Draconian Security Measures vs Civil Liberties

The news media, news pundits, talking heads and politicians are all yaking about fear, terrorism, racial profiling and full-body scanners. Gavin Dahl at Raw Story focuses on the issue of, "'Experts' justify profiling, body scanners with familiar paranoid rhetoric."

In the wake of the failed Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound flight, a large number of so-called experts have raised the ire of civil libertarians in their pursuit of increasingly draconian security measures.

Appearing on Fox News Saturday, a retired U.S. general called for "very serious, harsh profiling," singling out in particular all 18-28 year old Muslim men, calling for them to be "strip searched" at airports.

As new TSA regulations take effect, passengers flying into the country from abroad will be subject to random screening or so-called "threat-based" screens.

Retired Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney set up his egregious recommendation by claiming first that "in the next 30-100 days," there is "very high probability a US airliner will come down."

When the host blandly objected that racial profiling would not go over in the United States, he replied, "I agree, that's the problem."

The issue of civil liberties.

The desire to violate American ethical and legal standards, supported by alarmist rhetoric, is reminiscent of the scandalous domestic Pentagon propaganda carried out over the US airwaves under Defense Secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates.

Turns out McInerney is not even the first surveillance advocate this week seen hawking serious violations of civil liberties on cable news under the guise of expertise and authority.

What is missing in this conversation is a discussion about alternative means of screening.

In fact, there are currently at least two other known alternatives to full-body scanners up for consideration.

American Civil Liberties Union is advocating the use of the “Puffer,” a machine that analyzes puffs of chemically-sensitive air blown around an individual. Greg Soule, a spokesman for TSA told The Christian Science-Monitor 18 Puffer machines, originally developed by General Electric, across the US but are being phased out due to maintenance issues.

Another potential alternative is the “Guardian,” an “explosive trace-detection portal machine” more advanced than the Puffer. Chris McBee, director of sales and marketing for Syagen Technology, told CS Monitor, "We have a better mousetrap. There are solutions out there that are viable alternatives to whole body imaging and that have superior detection characteristics."

Conflict of interest has become an issue in this debate.

Last week Michael Chertoff played "a little fast and loose with the public trust" using his former government credentials to advocate for a product that benefits his clients. He was talking up whole-body-imaging technology as an airline security solution when the conflict of interest came up in a Wednesday interview on CNN. His Washington Post editorial cautions against, "privacy ideologues, for whom every security measure is unacceptable."

Reporters in Britain have discovered that new airport scanners touted by PM Gordon Brown would not have detected the underwear bomber, leading The Independent to ask if the entire plan is a scam. "The solution is to acknowledge that there isn't a single technology out there that is an answer to the whole problem," security expert Kevin Murphy told the paper.

...Current Defense Secretary Robert Gates oversaw the continuation of a domestic propaganda program created to build support for the US invasion of Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld recruited military analysts with US taxdollars to espouse optimism and spin on unquestioning TV networks and NPR, even when the analysts suspected the information was false or stood to profit from weapons contracts, according to a bombshell report in The New York Times.

The message is to slow down and evaluate this situation without fear tactics while maintaining our basic civil liberties.

Politicizing National Security

In the after-math of an attempted terrorism attack on a a trans-Atlantic flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, the Republicans are lining up to slam the Obama Administration on its soft stand on terror.

Republicans Pete Hoekstra, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Peter King of New York joined Sen Jim DeMint of South Carolina to lay some blame on the Obama administration.

The attack should remind everyone “that soft talk about engagement, closing Gitmo, these things are not going to appease the terrorists,” DeMint said on “Fox News Sunday.” “They’re going to keep coming after us, and we can’t have politics as usual in Washington, and I’m afraid that’s what we’ve got right now with airport security.”

Wouldn't these Republican Congressmen also be critical of the the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration? Probably they would, if there was an administrator to hold accountable. But that position remains vacant because of Sen. Jim DeMint.

Obama nominated Erroll Southers — a former FBI special agent, the Los Angeles World Airports Police Department assistant chief for homeland security and intelligence, and the associate director of the University of Southern California’s Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events — to run TSA in September. Southers’ nomination was approved by two Senate committees, but Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) has placed a hold on Southers “in an effort to prevent TSA workers from joining a labor union."

The post remains vacant because Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has held up President Barack Obama's nominee in opposition to the prospect of TSA workers joining a labor union.

Thom Hartmann asks if there is really a choice between terrorists and unions?

The TSA – which keeps us safe from airplane bombers – is without a director. Why would one of our most vital security agencies be headless?

Well, it’s actually quite simple.

President Obama nominated a very highly qualified candidate, former FBI special agent Erroll Southers, but Southers has expressed his support for federal employees being able to be members of unions – which most are.

Senator Jim DeMint, the Republican from South Carolina who’s also a member of the notorious Washington DC Christian Taliban cult “The Family,” thinks that having our baggage screeners have better pay and working conditions is a bad thing, so he put a hold on Southers nomination, effectively blocking it in the Senate.

Jim DeMint is more concerned with destroying unions and good wages for working people than he is with whether or not your next flight is blown out of the air.

You may want to consider calling his office and letting him know what you think of that, after you write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper and tell everybody you know what an enemy of the American working class multimillionaire DeMint is.

Do Republicans really want to politicize national security?

Steve Benen notes that a "variety of congressional Republicans seem awfully anxious to play partisan games with the terrorist threat, and exploit the Abdulmutallab plot for electoral gain."

However, if the Republicans want to "turn the attempted terrorist attack into a partisan fight" then the Democrats should "welcome the opportunity."

There is, for example, the fact that the nominated head of the TSA can't get confirmed because of Republican obstructionism. Then there's the fact that congressional Republicans also opposed funding for the TSA, including money for screening operations and explosives detection systems.

And then there's this unpleasant tidbit.

Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans.

American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia, where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.

As Ron Chusid put it, "Just imagine the Republican response if Barack Obama or Bill Clinton had released prisoners to enter an 'art therapy rehabilitation program.' This sounds almost as silly as an American president sitting and reading a children's book while the country is under attack."

Yes, just imagine....