The terrorist “watch list” is now over a million names long. This is your government’s list of people to watch, in the name of protecting you. With 300 million people in the US, this means that the government has deemed one of every three hundred people a potential danger.
Government watch lists are always justified in the interest of protecting the people, but always turn out to be lists that target the people. Ultimately, they are lists of the enemies of government itself, as the government begins to view the people as a threat to its authority. See also the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, a piece of legislation passed in the House that will specifically target free speech on the Internet as a potential threat to government.
How far will it go before the people say enough is enough? Frankly, it doesn’t look good. It appears as though the populace is willing to trade any amount of liberty for safety, despite being advised against it by the founders. Of course, these are “different times” we live in…
If you’re one of the 1 in 300 people on the terrorist watch list, the first thing you can expect is to encounter a lot of difficulty should you choose to travel by air. And even if you’re not on the list, they’re dreaming up a new bracelet for you to wear if you want to travel by air, stepping up the attack on your right to travel unencumbered a notch. This bracelet will not only keep all of your personal information and make you trackable wherever you go, it will contain a stun feature that will knock you out – that’s right – render you unconscious at the push of a button.
Note that “terrorism expert” Neil Livingstone cited in the Raw Story article advises us that flying is not a right, it’s a privilege. This is the method of the state, to claim that rights are not inherent in the individual, but are granted to us by the government in the form of privileges.
This is the exact opposite of the American System, as designed. The people have rights that precede government, rights we understand to be self-evident. Government establishes nor grants any rights to the people. The people are sovereign. The people established the government, and granted the government limited powers to protect their rights, not to grant them privileges.
All of this does not bode well for the future of the airline industry. Personally, my interest in flying is diminishing with every new encroachment on my liberty. Maybe ten hours in the car won’t be so bad after all.