Community | December 01, 2010 | 40 comments

You Are No Longer Free To Move About the Country

source: http://reason.com/blog/2010/12/01/you-are-no-longer-free-to-move

Darevalo
Janet Napolitano said last month that we should expect to soon see tighter restrictions at bus, train, and marine transportation centers, too. Here's a report about TSA, Border Patrol, and local police setting up a checkpoint at a Greyhound station in Tampa. Note how quickly preventing a possible terrorist attack expands to include catching illegal immigrants, and preventing drug and what sounds like "cash smuggling." (It's hard to tell from the audio.) Note also the complete and utter reverence the local news report bestows on these government agencies, who after all are merely "teaming up to keep your family safe."

A liberal blogger wrote to me in an email this week that libertarians who call the TSA pat-downs a violation of their civil liberties do a disservice to actual violations of civil liberties. It's not difficult to envision the day where anyone wishing to take mass transportation in this country will have to first submit to a government checkpoint, show ID, and answer questions about any excess cash, prescription medication, or any other items in his possession the government deems suspicious. If and when that happens, freedom of movement will essentially be dead. But it won't happen overnight. It'll happen incrementally. And each increment will, when taken in isolation, appear to some to be perfectly reasonable.
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40 comments // You Are No Longer Free To Move About the Country // Video

  • tommic
    • +1
      tommic  

    • Quite simple drive where you want to go and destroy the airline industry ( can't hurt they've been subsidized for decades) don't take a bus, or a train. rent a car.
      Complain when terrorists attack, then complain when the government does something, now complain you can't take a plane train or bus without TSA doing their job. I seriously doubt this is to catch illegal immigrants or catching drug smugglers. They may catch some, but terror is the goal, to stop, stop or prevent a terrorist attack to the best of their ability. There is no panacea in the war on terrorism, there is NO easy way. I would prefer we surrender no rights and if people died so be it, but our reaction as a nation has all ready provided terrorists with a victory. We' have changed the way we live due to them.
      A man who would surrender rights and freedoms for security deserve neither.

    • 1 year ago
  • takobaka
    • +1
      takobaka  
    • tommic:

      Unfortunately, we're in a closing society. The next step is to have checkpoints every 50 or 100 miles, where everyone gets out of the car and is patted down. Don't fool yourself into thinking it couldn't happen.

    • 1 year ago
  • UtopianSky
    • +2
      UtopianSky  

    • You know, I think this is an issue that just about everyone is in agreement about.

      I've never seen anyone, short of a politician or other official, speak out in favor of these procedures.

      Some argue against it as civil rights and personal privacy, others as an unnecessary expense with no benefit, others because it is a system ripe for abuse.

      The only people who are for this are the people who sell the screening machines, and the pervs doing the pat-downs.

      It's an issue that can unite us all- Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Capitalist, Socialist, Liberal, Conservative, Atheist, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Gay, Straight, Black, White ...

      None of us want a total stranger in a uniform grabbing our junk.

      Unless it's a really hot total stranger, and he buys us dinner first.

    • 1 year ago
  • Radical_Centrist
    • +1
      Radical_Centrist  
    • UtopianSky:

      "None of us want a total stranger in a uniform grabbing our junk.
      Unless it's a really hot total stranger, and he buys us dinner first."

      Unless it was a REALLY REALLY nice Dinner I think i would still be pissed. lol

    • 1 year ago
  • UtopianSky
  • galwayman
    • +1
      galwayman  

    • The move to a police state continues while Americans are brainwashed into believing it is to keep them "safe"! Have been using Amtrak to avoid the criminal treatment at airports and now this! Wake up people this crap is not to make you "safer" but to monitor everyones travel and moves! Welcome to the Obama police state! Lets put a stop to this! Lets take our country back!

    • 1 year ago
  • dudefromtherock
  • maasanova
    • +1
      maasanova  

    • Why not put TSA on the border? Ahh...no that would make too much sense. Nah, let's just have them fondle our wives and kids instead.

    • 1 year ago
  • sffsmessiah
  • jubal
    • +6
      jubal  

    • Time to make your exit plans from the good ol USA....they don't give a shit when you protest...they consider Americans the enemy of the state. Privacy is dead in America.

    • 1 year ago
  • Progresshiv
  • dudefromtherock
  • Radical_Centrist
  • Progresshiv
    • +8
      Progresshiv  

    • None of this garbage is "reasonable." It's a simple scam to terrorize Americans into accepting a police state. Timid and soft as little bunnies, U.S. citizens have thrown in the towel on the fight for freedom. Morons.

    • 1 year ago
  • PzLuvHappeniz
  • Progresshiv
  • KSirys
  • Vierotchka
  • KSirys
  • bailey78
    • +8
      bailey78  

    • Wail till they come knocking on the door wanting to Photograph and finger print then tattoo you. I do believe thats comeing real soon.

    • 1 year ago
  • Ihatethemall
  • toastyguy11
  • bailey78
  • Vierotchka
  • toastyguy11
    • 0
      toastyguy11  
    • Vierotchka:

      Well you're right, it is different for women travelling alone, but otherwise you don't have anything to be afraid of hitchiking, just check out whoever's giving you a ride, and if you don't like them you don't have to get in the car. I've met a lot of cool people hitchiking, they're usually the only ones who stop

    • 1 year ago
  • toyotabedzrock
    • +13
      toyotabedzrock  

    • Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
      -- Benjamin Franklin

      The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
      – James Madison

    • 1 year ago
  • PzLuvHappeniz
  • antiutopia
  • toyotabedzrock
  • TomTucker
  • rhetoricallyineffective
    • +12
      rhetoricallyineffective  

    • "...it won't happen overnight. It'll happen incrementally. And each increment will, when taken in isolation, appear to some to be perfectly reasonable."

      Exactly. It's just a new airport security measure.
      It's just a bus checkpoint
      It's just a quick drug test.
      We just need to ask you a few questions before you board your flight.
      "TAKE OFF ALL YO CLOTHEZ AND STICK THIS IN UR BUTT" (it's just a GPS tracker chip that has to be inserted anally)

    • 1 year ago
  • KSirys
  • Progresshiv
  • rhetoricallyineffective
  • Itsbatman_Durr
  • Johnny_Los_Angeles
    • +7
      Johnny_Los_Angeles  

    • We all know that terrorists have been blowing up buses and trains in this country right and left not to mention flying them into skyscrapers on an almost daily basis!

      I am sure am glad that that one idiot rider on the video is now feeling "safe" his bus wont be blown up!!

    • 1 year ago
  • Paratus
    • +4
      Paratus  

    • ......"teaming up to keep your family safe."

      What a joke. Putting your hands in mine or my wifes crotch will somehow keep me safe. Safe is me carrying a 1911 not some thug viewing porn or performing sex offenses.

    • 1 year ago
  • dariusvons
  • dannym2
    • 0
      dannym2  
    • dariusvons:

      In the name of national security,and your own good,why not just give them,thier own,air lines?ya,that way,next time they feel that,need to blow some thing up,they can just blow up,a, perwired(for there safety)plane,of there very own,and at know expense,to them.They could name it Chick,Hawk Air Ways,that way,there is,no,delays,nolines,no,TSA

    • 1 year ago
  • rebel_scum
    • +7
      rebel_scum  

    • The "bad guys"?? How ironic.

      This is the same bull homeland is giving us about the FEMA camps.

      For lack of better words, fuck Gary Milano.

    • 1 year ago
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