Strong words, these are. They imply elements physical and psychological. As a guiding principle, they seem most apt for prisons or a totalitarian regimes.
They were the motto posted at the TSA air marshal training center headquarters post 9/11.
In-flight air marshals were one of several security reforms instituted after the 9/11 attacks. Air marshals are considered by many to be one of the three effective measures (the other two are armored cockpit doors and a general awareness among passengers that they should fight back rather than comply) for improving air transport safety against terrorism and precluding a repeat of the 9/11 hijackings. Air marshals are a better and FAR less intrusive measure than most of the dog-and-pony show screenings, pat-downs and molestations that happens in airports.
Effectiveness, however, isn’t a carte blanche. No matter how well something works, a society rooted in freedom and “of, by and for the People” doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) permit or accept effective measures that violate either the letter or the spirit of that society’s underpinnings. One of our fundamental rights, one so obvious that the Founders didn’t need to enumerate it (although it WAS in the Articles of Confederation), is the right to move about freely. The Supreme Court has recognized that right several times in its history, and it should be pretty obvious that a society that restricts the movement of its citizens (papers, please) isn’t particularly free.
This fundamental freedom of movement disappears the moment you enter an airport with intent to get on an airplane. Call a limo or hail a taxi, and you enter into a contract with the driver and owner to transport you elsewhere in exchange for some consideration (e.g. money). Your freedom of movement is facilitated by modern technology and commerce. Book a ticket with an airline to get on an airplane and be transported elsewhere, and you enter into the same arrangement – with one major difference. When you walk into an airport with the intent to get on that airplane, you are forced to submit to searches that, if conducted on the street or in a car by law enforcement without probable cause or warrant, would be deemed illegal. Societally, many of us have accepted this fundamental violation of our rights as a price for the convenience of safer air travel. The rest of us are resigned to tolerating it out of necessity. The alternative to flying is ground transportation, and that’s not option if you’re an East Coaster planning a long weekend in Vegas or Cancun.
Given the insult to our rights, we might think that the government would bend over backwards to take arduousness out of the process. Yeah, right, sure. Beyond the long lines and get to the airport early admonitions, beyond having to get into a pat-down position in the scanner (arms up, legs spread) there are countless stories of invasive gropings and thefts of personal items (consider the recent groping scandal, where attractive men were singled out for physical inspections by agents).
Consider the motto of the New York Police Department, CPR, which stands for “Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect.” It’s right there, on the side of every police car, and whether or not it’s always practiced fully (some claim it stands for “Checking People Randomly”), it remains a sign that the NYPD, in theory, honors the fact that it serves the public. In contrast, an internet search came up with a couple TSA mottoes, including “Not On My Watch” and “Vigilant, Effective, Efficient.” The latter, combined with the recent revelation that the TSA missed 67 of 70 banned items during an internal test, offers endless opportunity for comedic mockery. Note that, in contrast to the NYPD’s motto, there’s a lack of recognition that the agency and its employees are serving a citizenry endowed with protected liberties.
I’ve written of the militarization of police departments around the nation, and how that militarization (black battle dress uniforms, body armor, tanks and military weaponry, excessive and erroneous use of SWAT raids) fosters a sense of other in the officers who should consider themselves part of the communities they protect and serve. Other is how armies view the people they encounter, not how agents of the government tasked with protecting and serving the citizens that elected that government should view us. If air marshals were performing military functions, operating strictly among hostile actors, the headlined motto would seem appropriate. But, air marshals operate among us, as do TSA airport screeners, and in looking for a proverbial needle in a haystack, they are obligated to show respect for the haystack.
The pursuit of public safety in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks has been justified by many as sufficient reason to curtail our fundamental liberties. A scaredy-cat subset of the populace, exhibiting what one blogger called an “irrational cowardice,” has abetted these abridgments by willingly accepting them and chastising those who protest. Sadly, whether the extra measures are effective is turning out to be highly questionable, as the previously mentioned 95% failure rate attests and in reports that air marshals are overworked and undertrained (they dropped marksmanship tests after most of their applicants failed them). In exchange for intrusive pat-downs, searches of our personal effects, scans that reveal intimate details of our persons, and delays and restrictions to our free movement, we get inefficiency, ineffectiveness, and a false sense of security.
We also get a government that’s increasingly detached from the people it serves, as evinced by “Dominate. Intimidate. Control.” Sure, the motto’s meant to refer to perps, to the folks who would do bad things, but how many perps do air marshals encounter each year among the 600 million passengers with whom the intermingle? This detachment appears not only in the TSA and in militarized police departments, but in government bureaucracies that are increasingly operating as independent entities (e.g. the EPA) and even in some politicians, who settle in for what amounts to life terms and treat the citizenry as groups to be done unto rather than to be served.
Some consider liberty and safety to be opposite ends of a spectrum and opposing sides of a scale, where one can only be improved by diminishing the other. This simplistic presumption makes it easier for fear mongers to justify abridgment of liberties, but it’s easily disproved. Armored cockpit doors and protocols regarding crew behavior in flight abridge no one’s fundamental liberty – you have no right to enter the cockpit during flight or otherwise. The change in the public’s expected response to onboard terrorists – resist rather than comply – also doesn’t infringe our rights. On the other side of the scale, there are plenty of things that have been done and that can be done that won’t improve safety by any significant amount. The TSA bans all sorts of items from carry-on luggage or your person when flying. Some make sense, but others… does a drill bit represent a real threat that couldn’t be carried out without it? How about a cricket bat? Does anyone seriously think that a hijacker could commandeer a plane by swinging it around the cabin? Yes, somebody can get hurt, but that same act could be performed in any public space with the same or greater chance of injury to others, so what’s the point of the airplane ban?
More broadly and less obviously, the expenditure of resources (always scarce) on ineffective measures can diminish the effectiveness of other measures. As noted above, there are reports that air marshals are overworked and undertrained. That massive bread-and-circuses theater at every airport security gate costs money, and we might actually be safer if some of that money went to the air marshal program (and, perhaps, they could change their motto and the attitude it represents). Unfortunately, air marshals aren’t a visible, obvious and continuous demonstration of we’re doing something. In fact, the less obvious they are, the better off we are (although, by some reports, the head of the agency insists they all travel in suits, which seems pointless and counterproductive). Thus, illusion of safety trumps actual safety.
The government’s duties include both the protection of our rights and the protection of our selves. Yes, at first blush, these seem to conflict, but it’s both possible and required to pursue safety only while respecting liberty. Perhaps it makes the job a bit more difficult, but that’s the reality of a free society. We don’t limit building heights to two stories to make firefighters’ jobs easier. We don’t put speed governors on cars to make highway patrol easier. We don’t give detectives unrestricted access to our homes and our persons to make crimefighting easier. We shouldn’t forego our freedom of movement and our Fourth Amendment rights simply to make the TSA’s job easier. And, we should demand that the government remember and honor the fact that its role is to serve, not control.
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