Mood lighting. Soft music. Relax and kick off your shoes—someone is about to peek beneath your clothes. No, you aren't at the honeymoon suite yet—you're still stuck at the airport security checkpoint.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is adopting some "calming" techniques to make you relaxed for their ever-increasing security procedures. My latest Civil Discourse comic goes through some of features at the Indianapolis Airport that were designed with the help of psychologists to create peaceful acquiescence in passengers.
He doesn't mind you knowing. In fact, he thinks it would be totally reasonable for you to seize and copy the contents, provided you're a government official and he's crossing the border.
In recent testimony, and in an article in yesterday's Christian Science Monitor, James Jay Carafano of the Heritage Foundation called it "unrealistic to require probable cause" for such searches, and argued that privacy protections would "create some kind of sanctuary for criminals and terrorists to carry things across the border."
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) set off a
minor firestorm in the blogosphere over its new ID policy,
which went into effect this past Saturday. At least one
passenger has reported that he was asked which political party
he is registered to vote for, as part of TSA's new authentication
process.
