Attention, conservatives! The freakout regarding TSA screenings on Tennessee highways has been cancelled! OK, not cancelled, just dialed back a wee bit… According to autos.aol.com, the TSA “came in for just three days – Oct. 18, 19 and 20 – to help the state improve communication between state, federal and local agencies during a crisis. It does not plan to stick around, and won’t be setting up permanent checkpoints in the state…”
Now the “Visible Intermodal Prevention Response” really does exist, and the article says they “are sent into places where people travel – by bus, train, and now apparently highways – to provide a ‘surge’ in screening from time to time,” but it’s not like they’re setting up permanent checkpoints to screen truckers for terrorist activity.
I still think the fact that they were there at all was an abuse of government power, so forgive me if I’m still concerned about what looks like a more gradual expansion of TSA powers. And of course there are the ways the TSA continues to make headlines for their regular ol’ airport work:
- TSA Is Firing the ‘Get Your Freak On, Girl’ Baggage Screener’
- Ex-TSA Agents Admit to Stealing Cash from JFK Bag
But to be honest, I was half-expecting to come across some kind of news that this Tennessee thing wasn’t quite as bad as conservatives feared. In fact, this sort of thing happens so often that I would like to outline what I like to call ‘The Anatomy of a Conservative Freakout.’
1. The gradual expansion of power by the government reaches a new area, whether in the form of a new regulation from an executive department, or a proposed law meandering through Congress, or something else.
2. Conservatives learn about the new reach, and through some form of miscommunication and amplification, they get the impression that this new reach is a huge abuse of government power that will lead to rampant corruption or a drastic infringement upon personal freedom or some other blatantly terrible thing that is so obviously wrong that it defies common sense.
3. Eventually, some mundane news comes out that the regulation only applies to a limited subset involving obvious externalities, or that the proposed law never made it out of committee, or some other limitation that may still qualify as an expansion of government power but is not more outrageous than any of the other typical power expansions we are used to seeing.
4. Liberals mock conservatives for getting so worked up about such a silly, little thing.
5. Meanwhile, the gradual expansion of power continues…
I don’t know, I think it’s a bit early to sound the all-clear. Although I initially dismissed the story, the latest information seems to confirm that it was just as bad as everyone feared, but only for three days. TSA was still doing something that I think most people believe should not be allowed. Imagine telling a TSA agent you only brought the knife on the last three flights, and you weren’t intending to take it on your next flight anyway. Should that get you off the hook?
The additional fact that it “focused” on truckers, to me, is a red herring. Truckers are still citizens, they just happen to be at work, and it’s an open question how many non-truckers were still screened despite TSA focusing on truckers. It’s just a way for them to reassure Citizen Joe that “we’re not coming for you, we’re just coming for the other guy.”
Thanks for the comment. You are right that this is still a very dangerous abuse of government power. My main point was just that its less of an abuse than we thought at first, and unfortunately the typical conservative overreaction sometimes serves (for the left) as a distraction from the level of abuse that is still there. Apologies if I implied that I thought this revelation made things all clear.
I just updated my post a bit to try to better reflect my overall sentiment. Thanks.
I can’t get the autos website to load at work, but it sounds to me like the TSA actually went in and screened drivers during their stay, correct? I could understand if the TSA came in to provide training to local and state authorities to better help them monitor and police the streets of TN, but why would the TSA have to actually go out and screen drivers themselves? I’m a bit confused as to why the local and state officials and police officers of TN can’t handle the management of their own streets, or why the TSA picked TN instead of say, Texas or New Mexico, where there would be a high volume of traffice between two countries (even then it really can’t be justified, however). People get frustrated when local programs that ostensibly work for the betterment of the community receive some sort of intervention from the fedreal governement, no matter how benign.
That was my impression as well, but the autos article claims:
“TSA officers did not physically screen drivers during this exercise, as erroneously reported,” wrote Bob Burns, a social media analyst for the TSA, on the agency’s blog. “The actual vehicle inspections were conducted by the Tennessee State Highway Patrol just the same as they are done every day.”
I’m still not sure why they needed to be there at all, but it’s a classic example of misinformation contributing to freakout, while at the same time there are still some valid underlying concerns to the whole thing.