of thousands so that other Americans, in posterity, would be free. And one of those freedoms worth dying for was the "Freedom from unwarranted search". For some, whose appreciation of the gifts of their forebears, such principled fight is a foreign concept. As the old adage says, "Cherish those things you get for free; they're worth everything you paid for them". And, in having paid no price themselves, for them they have no value and are readily cast aside for the illusion of safety. Safety provided by those, whose own missteps have allowed the problem to escalate to the level that is has. To whom would such farce seem even remotely possible?
In this, it comes to mind, a few of the lyrics to a Beatles song:
"All through the day,Loosely translated, as it relates to air-safety:
I, me, mine; I , me, mine; I, me mine.
All through the night,
I, me, mine; I , me, mine; I, me mine."
"All through the day and through the night
I'm blinded by my own needs' light;
And so for the sake of my own self perception
Reality lies in theatric deception."
Not everyone who flies from an American airport, necessarily deserves to be an American. Those who give up their freedoms for the illusion of safety, when actually no such guarantee of safety has been given, are fools of the worst sort: when they're given the opportunity to have better, choose less. When the Constitution, and the blood of those who fought to defend it, guarantees them the right to be free from unwarranted search, they choose to give up that right to pretend that, after cancer-challenging radiation or rape-like groping, they are safer. After having been presumed guilty and treated accordingly, have proven themselves innocent like might be necessary for some third-world refugee, or like someone from a country that fosters a serious dislike for the Western ethic and promotes the teachings found in a book which commands the beheading of Christians and Jews, referring to them as "pigs" and "monkeys". In such instances, one might recognize that people who have no Fourth Amendment rights as Americans sometimes do, give up nothing when they're treated as one might process diseased cattle.
After you've subjected yourself to radiation or groping, you are no more assured that some explosive has not already been planted on the plane. Or that the engines won't fail. Or that a lightning strike won't crash the craft. Or that a tail fin control mechanism won't fail to perform. Or any of the other myriad "surprises" that have sent planes plummeting in recent years won't, in fact, doom this craft. The only assurance these current methods afford is the assurance that you've definitely diminished your Constitutional birthright and the personal, uniquely American dignity it lends, to pretend that you're any safer than you were. Safer from what? Heartfelt dignity in being a Constitutionally-protected American? or freedom from cancer protections? Thought the TSA scoffs at concerns of radiation, saying that you would get than much radiation from flying, has anyone pulled out a calculator and done the math? The TSA just told you their going to double your radiation exposure, or more. But don't let that bother you. If you watch your cholesterol and trans fats, or, more precisely, watch the government watch them for you, you might end up being the healthiest new cancer patient on the ward, albeit crippled, emasculated and paralyzed by the government taking care of you.
Until the authorities focus on the most probable cause of terror, that being the religious/political group that use the Koran to justify their crimes, no threat of terror will be reduced, not one iota.
- Only the dumbest sort of terrorist would try to bring explosives on his person. The last one to do this, the so named "Christmas bomber" (one of the few times the media likes to use the word "Christmas"; and though he is referred to as a Nigerian, the only thing he had in common with all of the other threats to America was his profession of Islam) had a father that had already warned the Authorities that his son would do this. But the Authorities didn't listen. Yet, some travelling fools will listen to those same inept officials when told to give up one of their most precious possessions: their personal dignity and Constitutional rights. And when the Director of the Center for Radiological Research (CRR), David Brenner says he, as the government's consultant on scanner design, safety and implementation, regrets having signed off on a program that is possibly more dangerous than he ever suspected, those same inept individuals at the TSA will tell you that it's OK... it's safe.
- Only the dumbest sort of traveller thinks the current system will find the bomb that was already planted in the fuselage long before your plane pulled up to the jetway. More terror activities have been found among the baggage staff than in the passenger list. More criminals, due to the poor quality of the background checks of the TSA, perform the screening than you will find among those that are screened. And who said it had to be a bomb? Wouldn't a faulty critical system be just as fatal to the craft and its passengers? And we've seen enough of those to understand how readily such an "innocent" flaw might be as deadly as a detectable bomb. And all under the nose of Janet Napolitano. But some people will actually feel better knowing that they'd sacrificed so much in the name of safety that their horrific, burning, terrorized fate was just inevitable...nothing could have been done to prevent its happening. While others are saying the same thing about the demise of our democracy and liberty and freedom.
the TSA has already achieved that objective.
Perhaps we are better off with fewer fools. We're sure to find out.
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