By Neil Hanson

The flap over the TSA searches of airline passengers highlights just how far we’ve fallen into the deep chasm of slavery to fear and the illusion of security.

I have zero doubt in my mind that the deep and exhaustive searches that we submit ourselves to when we fly reduces the threat of violence on aircraft, and reduces the risk that we’ll experience another event like 9/11 employing passenger airliners as weapons.

We’re absolutely mitigating a risk, and we’re paying a price to do so. The annual budget of the TSA is about $6.3 billion, and that doesn’t count all the collateral financial costs of a nation submitting to this level of scrutiny. We also pay with the loss of one more portion of our privacy.

Is this collection of prices worth the benefit we receive in the form of a risk that is partially mitigated?

There is no doubt that if we give the state complete power to invade our privacy, and complete visibility into the private lives of all citizens, we will be able to greatly reduce the risk that we will experience violence. But is that a price we’re willing to pay?

In the nearly 9 years since 9/11 occurred, we have instituted and maintained very intrusive and rude personal searches of anyone who travels the public airline systems. In that time, we have the deaths of approximately 3500 people on 9/11 as the toll of the risk that we’re trying to mitigate. Let’s put that into the context of the other risks that we gladly accept each day of our lives.

During those 9 years, well over a million people have died of lung cancer. Tobacco is the leading cause of lung cancer – it is directly linked to the disease, and we know without a doubt that if you smoke, you’re about 20 times more likely to die of lung cancer. Yet, we have few restrictions at all on our ability to smoke tobacco if we choose. We accept the risk, and don’t believe our right to make our own private decisions should be impinged on by the state. Put this into perspective – for every life lost on 9/11, we lost 300 or 400 lives during the past 9 years to lung cancer.

During those 9 years, close to half a million people have died on the streets and highways of our nation. Again put into perspective, that’s 100 lives lost over the last 9 years for every life lost on 9/11. Yet, most of us are delighted in our ability to get into our car or truck and drive wherever and whenever we want, often putting ourselves in very risky situations, accepting the risk gladly. Would we consider banning the use of automobiles in order to reduce that risk? By doing so, we could reduce the loss of lives in this country each year by 10 times the loss that occurred on 9/11.

While I don’t smoke, I also don’t want the state telling me I can’t if I want to. If I did decide to smoke, I’d do so with the understanding of the risk. I will absolutely continue to drive my car or truck, and am not likely to give up that convenience. I understand the risk, and accept this as part of the deal.

Yet, we have no problem submitting to rude searches of our person and our personal effects each time we walk into an airport. We’re also going to begrudgingly accept even more intrusive searches going forward, allowing ourselves to be essentially stripped and searched.

I’m not trying to be insensitive to anyone’s loss either on 9/11, on our highways, or to lung cancer. I’ve personally lost people I love dearly to lung cancer, and I’ve lost people I love dearly to highway accidents. On 9/11/01, I worked for a company that was located in the WTC, though we were fortunate to have no loss of life.

I also understand completely that the administration that was in power when 9/11 occurred used the tragedy to whip up fear and patriotism in order to implement their political agenda. The mainstream media that largely supports the right wing in this nation did all they could to play into this orgy of fear – fear sells, after all. But time has passed, and we’ve shed ourselves of that regime. Isn’t it time to sit back and look at our actions in a logical and reasonable fashion?

I’m all for mitigating risks. Anyone who is in the risk mitigation business knows that to mitigate a risk, there will always be a cost. In the case of public safety, there are going to be multiple costs with every risk mitigation strategy. The strategy that we’ve chosen for air travel safety is to spend billions of dollars each year and to compromise the privacy of citizens in the process. If we didn’t spend this money, how many lives would we likely lose each year as a result? I know that some people will cry in indignation that a single life is one too many, but that’s just hogwash. After all, we accept 150,000 deaths a year due to lung cancer – an absolutely preventable risk that we allow. We accept 35,000 deaths a year on our highways.

Living is a risky business. Walking out the front door in the morning exposes each of us to way more risk than we’re willing to consider. Isn’t it time we accepted that flying is a risky business too? Give me back my privacy, and save most of the $6.3 billion we spend on the TSA each year. There’s a risk we’ll accept, just like the rest of the world accepts the risk, and just like we accept countless other far greater risks every single day.

Neil Hanson is a writer who lives and works in Colorado. He is a conservative who believes true conservatives and progressives have much in common. He also earns his livelihood working in corporate America as a project manager and software architect. He recently published Peace at the Edge of Uncertainty, (2010 – High Prairie Press). He can be found at his spiritual, nonpolitical blog and his Facebook page.

Land of the Free image was found here, unfortunately with no credit to the artist.

