Freedom of Speech

I came across — don’t ask how — this mailing from Dave Farber’s interesting people list.

They’re talking about the TSA No-Fly list and how it can oftentimes disrupt travel to a somewhat unreasonable degree:

Exactly a year ago my wife and I were flying from Seattle to Juno, AK to join a cruise. There were a large number of people getting on the same flight for the same purpose and the airline opened a special check-in line just for cruise passengers. The first passenger in line was singled out and told he could not fly. When the TSA people realized we were all going on the same cruise they refused to let any of us board. Much discussion got us nowhere for quite some time. Finally, they took our drivers licenses and other ID and disappeared behind closed doors. When they returned we were all permitted to board. The process took over two hours and the only reason we made the flight was that it had mechanical problems that had delayed it. Failing that, we would have missed the ship’s departure as there were no flights until the next day.

The economic cost of that would have been quite staggering to say nothing of missed vacations. Anybody believe TSA would pick up the tab? Didn’t think so.

This is, of course, in start contrast to the way they behave when they’re under the microscope. A ranking member of Homeland Security was—to my knowledge—recently the first person ever to be allowed to fly without any form of government ID. Why? Because he had a journalist with him.

But the thing that really scares me about this type of thing is how much of a deterrent the TSA list can be. I made a conscious decision about the title of this post because I don’t want some government agency to randomly opt my name into a list that I can’t see and can’t petition to leave. A list that makes a severe difference in the way I can live the rest of my life.

Granted, the likelihood of anything like that happening is slim to none — but it does happen. And the fact that the fear is there at all is a sign that either I’m just a big wuss or that we’ve hit the first real steps in restricting free speech.

The bottom line is that it scares me that I’m scared of my government.