I Watched the Bill of Rights Dying Last Week

Vin did not protest merely the "randomness" of the physical search. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Past the now-familiar notices of anti-gun tyranny, I pushed my carry-on bag through the X-ray machine, submitting to its scan of my personal effects despite the fact neither the airline nor the airport administration held any warrant to search them, nor even offered me any probable cause.[/quote]

He simply refused to assent, when asked if he minded if his bag was searched. Had they asked to xray his bag, I'm sure his response would have been the same.

Fighting any unconstitutional law helps to fight them all. The "airport security measures" under discussion offer perceived safety while actually violating several of our natural rights guaranteed by the Constitution. So some people can feel safer, we all must have our rights infringed. Is there a difference between airport security and gun control? Both offer perceived safety while infringing rights.

As to anyone bearing personal responsibility for injury to others caused by terrorists if these "safety measures" were not in place, I say, "Feh". Anyone who boards a plane assumes the risks of flying themselves; I have never forced anyone to get on a plane. On the other hand, the state has assumed the responsibility of keeping the masses safe from air terrorism, so is the state liable when its pitiful security measures fail? Can the injured parties sue the state for failing in its role as protector? If so, who actually pays the damages?

Many of the regulations we now face at airports and elsewhere were originally put in place during the Gulf War, yet they haven't been rescinded since.

The War is over, isn't it? Obviously, it's not about safety, it's about power, just like gun control. There's a Franklin quote that fits well here.

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"...the probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the job of whipping-master in a slave plantation."
Prof. Frank H. Knight
 
D.C.

No need to apologize. Nothing I read in any of the posts felt unduly harsh. I was expecting some good counter-battery fire from my post when I wrote it. There are alot of great points to be considered on this topic. And as for being passionate about your subject...Heck, that's why we're all here. Fire away. And if the schrapnel gets a little too heavy, I'll just have to go out and get that nomex body suit that Rich suggested. All you guys have good opinions, and I'm not here to just listen to myself. I want to hear want I may not have considered yet.
Kind of in a hurry, so I'll read the latest posts and reply soon. The only thing I'll mention now is that I know that Vin didn't shove his gun ownership in the faces of the airport personel. Just that based on the story as it was related, it seemed to me that his gun ownership was at least the motivation for his demeanor at the time.

Take care all,
Howitzer
 
How much of airport security is for the benefit of the customers? Not for their safety, but for their *entertainment*. No amount of carry-on screening could stop a bomb in the cargo hold, and I believe that is where they found the bomb from the Lockerbee wreck. Random searches are just another nibble in the rights eating buffet. All random searches do is produce a very undeserved sence of well being by giving the illusion of security.

Howitzer:
Remove the space from between the characters.
; ) = ;)
: ) = :)

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CCW for Ohio action site.
http://www.ofcc.net
 
In the Frankfurt, Germany airport the guy with the MP-5 didn't ask; neither did I. He searched ,I stood there. Vin is right. If we do not meet erery challenge to freedom in THIS country, we will sooner have no freedom to inconvenience us.
 
If I remember correctly, the reason for the searches at airports were not to stop terrorists but to stop hijackers. It was not until the search and x-ray crowd got entrenched did the terrorists start blowing them out of the sky. Sure, some of the hijackings were done by terrorists but most of the 'jackings were done by someone wanting to be someplace other than where his government wanted him to be. Witness the number of hijackings here in the US that ended up in Cuba.

Prior to the metal detectors and x-ray machines I had flown across the country with a 1911 under my suit jacket, several times. I have found out since then I may have been in violation of federal law since I never notified the flight crew of me being armed.

Anyway, the use of metal detectors, x-ray machines etc caused those wishing to make a statement to step up their methods of doing so, from 9m/m to C4. Are we safer? I don't think so. Have we lost freedoms? Are we loosing more freedoms in the name of SAFETY? Your damn right we are.

There is no true safety this side of the grave, governments can't assure it and what we can achieve is only relative. I would rather be less safe and have more freedoms. As ben Fanklin said (or in words close to what he said) "Those that give up liberty for safety, deserve neither."

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Ne Conjuge Nobiscum
"If there be treachery, let there be jehad!"



[This message has been edited by Jim V (edited October 09, 1999).]
 
This is old hat, but every time we are asked to forfeit our Constitutional Rights in the interest of safety makes one more time we are deprived of our rights without having been convicted of anything!

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Better days to be,

Ed
 
several years ago, i flew to wisconsin to pick up a new fire truck. in my carry-on bag, i had a tool kit(wrenches, sockets ,pliers,screwdrivers, flashlight,etc.)
big hassle from security, wanted to conficate items,was told they were" not allowed", asked for supervisor, who repeated the above. lost my temper at this point and asked them if they thought i was going to dismantle the plane in flight. super looked surprised and told me to go ahead .
never did figure out what was dangerous about a toolkit. just a beaurocrat flexing his authority.

[This message has been edited by cmore (edited October 10, 1999).]
 
First off, airport security is a joke. A 3-year old with a Scooby-Doo lunch box can defeat it. If it is so important, why do they hire private security to do it instead of leo's? Answer, it isn't that important, it is all for show, not for substance.

