Wagging the Dog Again?

The media is filled with almost nothing but bad news for the Bush administration these days. The war in Iraq is going worse than ever. The US is once again out on a limb, supporting a non-ceasefire strategy in Lebanon despite the fact that not a single other country supports this position. Hurricane season has started and the rebuilding promised for the victims of Katrina has hardly commenced. Republicans (like Delay and Ney) and fellow travellers (like Liberman) are dropping like flies. The poll numbers for the war are at their lowest point ever, gas prices are at their highest, and rising rapidly.

What is an administration to do?

If one thing has worked for this administration, it is spreading fear. Is it any wonder that a terrorist plot - which had been under surveilance for nine (count them, nine) months - was revealed yesterday as a serious threat.

I have little doubt that the plot was real, or that it would have been devastating if it had been carried out to the letter. However, the fact that the conspirators have been under surveilance for nine months suggests to me that we were never in as much danger as is being suggested today.

Well why give us a chance to think about it and ask some hard questions about timing? If you're going to wag the dog, you might as well give it a really good swing.

The master stroke here is the absolutely absurd decision to make every airline passenger throw out their shampoos, toothpaste, hair gel, deoderants, soft drinks, perfume, blush and other cosmetics . Creating sheer chaos in airline terminals around the world as most every traveller was required to unpack their bags, remove perfectly ordinary personal articles, and dispose of them.

This assured that the news stories would be about the chaos in the airports, the airplane delays, and other related "human interest" stories (which are entertaining), rather than hard questions about the seriousness of the plot, the reality of the continuation of the threat since the arrests, and the timing of the arrests and announcements.

And lo, it came to pass, that when the news editors looked at their copy, they saw photographs of long lines of discomfited passengers. And the editors said unto the layout department: run those pictures on Page 1 and use 48 point type for the humerous headline. And the layout department said to the printing department: "makest thou sure this picture covers every possible inch of Page 1" Wherefore it came to be that the Americanites knew more about the lines at the airport than the reasons therefore.

And the Americanites read these stories, and found them entertaining. And they said "these articles are more to our interest than hard hitting news features" and so they forgotteth that there was war in Lebanon, and made no mention that there was civil war in Iraq, and they ceased to think about the economy and upcoming elections. And Karl Rove smiled and thought that this was good. And Dick Cheney proclaimed this as proof that a vote for democratites, such as Ned Lamont, was a vote for terrorism.

I have to say, that I do not believe this little fiasco has made the flying public one iota safer. I think that it is just another case of the administration, together with the British government, saving a major arrest for a politically opportune moment, and than milking it for all of the scare potential possible.

Leaving aside the dog being wagged, this little exercise has cost travellers untold millions of dollars, and a further erosion in our civil liberties.

First, the cost to millions of airline passengers of throwing out tens of millions of dollars of perfectly usable personal items, has not been calculated, but is almost certainly substantially into the tens of millions, if not more. As reported today on CNN, one woman was required to throw away $80 worth of cosmetics. Another woman only $20. If one million passengers disposed of $20 each worth of toiletries, that's $20 million right there. But I'm guessing, I look forward to seeing this quantified by statisticians with expert degrees in such guesswork.

Here's the thing. The U.S. Constitution says that the government may not search persons or seize property without due process - the Supreme Court has consistently held that this mean, at a minimum, there must be some evidence to support a reasonable, individualized suspicion of wrongdoing. Yet not one of the travellers who have had their property "seized" (or forefeited), was under any individualized suspicion.

Instead, millions of innocent people have been branded "suspects" and penalized merely for the fact that they are airline passengers. The penalty these people have paid is the forefeiture of personal goods - toothpaste, cosmetics etc.

Worse, the "fine" or "penalty" assessed on the innocent in this case is entirely arbitrary. It varies from person to person and is based entirely on what each person happens to have available. It's a lot like the old gag about the tiny one sheriff town where the penalty for breaking the speed limit just happens to be the same amount as you have in your wallet.

The Constitution prohibits the government from imposing arbitrary penalties against criminals. Is it conceivable then that the Constitution allows the government to levy dissimilar punishments on individuals who are not even suspected of having committed a crime?

Further, the Constitution prohibits the government from taking an individual's property except (i) for the public benefit, and (ii) after payment of fair compensation. Even assuming the massive disposal effort going on now in our airports is for the public benefit, passengers ought to be entitled to reimbursement for what they were required to throw out. (The class-action suit is already being drafted by some lawyer, somewhere, I have little doubt). There is no evidence though that any records are being kept of what is being disposed of and by whom. Administering repayment under these conditions is going to be difficult, and, because the effort was ill conceived from the start, will likely be rife with fraud ("Really, I never go anywhere without a gallon of Chanel no. 5").

And, as usual, what really frightens me about all this is the sheep: the people who say "well if it makes me safer, than ok. It better be safe than protect our civil liberties" (tell that to Patick Henry). Nevermind asking if it really does make you safer.

What's more, If the government can, on a whim, tell you to throw out all of your cosmetics and toiletries, why can't they make you dispose of anything at all that you own? Where does it stop?
Can the government direct you to throw away a book because it may incite you to violence?

Does it stop at airplanes or is the next step prohibiting us from carrying these items on public trains, busses and subways (and if so, how do we get home from shopping?) (and if it is not necessary to protect us from these items on public trains etc., can it honestly be said that it is necessary to protect us from these items on airplanes?).

The real point here is rational risk assessment. What is the actual risk that a terrorist event will occur, what is the cost of prevention, do the proposed prevention measures actually diminish the risk, or are they just for show? and are there greater risks that are more deserving of attention.

In this instance, I believe the actual risk is almost nil - the terrorists have already been caught. The cost is enormous in terms of consumer dollars, wasted time, aggravation, unnecessary public fright, not to mention the loss of a few more civil liberties. It is unlikely in the extreme that the risk can be diminished, given that it is almost nil in the first place. This entire exercise is being done for show and will not in any way increase safety, and there are far greater risks out there more deserving of attention (for example, securing our nation's chemical plants against attack).

I am not saying there will not be terrorist attacks. I'm sure there will be, and some of them will be on airplanes. But then, more people will die in automobile accidents this month than will die in terror attacks all year. We don't stop driving cars any more than we stop flying. And we don't impose extreme, expensive and unconstitutional measures to achieve auto safety

It is an undisputed fact that there are fewer fatalities on highways where the speed limit is 55mph than on those where the speed limit is 65mph - yet, we oppose a national 55mph speed limit (which would also reduce our national fuel consumption). Noone says "I don't like driving at 55, but at least there will be fewer highway deaths".

The auto is just one example of Americans making risk/priority assessments. There are many that are similar.

When we give in to fear, when we stop rationally assessing risks and priorities, we give the terrorists what they want. The purpose of terrorism is to "out" the terrorized society - to expose its internal contradictions and its willingness to engage in barbaric totalitarian behaviors in the name of "society." When we ignore our civil liberties, when we respond with fear, and overreaction, we only prove that we are exactly what the terrorists say we are.