PERILS OF 'PRIVACY'

New York Post ^ | April 26, 2004 | HEATHER MAC DONALD

[OESY]

If you'd be happy to fly seated next to the next Mohamed Atta, then don't worry about the crusade to cancel the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System. If you do want terrorists kept off planes, start worrying about the smear campaign now underway in the name of "privacy." Our nation's intelligence agencies failed to "connect the dots" before 9/11. And a left-right alliance of privacy extremists is doing its best to keep it that way: These "privocrats" have shot down nearly every proposal to use intelligence more effectively, terming them an assault on "privacy."

[OESY]

IMHO, the rights to life and liberty outweigh the "right" of privacy, particularly when files have been scrubbed to remove personal data and other measures have been implemented to prevent abuse. Isn't it odd that we lag behind Britain that has just introduced on a 7-year voluntary trial basis an ID card with biometric data to guard against hijackings such as occurred on 9/11.

[Rummyfan]

Love Heather MacDonald. If you get a chance read THE BURDEN OF BAD IDEAS.

Our nation's intelligence agencies failed to "connect the dots" before 9/11.

They are faulted by liberals for not doing enough before 911 to prevent the attacks. But when they try to take some proactive steps, they are decried for being racist, invasive, and Gestapo-like. You can't win with these people.

[OESY]

Heather MacDonald's THE BURDEN OF BAD IDEAS is a must-read book!

[ride the whirlwind]

EPIC claims that the program violates the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on "unwarranted government searches." Reality test: The CAPPS screeners would merely ask for your name, address, birth date and phone number.

That's a search? Even if it were, the Fourth Amendment only prohibits unreasonable searches. Having to give this minimal identifying information - all of it already required to buy a ticket, or on the ID required to board the plane - in exchange for air security is clearly reasonable.

I agree. Those with nothing to hide should have nothing to worry about.

[blabs]

Anybody who supports this CAPP crap is braindead! This is a nightmare waiting to happen...if you think the war on drugs is bad, wait till CRAPP is implemented.

Can you feel the noose tightening around your neck?

[agitator]

[eno_]

You put the right of privacy in quotes.

I suppose you believe that if a right is not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution, it does not exist?

Or, maybe, you have it backwards: If the Constitution does not explicitly authorize the government to engage in an activity, or to legislate or regulate, it's out of bounds.

What does the Xth mean to you?

[antiRepublicrat]

It is possible that these could be good ideas, but they are being implemented in a way that is worthy of protest. A simple example: there are lots of people in the U.S. who can't get on a plane without being detained as a terrorist because their name or SSN matches up with one in the Big Database In The Sky. You know, the database where no error-checking is done one the data going into it from several other locally-held databases. There is currently NO WAY to rectify that situation, and it doesn't look like one is planned either.

[SiliconValleyGuy]

"Privacy" has such a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

But so do most liberal propaganda issues.

Don't fall for semantics!

[yoe]

When the privacy advocates discovered the airlines' cooperation with anti-terror researchers, they went berserk. The two airlines now face hundreds of billions of dollars in class-action lawsuits and have been excoriated in the press.

What do these people have to hide? I don't think it is privacy per se, something far more dear to them than plain old privacy........... Even if it were, the Fourth Amendment only prohibits unreasonable searches. Having to give this minimal identifying information - all of it already required to buy a ticket, or on the ID required to board the plane - in exchange for air security is clearly reasonable.

....Amen!

[Publius6961]

There is currently NO WAY to rectify that situation, and it doesn't look like one is planned either.

I will travel light and allow plenty of time. As long as they get me where I want to go eventually...

Hey. If they don't mind wasting their time over and over, I don't either.

[Just another Joe]

Two points that I take issue with.

At some point, a citizen must take his government at its word. Mistrust of government is a healthy instinct, but the assumption that everything a public official says is a lie leads to paralysis.

There is NO point that a citizen must take the governments word. What was the old saying that President Reagan made famous? "Trust but verify".
Anymore, the assumption that everything a public official says is a lie is a pretty good assumption. At least as far as the fact that it's good for, and won't harm, the public.

Having to give this minimal identifying information - all of it already required to buy a ticket, or on the ID required to board the plane - in exchange for air security is clearly reasonable.

