Future Security Checkpoints

This sounds good to me. They can pick my brain all they want to; I don't have dangerous plans which will disturb them.

I am glad they can catch the terrorists. They should use any means to do it. I don't want another 9-11.

If you have dangerous thoughts you should be caught. I agree with tapping phones for the same reason. They can listen to all my calls.

If you have nothing to hide why not let them listen. They will soon learn they are wasting valuable time and drop off.

All those who protest must have something to hide. If we are innocent, why do we protest. The security of our country should come first.

Gee, I remember reading this document...what was it called...oh yeah, the U. S. Constitution. I guess some people don't really care about it...eh, Carl?

I, for one, like my right to privacy, my right to think and say what I want, my right to lawfully assemble and protest if I feel my representatives are not doing a good job, and the right to disagree with the government and elect new people to take over. After all, isn't voting to replace current lawmakers a form of protest against the government?

And if you don't like those freedoms and want to let the government do whatever they think is right, then you're not interested in living in a democracy...you're looking at living in a communist dictatorship.

I just love this quote...

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

Now don't confuse this with an opposition for important security and safeguards, but we need to be careful not to be so quick to give up the rights afforded to us by our Constitution. It certainly is tough times and difficult issues!

I can see both viewpoints expressed here.
I am very much against the way that Big Brother is stealthily and steadily eroding our rights, for example with the increasing use of CCTV cameras in public places.

However- and please, before anyone jumps all over me, this is just a thought- when you go on a flight somewhere, are you not entering into a private transaction? The security check is surely a condition of that transaction.

As a condition of flying today, all passengers must subject themselves to a physical search to make sure they are not carrying anything that can do harm to the aircraft and the people it's carrying. While I do have problems with the inconsistency of the organization doing these searches, I do not have a problem with the searches themselves.

But just because I bought an airline ticket, it does not give the government the right to tap my phones, interrogate me about my travels and the reason for it or the people I meet (domestic travel...this changes when traveling internationally), nor attempt to read my mind. These rights are given to me in the U.S. Constitution.

I personally do not trust the current U.S. government and have never seen so much mass corruption. (Mark my words, I believe many in the Bush Administration and those doing business with the administration during the last eight years, will be going to jail. And, BTW, I'm not a Democrat--nor a Republican.)

These freedoms from government are unprecedented in the U.S. and are not available anywhere else. True, the Patriot Act tried to destroy it, but that was done purely through fear and I'm hoping the new administration will modify it so that honest Americans are no longer assumed to be guilty and have to prove their innocence.

On the frequent traveler board, Flyertalk, there is a separate section just on this subject. It is one of the most active.

Oh, and by the way, if the U.S. Constitution is destroyed and our rights are taken away where we become a police state where the government is free to have unlimited power--then the terrorists have won. They would have accomplished their main goal of destroying our society.