DHS Gets Public Comment, Whether It Wants It Or Not

OverTheGeicoE writes "The motion to force DHS to start its public comment period is still working its way through the court (DHS: 'We're not stonewalling!', EPIC: 'Yes, you are!'). While we wait for the decision, Cato Institute's Jim Harper points out another way for the public to comment on body scanners, tsacomment.com. Even before this site existed, of course, the government was receiving public comment anyway in the form of passenger complaint letters, which they buried in their files. Even so, the public can get a chance to view those comments as the result of Freedom of Information Act requests. An FOIA request about pat-downs by governmentattic.org yielded hundreds of pages of letters to the government from 2010, including frequent reports of pat-down induced PTSD and sexual abuse trauma."

Popular vote

[girlintraining]

I believe I speak for many Americans when I say my comment is "Go away."

Re:Popular vote

[firex726]

Many yes, but far too many feel that "If that's the price we have to pay for safety, then so be it".
Which of course has SO much wrong with it.

What good is public comment

[Hatta]

when your comments are completely ignored?

Re:Popular vote

[Anonymous Coward]

There was recent poll (on CNN I believe), that claimed people in general were satisfied with the TSA (note that some of them dont fly at all, and have never experienced the TSA, but decided to vote)

Anxiety

[thereitis]

I've never been groped by an agent, but I feel the anxiety of that and other abuses by the 'all powerful' every time I fly. So far it's just a terrible possibility in my mind and has never happened, but living under that fear should not be a necessity of a reasonably safe flying experience.

DHS' existence makes the case for states rights

[BMOC]

...over federal power. If you give the federal government too much power, they do things like this. They are simply not equipped (due mostly to incompetence) to deal with the concerns of it's citizens like local government is, and they should only exist to settle disputes between states and provide for the common defense and law. But when you put them in charge of things like this, you are guaranteed to get problems. The DHS is literally the poster child for why you should never ever ever give your executive branch in a representative republic more power than you would give your local mayor.

Re:Popular vote

[seepho]

People have opinions on subjects they're ignorant of? Surely you jest.

Re:Popular vote

[cpu6502]

The majority also supported the roundup of Japanese-americans during WW2, depriving them of their liberty, property, and right to a jury trial. That doesn't make the majority's trampeling of individual rights okay, either then or now.

Re:This is going to get ugly

[Joce640k]

They don't have to beat the TSA. They can blow themselves up in the queue for the scanner and have pretty much the same effect.

Re:What good is public comment

[gestalt_n_pepper]

It provides the illusion of legitimate democracy while actually effecting nothing, thus keeping the herd *quiet*

Re:There are much better ways to spend money

[mr1911]

If a simple pat-down "induced PTSD and sexual abuse trauma", it is more likely to suggest a problem with the passenger rather than the TSA.

So it is the passenger's fault they have issues being groped?

Passengers that have been sexually abused have had issues with the TSA groping reviving trauma from the initial attack. That is kinda what PTSD does to a person.

I know, I know, it is hard for anyone on Slashdot to imagine being the subject of unwanted sexual attention, but these things do happen.

Re:Popular vote

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you say they are ignorant? TSA is responsible for making sure that terrorists don't crash airplanes into our office buildings and work places. You don't have to fly to know that there haven't been any planes flown into office buildings in some time in the US. Now, I do fly a few times a year - and the security theater is pathetic. I'm about to fly again in two weeks and am not looking forward to it. However from the point of view of "average person who doesn't fly" - why would they not be satisfied that someone seems to be keeping planes from falling from the sky? It might be the same in principle as the old "tiger preventing rock", but to them it must be working.

communists won

[Dan667]

remember with the US use to make fun of communists for their "show me your papers" paranoia? tsa is UnAmerican.

Re:DHS' existence makes the case for states rights

[Cormacus]

Well their secondary recourse, in a town of 185 people, is to leave. This kind of voting with your feet is why pushing governmental functions down to the lowest (read: most local) level is a good thing. The feedback loop is tightest there. If the city government in a small city is out of touch and not listening, the final stage in the feedback loop is for the residents to up and leave for the next town over. The larger the area covered by that government, the more difficult it is to do that.

Re:Popular vote

[schlachter]

The majority is often wrong. To see this, you only have to look to slavery, segregation, anti-semitism, the Iraq war, and Nazi politics among other things.

In times like this you need strong clear leadership from the few in power.

Re:Anxiety

[Smidge204]

but living under that fear should not be a necessity of a reasonably safe flying experience

There is no evidence at all that you are any safer. In fact the TSA has failed to detect smuggled banned objects in every official test, several unofficial tests, and several anecdotal accounts that I'm aware of - and there have been numerous publications on how the various methods they use are easily fooled and/or don't detect the proper types of materials.

You are living in fear and you're not even safer for your trouble.
=Smidge=

Re:There are much better ways to spend money

[mr1911]

You have obviously never been raped.

it's not like you didn't know it was coming.

Ahhh, the justification that makes everything the TSA does A-OK.

Re:Enhanced Pat Down

[gstoddart]

However, not being an American, and being on my way out of the country, I had no choice.

Maybe not then, but you do now.

My choice is not to visit the US. At the moment, their airport security there isn't something I'm willing to subject myself to.

I've been lightly frisked elsewhere (politely, and not overly invasive), which is fine because I refuse to get into that scanner thing. But compared to what I've heard of the idiocy with TSA ... not happening.

Ever since Alberto Gonzales said habeus corpus [wikipedia.org] isn't actually guaranteed, there's been a fairly obvious conclusion that pesky things like the US Constitution just get in the way. (How an Attorney General can have no idea how your laws work still baffles me.)

And since now apparently there's a huge Constitution Free Zone [aclu.org] ... if it doesn't apply to citizens, I sure as hell don't want to be a foreign national.

Sadly, 9/11 was when America jumped the shark in terms of her historical defense of rights.

Re:There are much better ways to spend money

[LateArthurDent]

people with existing traumas are something else, of course, but the TSA doesn't have any systems to deal with that properly

That's the case that people are talking about. And the TSA does have the system to deal with it properly. It's called respect our civil rights and don't search people without a warrant or probable cause.

Re:Popular vote

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, imprisoning your own citizens prevents foreign powers from attacking. Riiiiight.

Re:Popular vote

[Hatta]

Only if you assume that the few in power are morally better than the majority. But since they're drawn from the same pool, and the process of obtaining power selects against the wise and the kind, you can be assured that they are not.

We do not give power to the majority because the majority is wise. We do so to dilute the influence of individual corruption. If a king rules in a way that only benefits the king, you can be assured that most of his subjects are suffering. If the majority rules in a way that only benefits the majority, then at least 50% of the people are happy.