If it's already required to buy a ticket or on the ID required to board a plane, then why does someone need to give it again? What's that you say? The airlines don't want to release the data for fear of a privacy issue? OMG, say it ain't so!
Let it be voluntary. If a person flies a lot and wants to be part of this they can volunteer to join the program. Do you think a terrorist is going to volunteer to join this type of program?
Treat the rest of the passengers the same way they do now. It's not protecting anything but it sure makes them feel good to see the granny being wanded.

If the government assigns different security risks to an Iowa music teacher traveling to her high school reunion and to a Pakistani-American funder of Islamic madrassas...

And you don't think the Pakastani-American funder of Islamic madrasses isn't ALREADY being watched? What faith you have in your government security agency. (NOT!)
Flying is not a right. I think we can all agree on that. If you don't want to be treated like a sheeple, don't feel like being a mushroom (Think about it), and want to feel secure, then let the pilots AND passengers go armed onto the airplane.

[steve-b]

If the government assigns different security risks to an Iowa music teacher traveling to her high school reunion and to a Pakistani-American funder of Islamic madrassas

The problem is that we know that the government will not do so -- political correctness has trumped security every time the matter has come up.

This raises obvious questions of what the government would do with the data.

(I do congratulate Ms MacDonald for putting enough padding between the mutually exclusive assertions that the government would not look into personal financial records and that it would be looking to see who is funding what. At least she pretends to respect the reader's intelligence.)

[ikka]

They don't need airline data to develop CAPPS II. They could just run trial data from state driver's license databases and make up the flight information.

[NJ_gent]

I agree. It's rather sad how few people are able to look beyond what happens in the next ten minutes. It's even more saddening when people here look to the federal government to protect them at the expense of the most fundamental of rights. I see people, even here, arguing against the right to privacy, as if it doesn't exist because it isn't listed in the document that enumerated the few and limited powers of the Federal government. What it all comes down to is how much you value your freedom. Personally, I don't want anyone near me who doesn't value it more than their life. So many people are willing to give up everything that Americans have fought and died for over the past 200+ years at the mere hint of danger. That just makes me absolutely sick.

I just want to cry out to all those types of people to quit cowering behind Uncle Sam to save their skin. What good is your life if you're not free to enjoy it? I think Samuel Adams best described how I feel right now during a speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776:

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

[OESY]

Good points. However, I do believe that rights explicit in the Constitution trump other "rights" developed through case law. That said, I am arguing that we ought to institute a voluntary ID Card system with tamper-proof biometric attributes that would allow me to use the "express lane" at airports so I don't have to arrive 2-3 hours before departure. If someone else, including those who are buying toms of fertilizer for their garden apartment in the city, don't want to participate, well I hope their would be other ways of spotting pattern aberrations.

Presently, TSA does not allow questioning of more than two member of the group of people that carry passports from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, etc., (if I have my facts correct) because if would be discriminatory -- even if the prospective passengers are all buying one-way tickets to the west coast with cash and have no baggage. Heather and I think that the system ought to be fixed.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

...At some point, a citizen must take his government at its word...

Like "Don't mind the crowded freight cars, there will be nice hot showers when you get to the camps."

[steve-b]

That said, I am arguing that we ought to institute a voluntary ID Card system with tamper-proof biometric attributes that would allow me to use the "express lane" at airports so I don't have to arrive 2-3 hours before departure.

That won't work. The only way to make sure that a terrorist hasn't covertly slipped something into the luggage of a "trusted traveller" is to subject him to the same search protocol as everybody else.

Presently, TSA does not allow questioning of more than two member of the group of people that carry passports from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, etc., (if I have my facts correct) because if would be discriminatory -- even if the prospective passengers are all buying one-way tickets to the west coast with cash and have no baggage. Heather and I think that the system ought to be fixed.

The fact that such gaping holes exist for no reason other than politically correct foolishness is a telling argument against MacDonald's position. The government's agenda is not to improve security -- if it were, this nonsense simply would not be permitted to continue -- and so one wonders what the government's actual agenda is.

[eno_]

I am aware of no cases prior to the New Deal that characterized the power flowing from the Commerce Clause as sweepingly as does our substantial effects test. My review of the case law indicates that the substantial effects test is but an innovation of the 20th century.

Getting warmer, but not quite there yet...

Rights are not the sum of explicitly mentioned rights plus case law. Rights are everything outside the authority of government to regulate or legislate.

And, as for being free to choose your security tools, there too you are getting closer: The real answer is lettiing people be free to choose No Moslem Open Carry airlines while the sheeple can choose to continue to submit to the TSA anal probe. Freedom of association is a power, if oft forgotten, right.