In case the passage of more than two decades since the federal government imposed on us the “Transportation Security Administration” (TSA) have inspired any of your neighbors to blithely accept this towering insult to our rights and the US Constitution, perhaps the term “Government Checkpoint” might be a handy reminder of the police-state problem.
It’s a problem about which I got to write for MRCTV last week, covering news that GOP Senators and Congressmen had proposed legislation to end the unionized federal management of the checkpoints, but that (of course) they wanted to maintain the claim of federal jurisdiction and simply farm-out the breaches of our rights to private companies that would do their pat-down, scan-into, rights-breaching bidding.
Now comes news of another head-fake to make us shake our heads.
Yelena Mandenberg reports for The Mirror US that our beneficent body-search overlords at the TSA are ready to let us carry a few more ounces of fluid through their Checkpoint Charlies.
“(N)ew computed tomography (CT) scanners that can analyze the contents in bottles are currently being installed in the nation's busiest airports. This means that full-size items could soon be on the roster again, with the TSA releasing a list of 11 items that no longer have to fit the three-ounce rule.”
Which might sound terrific, to lemmings who have become accustomed to the police-statism that has made them toss out billions of dollars worth of lattes and sodas while waiting in the endless “screening” lines caused by these uniformed performers.
But for those who are aware of the source of the “liquids limits” rule, and the overall dismissal of both Natural Rights and the US Constitution that the rule and the federal control over air travel present, it opens a window through which it is important to peer.
The origins of the “tiny bottle” liquid limit stem from the W. Bush Administration, when, far too late, then-Czar of so-called “Homeland Security” Michael Chertoff in December of 2005 steered away from his absurd “nail-clipper confiscation rule” and, in 2006, after a purported Heathrow Airport (UK) liquid bomb plot that the British said they had thwarted, he hopped on the “liquid” fear train, long after it had left the station.
And it comes despite, as I noted last week, actual government documents showing TSA employees admitting that their checkpoint charade is “security theater.”
But one’s own perceptions of what is or is not contributory to airport or flight security are not relevant, nor are they in any way important to the bureaucrats who absorb our tax money. Those factors are made irrelevant because, from the start, the bureaucrats attack our rights and eliminate our ability, in conjunction with the ability of the airlines, to adjudge for ourselves what we want.
Mandenberg notes that the new magic items include:
- Over-the-counter medications
- Prescription medications in gel, liquid or aerosol form
- Ice packs or gel packs for medically necessary items
- Food and drink for infants and toddlers
- Wet batteries
- Live fish transported in water
- Biological specimens
- Breast milk or baby formula
- Liquid-filled teethers
- Duty-free items sealed in a tamper-evident bag
- Fresh eggs
And if everything goes according to plan, shampoo, perfume, sunscreen, and body washes could soon join this list.
But your rights to privacy and to engage in private contractual arrangements with airlines, their rights to operate without the government invading airports to tell them how they will be “secure”? Those are not on the list.
But, while the feds are not mentioning the Fourth Amendment, which the TSA breaches thousands of times a day as a matter of course, they are quick to claim that the new radiation tech they’re buying with your money will be a real blessing.
“The CT scanners provide a clear 3-D image of the contents of a traveler’s carry-on bag. Using a touch-screen monitor, TSA officers can rotate the image to get a more complete view of what is inside each bag. In doing so, TSA officers are able to better identify items inside a bag, which results in fewer bags needing to be pulled aside and opened. The 3-D images also enable TSA to better and more quickly identify any threat items that might be contained in carry-on bags.”
And, though Mandenberg reports that the list of “permissible liquids is anticipated to grow throughout 2025, with the Atlanta, JFK, and LAX sites kicking things off," the nation-wide process will be long.
Related: Tulsi Gabbard Criticizes Harris, Then Suddenly - TSA 'Retaliation'
The TSA says full implementation won’t happen until 2042. That’s right — 17 years from now. So, for most airports, it will be business as usual: tiny bottles, plastic baggies, and the occasional “step aside, sir” for daring to pack a full-size toothpaste.
And let’s not forget the cost. These scanners aren’t cheap, and taxpayers already were forced to pay the Department of Homeland Security’s bloated $10.4 billion TSA budget for 2024 alone.
Meanwhile, the agency’s track record is less than stellar. A 2015 investigation found TSA agents missing 95% of test weapons and contraband, and a 2017 test wasn’t much better, with over half slipping through.
The money spent, the rights crushed, and the stockyard atmosphere created by the TSA are facets of a larger lineage of tyranny going back to the creation of the Federal Aviation Administration in 1925, when the feds began federalizing air travel through, of all things, the postal system, setting up “air mail routes” like “postal roads” (the latter of which are permitted by the Constitution). Then, with the 1926 “Air Commerce Act,” the feds banned private carriers from traveling on their “postal air routes” and began setting up the politicized, pork-filled system we have today – the system that arose not to facilitate commerce and consumer interest, but which arose due to political favoritism and unconstitutional coercion.
If the DC politicians adhered to the U.S. Constitution, we could have a much better paradigm, one free of political interference and aligned with airline liability and customer satisfaction. Our rights would be secured and our voluntary choices to contract with carriers would not be infringed.
Instead, we get theater, as the TSA already has admitted.
And we get token gestures and propaganda, as the feds take more of our money and continue to crush our rights.