As for unreasonable search. It would make more sense to me if each airline had their own security that did the searches and stated that you had to submit to the search to enter their aircraft. Not the generic checkpoint that does it to everyone whether you are a passenger or not. I may be way off on this, but I am sure you guys will correct me. :) :) I tend to think that the individual airlines should be responsible for the security of their flights, not the FAA.

Best wishes,
Fury
 
This sort of deprivation of our rights is seen in government as a "twofur". They can say "See, we are combatting terrorism for you" and "Here is another gun-free zone".

So it is win-win for our handlers.

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Better days to be,

Ed
 
Vin has a follow-up article: <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 10, 1999
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Let's launch an 'all-armed, all-smoking' airline


A number of readers wrote in response to my column of Oct. 3, about bored functionaries "randomly" rooting through my laundry and personal effects even after my bags have cleared our now-standard metal detectors and X-ray machines.

Many noted that private airlines have a right of private contract, which should allow them to set any such requirements they please, since we passengers always have the right to patronize another airline.

I'm familiar with the argument for freedom of voluntary contract. In this case, it's purest steer manure.

Suppose I raised $100 million and proposed to start AirGanja, "America's only all-armed, all-smoking airline"? I'd beef up my on-board air conditioning so I could advertise that our air quality is better than our competitors' even if the passengers on either side of you choose to chain-smoke cigars. My "flight attendants" would hand out free marijuana in First Class once airborne, and politely offer each boarding passenger a
metal magazine (or revolver speed-loader) full or any caliber ammo they choose, urging them to reload their weapons for the duration of the flight with my special color-coded frangible rounds, designed to blow the head off any hijacker without penetrating our pressure cabins.

(Needless to say, "controlled" drugs could not be used until we're airborne, at which point we're out of the jurisdiction of any local prohibitionist deviants -- the precedent already having been set by the
fact that no airline today will refuse to sell you a cocktail while they're
passing over the dry counties of Texas or Tennessee.)

Of course, I'd charge a 15 percent premium for these improved services. Either I'd grow rich -- forcing my competitors to start offering some of the same options and services -- or, if my idea proved unpopular with the paying public, I'd go bankrupt.

That would be a free market in air travel, and you would indeed remain free to choose a "non-smoking, no guns," strip-search airline (if that somehow makes you feel safer) instead of mine.

Chance the FAA would allow me to launch such a competing service? Pinch yourself; you're dreaming.

If such suggestions now sound absurd, it's only because we've forgotten what it was like to live in a free country. The average train passenger in 1912 could easily have found herself seated opposite a fellow passenger
armed with a loaded revolver (concealed or otherwise), smoking an Indian hemp cigarette, and carrying a hip flask of laudanum. In fact, your great-grandmother would probably have felt somewhat more secure under such
circumstances, knowing this fellow American was prepared to resist any attempted train robbery, as well as to provide a sip of cough syrup should the baby (your grandfather) grow fretful.

The fact that we find it unthinkable today that an airline might be allowed any such options only means we have grown used to living under a burgeoning variety of fascism, an economic system in which private
corporations are allowed to keep private title to their properties and extract certain after-tax profits (providing they don't grow large enough to attract the attention of the "Anti-Trust Division"), but where all
substantive decisions about routes, "security," and so forth are actually made on a "one-size-fits-all" basis by unelected government functionaries.

To argue any part of the current scenario is a true "voluntary, free contract" between passenger and airline is like saying the Todt
Organization's slave laborers in various cannon works in Nazi Germany had no right to blame the government for their plight, since they'd entered into a "voluntary contract" with their employer.

("Volunteer for this labor contract, or go to the death camps. Choose quickly.")

"Voluntary contract," indeed. I'm free "to not use their service" -- and try to find a passenger train with regular service from Colorado Springs to Las Vegas? And how long do you think we'll be free from having our luggage searched and being require to show our "government-issued photo ID" on the
trains and highways?

Whoops. "Random highway checkpoint" stops are already part of the War on Drugs, aren't they? And reporter P.L. Wyckoff of The Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger reported this week:

"They haven't attracted the attention that drug searches on the New Jersey Turnpike and other highways have. But charges of racial profiling are being leveled on another busy battlefield in the drug war -- the nation's trains and train stations.

"Larry Bland, a black Bethesda, Md., resident, says he had just walked off a train in Richmond, Va., in July when police told him they needed to search his bag because drugs were coming through the station and he 'fit the profile.'

"Carlos A. Hernandez, a former Newark, N.J., policeman, believes he was singled out for a tense drug search of his Amtrak sleeper cabin coming back from Miami that same month simply because his name is Hispanic. ...

"Civil libertarians and attorneys say that, whatever the truth for Bland and Hernandez, such cases are widespread. ... 'That is really just a sliver of what's going on out there,' said David Harris, a University of Toledo law professor who prepared a national report for the American Civil Liberties Union on racial profiling on the highways.

"Train searches 'have been going on for a long time,' agrees Georgetown law professor David Cole. ..."[/quote]

Vin has yet another follow-up that I will post tomorrow.



