“In retrospect, it’s clear that Osama bin Laden emerged the victor of 9/11:”

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To Save America, Abolish the TSA

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Nevertheless, like so much else in the Bill of Rights, those sentiments are no longer valid, especially when you’re shuffling your way, shoeless and beltless, through the sheep pens of the Transportation Security Administration, George W. Bush’s gift to the American traveling public.

In retrospect, it’s clear that Osama bin Laden emerged the victor of 9/11. He brought down the Twin Towers and took a chunk out of the Pentagon, severely wobbled the American economy, destroyed the freedom of the skies, set the American government haring after all sorts of villains but not a single enemy it would name, and made himself a martyr. Worst of all, because of the actions of 19 Muslim hijackers, most of them Saudi nationals but all of them members of the Islamic ummah, he panicked the U.S. government into presumptively criminalizing more than 300 million American citizens with the passage of the Patriot Act and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and of the TSA, a mortal sin that will live in infamy.

What about safety? Surely you jest. To previous generations of Americans, the idea of trading liberty for safety would have been laughed out of court, but a fearful, feminized society won’t even hesitate. Curtail your freedom of movement and subject yourself to intrusive, sometimes bodily, inspection every time you wish to travel by plane? Why not? If it saves just one life…

More than twenty years later, it’s clear to everyone who flies that what we have is not safety, but safety theater — the illusion of safety, conducted by uniformed government employees of last resort whose mission as it has evolved is not to provide the phantasm of “security” but to obstruct, hamper, harass, and hinder Americans as they attempt to go about their lives. “The Transportation Security Administration marked another year of progress,” reads a blurb on their website. You can bet more “progress” will be forthcoming in 2024.

And was this unconscionable violation of the plain language of the Constitution met with the universal opposition, disdain, and outrage that it deserved? Of course not. From 1968 to 1972 there was a spate of airplane hijackings by Cuban radicals; “On to Cuba!” became a punch line on late-night comedy, and the introduction of metal detectors at airports and the presence of sky marshals put an end to it. After 9/11, the appearance of one failed “shoe bomber” has meant your shoes come off forever. And while the new, improved, intrusive TSA might manage to scoop up some weapons inadvertently packed in luggage from those parts of the country where guns or knives are part of everyday life, it misses many, many more — up to 70 percent. Possibly it has discouraged a few terrorists from attempting to emulate the late sheikh of Araby, but why bother? After all, why hijack a plane when you can just walk across the undefended, roundheeled southern border, get free transport — no ID necessary! — into the interior and there bide your time?

Note that the ongoing “unarmed” (so far) invasion from the south is referred to as a “humanitarian crisis” in the Soviet Newspeak jargon of the news media, when in fact it’s an… unarmed (so far) invasion from the south and thus a national-security matter. Not to the Biden administration, however, especially as personified by the hapless, malevolent, and soon-to-be-impeached Alejandro Mayorkas, the current Secretary of Homeland Security.

The late Robert Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics (the second of which was actually coined by The Pipeline’s founding editor, John O’Sullivan) read as follows:

1. Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
2. Any organization not explicitly and constitutionally right-wing will sooner or later become left-wing.
3. The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.

Except there’s nothing secret about the cabal of enemies that now controls the American government. The enemies of the state are now out and proud and in charge of nearly every level of government. Players of the long game, they are content to win imperceptibly but steadily, moving the Overton Window of acceptable discourse steadily and stealthily leftward with the aid and enforcement of a collaborative media. What the wholly inadequate Bush II began, succeeding Democrat presidents have enthusiastically built upon, and the lone succeeding Republican president did absolutely nothing about: the Surveillance State.

One byproduct of Big Brotherism has been the creation of “protected classes,” against whom no voice can be raised. Their numbers include (hang on to your hat): “age, ancestry, color, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, genetic information, HIV/AIDS status, military status, national origin, pregnancy, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or veteran status, or any other bases under the law.” Thus, in the name of equality — now redubbed “equity” — the U.S. has become a profoundly anti-egalitarian nation with a two-tiered system of justice that stands in open violation of every Constitutional principle.

Dismantling the Surveillance State and its bureaucratic accretions like Homeland Security is, alas, the work of years, decades — if it even can be done. The guiding principle of all toxic amoebas, even those as gargantuan as a federal department, is self-preservation. Once birthed, they aspire to immortality. The western Roman Empire maintained the fiction of consuls right to the end. But we have to start somewhere, and the noxious TSA is as good as place as any.

So let’s be blunt: the TSA not only does little to no good, but it is actively harmful to the nation-as-founded. It presumes guilt, or at least malign intentions of everyone who falls into its clutches. There is no probable cause, much less a warrant; an order from one of its minions is not subject to due process or any judicial scrutiny. The attitude of far too many of its functionaries is hostile and adversarial. Its very existence has added hours to travel time for zero compensation. Worst of all, it has made dutiful serfs of formerly free citizens and thus opened the door to subsequent enormities, including the disastrous Covid hoax and its concomitant diminution of freedom.

“Secret cabal of its enemies,” my foot. We have met the enemy and he is us. Now, what are we going to do about it?