Government Largesse: Some Strings Attached

Radley Balko links to this article about the Supreme Court's refusal to review a challenge to a San Diego program in which government officials searched the homes of welfare applicants. People were free to refuse to be searched -- but if they did, they couldn't get benefits. As Mr. Balko points out, the notion that applying for government benefits constitutes consent to a search is pretty broad:

I suspect the law-and-order response to the policy in San Diego would be something along the lines of "if they can’t prove they’re clean, they don’t deserve my tax dollars." Of course, if everyone who received any sort of government assistance had to consent to a search of their home, the Fourth Amendment would be pretty much null(er). For example, I’d guess there’d be quite a bit more outrage if these fishing expeditions/searches were being done on the homes of, say, middle class kids applying for government-subsidized student loans instead of low-income people applying for welfare.

There might be more outrage, but of course many of the same justifications for searching the homes of welfare recipients might apply to student loan recipients. In any case, this practice points to one of the often-unappreciated costs of the massive welfare state: it inevitably leads to increased government monitoring of the beneficiaries of welfare programs. And of course as people become accustomed to searches of all sorts, the willingness to object or resist declines.

The power to do something for you is also the power to do something to you.

From The Land of the Brave To A Nation of Bedwetters

My buddy Sully links to this article about a tourist's run-in with security conscious officials. At the outset, I want to add the same caveat I suggested in the case of the Jena 6 when I first began to read about the case. It is possible that this story is a hoax, or that it's been exaggerated, or that salient facts have been omitted. Of course it would be a good idea to have independent verification, to hear more accounts, to know more facts.

Still, assuming the article is accurate, it's a horrible story: an elderly Japanese tourist who speaks no English is riding an Amtrak train from New York to Boston. He rides along, threatens or bothers nobody, and then does the unforgivable: he starts to take pictures. Well, we can't have that, can we? Sensing danger, the heroic Amtrak conductor swings into action:

The train is a half hour west of New Haven when the conductor, having finished her original rounds, reappears. She moves down the aisle, looks, stops between our seats, faces the person taking pictures. “Sir, in the interest of national security, we do not allow pictures to be taken of or from this train.” He starts, “I…….” but, without English, his response trails off into silence. The conductor, speaking louder, forcefully: “Sir, I will confiscate that camera if you don’t put it away.” Again, little response. “Sir, this is a security matter! We cannot allow pictures.” She turns away abruptly and, as she moves down the aisle, calls over her shoulder, in a very loud voice, “Put. It. Away!” He packs his camera.

And it gets worse! When the train arrives in New Haven, two police officers enter the train and remove him, apparently because he "refused" an order he couldn't understand. Hopefully these dim bulbs managed to find somebody who spoke Japanese, determine that he wasn't a terrorist, and send him on his way.

I got in a bit of trouble in the comments a while back when I said that some (though not all) TSA screeners were morons, and I suppose that I may offend an Amtrak employee here, but I don't really care. I don't know whether the "policy" against photography from speeding trains is an actual Amtrak rule, or merely a policy put in place by an idiosyncratic conductor on a power trip. I suppose the theory behind it is that terrorists could scout locations for attacks from the train and use photographs in their planning.

But this is utterly idiotic. What are the chances that terrorists would actually scout locations and take photographs from a speeding train? Wouldn't they be far more likely to get off the train and take pictures of their targets? And how many terrorists use photographs anyway? This policy is beyond stupid. It has no possible intelligent defense.

As to this conductor, if the policy is a real policy rather than simply her own personal policy, then she may not have had any choice but to enforce it. However, even if she had no choice, she didn't have to be an asshole about it. She didn't have to call the cops on a guy who obviously didn't speak English and who represented no threat. She didn't have to go into that whole "this is a security matter!" act. She could have been nice about the whole thing.

I know nothing about this woman, or her life. Maybe she is just somebody who hates her job and takes it out on the passengers, whom she resents. Maybe she's just a small person who gets to feel big by pushing people around. But one of the worst aspects of the War On Terror and the security theater it has engendered is that it gives uniformed bullies a chance to throw their weight around. When we give petty officials the power to enforce arbitrary and stupid rules, it is hardly surprising that many of them become abusive.

