Sean Reiser

I'm going to try and revive the blog in the new year... here's the first post...

Recently in some reading I came across a Patrick Henry quote "The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests" which made me think of a story.

Those who know me know I have a metal copy of the US Bill of Rights in my wallet. I carry it to set off metal detectors and make a point that we are giving up our 4th amendment rights. When asked what it is I'll say something like "Oh, it's the Bill of Rights, I guess you have a problem with that here".

For a while I was traveling to Washington DC for business. While I was there I'd take advantage of the museums and national monuments that DC has to offer. On one such trip I was visiting the National Archive where there is a metal detector. There's a delicious level of irony when one has to be searched to see the document that protects you from illegal search. When I set off the detector I made my flippant comment about the Bill of Rights. The guard's response surprised me, "It's my job to protect the Bill of Rights from people like you".

I must've been in a snarky mood, and considering that I had an audience fueled my desire to drive my point home, I responded, "No, it's the job of the Bill of Right to protect me from government thugs like you". I'm not sure this was what he was looking for as an answer as he grimaced before letting me past. I do find it sad that this man has no appreciation for what he's guarding, because he is doing more to destroy the Bill of Rights then I could do.

I suspect that this is in my mind recently in the wake of the "crotch bomber" incident. Since the attempted bombing every day there has been one story or another about the "millimeter wave full body scanners" which essentially give security personnel the ability to see under someone's clothes so they can look for weapons and other contraband. A side effect of this is that the security guard gets to see the person being scanned essentially naked. In the past people have criticized my civil disobedience around metal detectors reminding me that the amendment protects us from an "unreasonable search". I think we can all agree that being strip searched to get on an airplane is unreasonable.

I'm also concerned about how this spreads out in the world. In 2001 most people were only subjected to metal detectors at airports. 8 years later we find them in government buildings, office buildings, sports venues, and at some public gatherings like Times Square on New Years Eve. We are subjected to "random" bag searches when getting on the NYC subways. We have all been conditioned to believe that this is the way it has to be. Once body scanning becomes common in airports, and it's part of the culture I believe to will begin to find it's way into the world as metal detectors have.

At the end of the day, the only real security is an alert citizenry. If both the shoe bomber and crotch bomber cases have taught us anything, it is that we, the people, are the last line of defense, not the TSA, not some piece of technology. No matter what defenses we put in place, someone will work out a way around them. The real legacy of 9/11 is not ungraded security, it's that people are willing to stand up to these attackers.