[Via the Independent Institute. Another reason to get your own pilot's license for shorter flights. It's not that expensive. See http://www.aopa.org/learntofly/ and, for a $59 introductory flight: http://www.beapilot.com/ --Declan] --- AIRPORT SCREENING TO BECOME MORE INTRUSIVE, BUT NOT MORE EFFECTIVE This year the U.S. Transportation Security Agency will begin behavior monitoring of airplane passengers at 40 major American airport, reports Ivan Eland, director of the Independent Institute's Center on Peace & Liberty. "The screeners," writes Eland in his latest op-ed, "will look for 'suspicious' signs that might indicate a passenger could be a terrorist: having dry lips or a throbbing carotid artery (I'm not kidding), failure to make eye contact with or say hello to the screener, or evasive or slow answers to casual questions asked by the screener." Eland notes several flaws with this approach: It hasn't been field-tested for real-world effectiveness. It could easily transform into racial profiling. It fails to reduce the underlying causes of anti-U.S. terrorism. Terrorists who have practiced looking innocent could circumvent it easily. What, then, is the program good for? "Since the behavior detection program is unlikely to catch many professional terrorists, perhaps its real goal is to improve the morale of the unloved screeners by giving the public some incentive to be nice to them," writes Eland. "So next time you travel by air, don't forget your fake smile and ChapStick." Will it last? Independent Institute Senior Fellow Robert Higgs suggests that the public probably will tolerate greater intrusions by TSA airport screeners. "Strange as it might seem, most people get used to being treated as criminals or inmates in a concentration camp," Higgs wrote last month. "Americans are no exception. Keep beating them down, and eventually you will produce a thoroughly cowed and compliant herd, a mass of pliant raw material in the hands of their political masters, perfectly willing to sacrifice their dignity rather than irritate an airport-security thug and be made to miss a flight. And heaven forbid that they write their congressional representative to complain. Such impudence might get them placed on some black list at the TSA or even at the FBI. Best to keep quiet, stay in line, act as they are ordered to act." See "Chatting Up the TSA," by Ivan Eland (12/30/05) http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1644 SPANISH TRANSLATION: "Adulando a la Administraci?n de la Seguridad del Transporte" http://www.elindependent.org/articulos/article.asp?id=1644 Also see "Traveling Sheep," by Robert Higgs (12/14/05) http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1636 "Oveja Viajera" http://www.elindependent.org/articulos/article.asp?id=1636 To purchase THE EMPIRE HAS NO CLOTHES: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed, by Ivan Eland, see http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=54 To purchase PUTTING "DEFENSE" BACK IN U.S. DEFENSE POLICY, by Ivan Eland, see http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=19 Center on Peace & Liberty (Ivan Eland, director) http://www.independent.org/research/copal/ _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/) ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]