Friday, September 09, 2011

A Better Way to Commemorate 9/11

Against all odds: the Battle of Lepanto, 1571
A few weeks ago, I commented in this space about how America's quest for law, order and security has ceased to reflect a civilized order.  Now, ten years after the Islamist outrage that has provided Big Government with a convenient excuse to balloon out to ever vaster proportions, one woman is fighting back.

On March 31, 2011, a blogger named Amy Alkon refused to go through the naked scanner at the airport.  She decided not to submit quietly to the obligatory body grope that was her only alternative to the scanner, but instead to protest by sobbing loudly at being searched and bereft of her dignity without probable cause or even reasonable, articulable suspicion.  When the searching fingers of the TSA goon-ette got rather too searching and too rough -- repeatedly -- Amy took her name down and consulted a lawyer.  And also blogged about it.  Enter attorney Vicki Roberts, who sent Amy a letter on behalf of the goon-ette demanding half a million dollars for slander, libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Amy's own lawyer, Marc Randazza, fired off a response that ought to be required reading for anyone about to board a plane in the post-9/11 era.  A choice excerpt:

After the 9/11 attacks, America wallowed in fear, and ignoble politicians took advantage of that national temporary psychosis. In doing so, they foisted an intrusive security apparatus upon us, but one that was never effective at making us safer. It was, however, effective at rolling back our rights under the Fourth Amendment. We may have killed Osama Bin Laden this year, but he actually defeated the American way of life ten years ago.  On September. 11, 2001, America went from "the land of the free and the home of the brave" to a nation of mewling cowards, eager to give up their liberties for perceived "safety." One of the worst symptoms of this transformation is the TSA and its minions of blue-shirted "officers." As numerous investigations of these checkpoints' efficacy reveal, anyone with a marginal IQ and the desire to evade them can and will do so. 

While the TSA fails miserably in providing security, it excels in undermining our protections under the Bill of Rights. This petty army has done its best not only to grind the Fourth Amendment into dust, but to strip us of our dignity as human beings. The Internet is replete with videos of travelers being groped by the TSA in a way that would result in sexual assault prosecutions for people other than TSA agents, all while the victims cry, protest, and express their horror. Your client may feel that she is in no way culpable for these wrongs, but her continued employment by the TSA and her actions against Ms. Alkon are an integral and inseparable part of the TSA’s abuse of all Americans. Fortunately for all of us, people like my client take the position that TSA agents cannot simply do whatever they want – not without dissent.

Kudos to Amy Alkon for not just bending over for the enemies of liberty.  While Mayor Bloomberg purges the official 9/11 commemorations of clergy and first responders, others have found a more appropriate way to cherish the memories of those who died on that bright September morning ten years ago because our enemies hate freedom.

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