Really, I'm not trying to overdo this, but reports keep flowing in

1) This is being sent from the United/Air New Zealand holding area at Sydney airport, waiting for the flight to Los Angeles. Sydney airport security system: simple metal detector, shoes kept on, no pat down of any sort. Background anxiety: often at the last minute, there's an extra security surprise inspection for passengers on flights to the US. Will know one way or another soon.

2) Just now, from a Westerner who travels throughout China:

>> I travel fairly often within China, and I've NEVER been ordered to take off clothing or otherwise been humiliated by security personnel. At the Guiyang airport security opened my bag, took out a large knife and bottle of liquor, and only said " You'll have to check this bag." . No threats of prison, no charges.



For me at least travel in China is much more pleasant than in the US, because I don't have to deal with surly prison guards.<<



2A) Another Western traveler in China reports:

>>China does pat downs, usually by attractive twentysomething female officers, and as far as I know, no one complains. The TSA should study this approach.<<

3) Recently I asked rhetorically where was the public figure to speak up for the "liberty" side of the liberty-v-security balance. A reader suggests this answer (which may in part explain where there aren't more figures taking that side):

>>Not sure where he stood on this issue, but in general the answer to who asks the tough questions others don't is (through the lame duck session) Russ Feingold, of course- on the Patriot Act, the Afghanistan war, and many other issues. So sad he's been voted out. Can't think of who can replace him. Hope he gets a position where he's still have a public voice.<<

4) Recently I quoted an Army staff sergeant in Afghanistan who said that US military policy outlawed in Afghanistan the kind of intrusive searches now routine at US airports. In response a reader writes:

>>Although I agree with the sentiments of the US Army staff sergeant, I take issue with his crack in the last sentence about "the current administration" [being at fault].



The excesses of the TSA have been with us since its formation under George W Bush. And civil libertarians have been pointing them out all along. But only in the last couple of years have conservatives (as I assume most Army staff sergeants are) begun to take notice and criticize the policies of the global war on terror -- I count among these policies the tendency to deficit-finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<<

I don't know whether that's a fair point about the staff sergeant who wrote in. In general it's true that traditional conservatives have been slow to rouse on the excesses of the post-9/11 security state.