It really makes you wonder, doesn’t it? I mean we all seem to agree, and everybody with more than two brain cells to rub together can see, that all these security checks have got nothing to do with improving safety.
Now what is the point? Are they really a failure? Please don’t call me a conspiracy nut, but there’s people who say that the real reason behind all this is to condition us to being treated as cattle and slaves, not to protect us. It certainly feels that way to me.
A metal detector, the screening of carry-on luggage and the occasional pat-down… okay. So be it. There’s nuts on this planet and we have to have some kind of protection. Also the “looking for suspicious behaviour” they talk about in the article Rooster Cruiser posted, is probably the safest and cheapest method for real protection.
But then they started with having to take off your shoes, take off your belt, we need to check your ticket another couple of times sir, can we see you laptop please, take off your jacket, we need your thumbprint sir, no liquids allowed, you need to have a biometric passport, we need to take that camera or iPod and see if there’s terroristic material on the chip, now we need all your fingerprints sir… If I want to travel to the US, I even have to fill out an online form three days before departure, where they seriously ask me if I plan any illegal or terrorist activity! I wonder if anybody ever answered “yes” to that question.
And now this BS with the body scanners! It’s one more step in the same direction. And if they continue along this road, and we go along, in five or ten years from now we will have to give a retina scan, a DNA mouth swap, a blood sample and have a proctological examination everytime we want to take a flight, enter a shopping mall or ride the bus.
I mean, seriously guys, we have to draw the line somewhere, don’t we?
Now don’t even get me started on CCTV cameras, internet surveillance, wire tapping, disclosure of bank account information, biometric passports etc. etc…
Quite often I am impressed by how brilliant the founding fathers of the United States were. When you research history, you really start to appreciate the uniqueness of the idea behind that country! And they’re an inexhaustible source of extremely smart observations and quotes. Let me (freely) quote Benjamin Franklin here: “Those who are willing to trade essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, will end up losing both.” Now we’ve traded in quite a lot of our liberties. Did we get any safer? No? So, please can we have our liberties back?