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"...the probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the job of whipping-master in a slave plantation."
Prof. Frank H. Knight
 
Or you could have the all nude,no luggage or carry-on airline. You wouldn't have to strip for the search or fight for space in the overhead. Happy landing.
 
Vin adds to his case against unConstitutional airport security measures. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 11, 1999
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
The 'right to travel in safety'


Continuing the response to my column of Oct. 3, about "random airport
searches" of my bags even after they've cleared our now-standard metal
detectors and X-ray machines, correspondent T.M. wrote in:

"We have all sorts of rights and obligations that are not listed in the
Constitution. That is why we have elected representatives, laws, and
courts. My right to travel in safety was created by the Federal government
and is no less a real right that your right to carry a firearm. What about
the right of the airline to protect its property? You seem to think
carrying weapons on airplanes does not compromise safety. This is an idea
most people would find hard to accept.

"It's pretty obvious that no Constitutional right is absolute. We have all
heard the one about yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater. Do you accept any
limits on the right to bear arms? I don't find it hard to draw a
distinction between reasonable restrictions on my rights and oppressive
limits to my freedom."

I replied:

In fact, T.M., every constitutional right is absolute, unless some
modifying condition is included in its wording. The Fourth Amendment, for
instance, does not ban searches; it merely says searches may occur only
under a written warrant, issued upon presentation of probable cause to
believe a crime has been committed. Therefore, you would be correct in
stating "The Fourth Amendment's ban on government searches is not
absolute."

The Second Amendment contains no such modifying language. Grammatically,
the introductory clause, explaining why the founders preferred a populace
armed with up-to-date military-style arms and capable of militia service,
as a better guarantor of freedom than any standing army (such as, say, an
armed "FBI," "ATF," or "DEA"), does not restrict the second. It does not
say my right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed "unless some
bureaucrat, operating in good faith, feels there is a reasonable risk to
public safety." There is no place you could have possibly been convinced of
such a dangerous absurdity but in a tax-funded government school.

Our "elected representatives, laws, and courts" are not authorized to
discover for us "new obligations" not listed in the constitution. The
Constitution limits government to such functions, duties, and powers as are
(start ital)specifically enumerated(end ital) for them there.

Do you have a "right to travel in safety," which was "created by the
Federal government"? Let's say you die in a hijacking on a commercial means
of transportation. Can your family sue the federal government for failing
to protect you? No, they cannot. The courts will acknowledge no such
"right," nor any federal duty to protect it. This made-up "right" exists
only in the evanescent speeches of politicians. It is very much "less real"
than my right to carry a firearm.

Real rights are restrictions on government action. New, made-up "rights"
can be spotted relatively easily, since they insidiously justify government
coersion. There can be no "right" to free medical care, unless someone
holds a gun to a doctor's head. The guarantee of a "right" for the disarmed
to remain safe is even more chimerical.

It matters not at all that "many people may find it hard to accept" that
I have a right to keep and bear arms on a common carrier, nor the notion
that armed, law-abiding citizens make everyone safer, from freelance
bandits as well as from genocidal governments. (An airline concerned with
safety is certainly allowed to offer passengers color-coded frangible
ammunition, capable of downing a hijacker without penetrating their
pressure hulls.)

My right is not subject to any majority vote, any more than a majority
could vote to seize the jewelry salesman's sample case and divvy its
contents amongst themselves.

You say "We have all heard the one about yelling 'fire' in a crowded
theater." But Mr. Justice Holmes wrote that (start ital)in dissent(end
ital). It is not the law. I do indeed have a right to yell "Fire!" in a
crowded theater. What would (start ital)you(end ital) do if you were the
only one who realized the theater was on fire?

The example is quite apt. If you yell "Fire!" inappropriately in a
crowded theater, you might be charged with disturbing the peace and
incitement to riot. How often does such a deadly riot occur? I can't
remember one in my lifetime.

Similarly, if you shoot someone inappropriately on an airplane, you would
be equally likely to face prosecution. (The Second Amendment grants us only
a right to "keep and bear" arms -- not to brandish a gun in order to get
that darned stewardess to hurry up, nor to shoot anyone in cold blood.) How
often did this happen, back before passengers were searched for weapons?
Hardly ever, except when we were at war, overthrowing foreign governments
and getting their nationals upset.

I call it "The Fred & Ethel Mertz Security System." This summer a
12-year-old cut through the fence at Logan International in Boston and flew
to London without a ticket, let alone passing through any metal detector.
(Feel safer now?)

It makes precisely as much sense to put millions of domestic airline
passengers through all this just-for-show rigmarole to supposedly prevent
anyone from having the (start ital)opportunity(end ital) to use a gun
inappropriately, as it would for the government to hire thousands of nurses
and assign them the duty of shooting a dose of curare or botulism toxin
into the vocal chords of everyone entering a movie theater in this country,
to prevent them from having the (start ital)ability(end ital) to yell
"Fire!" during the movie ... even in that one case in 10,000 when yelling
"Fire!" would be precisely the right thing to do.[/quote] Now I think we know where Vin stands.

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"...the probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the job of whipping-master in a slave plantation."
Prof. Frank H. Knight
 
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