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Quote
of the Week:
Vacation is Almost Here
August, as almost all of the Northeastern Hemisphere recognizes, is the Month that People Take Off and Stay Away from Work. And so the Notchcode offices will be closed for a week in August, from the 10th to the 17th. Ok, so that's not a whole month, like those lucky Europeans or Hampton-dwellers back east, but at least it's something.
In preparation for our time off, I've been reading the latest transmissions from BoingBoing, which is a great place to get the crap scared out of you if you plan on traveling by plane. Not because they talk about all of the imminent threats by terrorists, but because of the behavior of the TSA as folks try to get on their planes and get to where they are going.
SO all of this got me thinking about the good old Fourth Amendment to the Constitution...you know, the one that guarantees against unreasonable search and seizure. Well, as you can imagine, there is a lot of case law surrounding it, and as a non-lawyer, I am sure (well, I am hoping, at least) that there is some sort of valid reason why we all have to take off our shoes and let people paw through our underwear and make us dump our big gulps in the trash can before we get to the security checkpoint. Right? Right, lawyers? Please tell me there's a reason.
Oh well. Here's a quote from Supreme Court Judge Jackson in 1949, dissenting in Brinegar vs. U.S.:[emphasis mine]"The Fourth Amendment states: '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.'
"These, I protest, are not mere second-class rights but belong in the catalog of indispensable freedoms. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart. Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government. And one need only briefly to have dwelt and worked among a people possessed of many admirable qualities but deprived of these rights to know that the human personality deteriorates and dignity and self-reliance disappear where homes, persons and possessions are subject at any hour to unheralded search and seizure by the police. But the right to be secure against searches and seizures is one of the most difficult to protect. Since the officers are themselves the chief invaders, there is no enforcement outside of court."
So, how does this jibe with searching something like half a billion travelers in the U.S. alone each year, no exceptions? Sounds like presumption of guilt just because you are getting on a plane. And let me know if you've seen some hidden cadre of judges issuing search warrants behind the ticket counters...maybe it's somewhere in the small print in the boarding pass?
But then, I'm just a designer. What do I know?
And to make this post slightly design-related, here are two great t-shirts to wear as you get patted down next to the metal detector. The first one is based on a WW2-era poster from the Brits, and is awesome. I want one for Christmas, ok? The second one is much more snarky, and I would bet a TSA screener having an off day might pull you out of line for wearing it:Labels: air travel, freedom, tsa, vacation
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