I sometimes think that our friends on the left get overwrought, and maybe I am a bit overwrought myself, but I have to ask: what kind of a people have we become? What kind of country is this? Is this the America we want to live in? Do we have to be afraid all the time, so afraid that we put in place stupid security measures against phantom dangers?

Let me make a radical suggestion: let's stop being afraid. The object of terrorism, after all, is to inspire fear. I am fine with putting in place reasonable precautions, with hunting down the folks behind attacks on the United States and killing them. But we can't sacrifice what we are as a country. This constant, unreasoning, debilitating official paranoia just has to go.

So, Why, Again, Do You Want Government Running Everything?

Over at Kleilman's, Michael O'Hare links to this article about a musician and musicologist named Nalani Ghuman who has had her visa revoked and been excluded from the United States for reasons utterly inexplicable to, well, anybody. Ghuman had been a legal resident of the United States for ten years, and there was no indication whatsoever that she was any sort of threat.

In reading the article, O'Hare's conclusion seems pretty apt: some moron at the State Department decided, for stupid and arbitrary reasons, to exclude her, and no individual is willing to take responsibility for saying "this decision was moronic and she should be allowed back in."

Yes, this decision seems to be both stupid and inexplicable. I suppose it's possible that Ghuman is a terrorist mastermind when she's not playing the violin, but it seems unlikely. Rather, this seems to be an example of one of those "stupid government tricks." Somebody in government does something stupid, and other government people continue the stupidity. Yes, apply pressure and let this poor girl in.

But beyond that, one lesson that might be learned is that government people do stupid things, and getting them to correct them can be a royal pain. Which is one reason I lean libertarian: I think that government in general does things badly, and so I want to limits its functions as much as possible. Now, I suppose it's possible that if the "right people" were put in charge, they wouldn't do stupid things any more, but honestly this seems pretty unlikely.

"Receipt, Please" at Circuit City

Radley Balko links to this first-person account of a fellow named Michael Amor Righi, who was arrested at Circuit City. By all means read his account for yourself, but the short version is that he went to Circuit City, picked up a few items, paid for them, and left the store. The fellow at the door asked to see his receipt. Instead of complying, he said "no, thank you" and left the store. He was pursued outside the store, had a verbal confrontation with the manager, who blocked him from exiting. Righi ended up calling the cops (because the manager was blocking his exit) and the cop arrested him after he refused to a) show the receipt, and b) show his identification. He was charged with the nebulous charge of "Obstructing Official Business," which really doesn't seem to fit the facts. At least if you believe his account, he didn't do anything to, well, obstruct the police officer, other than refuse to submit to search or hand over his identification.

His account is detailed, and I have to say I vacillated between thinking he was a jerk and admiring his spunk. But he leaves out one key fact: did the Circuit City have a sign, prominently displayed in the front, which indicated that bags were subject to search? If so, then he agreed to enter private property under certain terms, and he should be bound by those terms. I think that Balko gets it exactly right:

If stores like Circuit City make clear that when you step onto their property, you agree to have your bags searched when you leave, then those are the conditions you agree to when you enter. Don't like it? Then shop elsewhere.

Precisely.

Now, I do happen to agree with Righi when he suggests that meek compliance with such demands is not exactly a good sign:

I am interested in living my life on strong principles and standing up for my rights as a consumer, a U.S. citizen and a human being. Allowing stores to inspect our bags at will might seem like a trivial matter, but it creates an atmosphere of obedience which is a dangerous thing.

Absolutely. Likewise the degrading and largely pointless rituals at aiport security and other places. But instead of welching on the deal he made with Circuit City when he entered this store, Righi has an alternative way to protest their policy: he can refuse to shop there. And with this internet thing, he can even organize he fellow search-objectors to refrain from shopping at stores like Circuit City and Best Buy en masse.

Nor is it likely that these stores implement such policies because they want to condition us to life ground beneath the heel of our corporate overlords. Rather, I'm guessing they pay somebody to sit outside the door and ask for receipts because such stores are prime targets for shoplifters. And I am guessing that they have a policy of asking everybody because their lawyers have told them that a more focused approach, where they ask some people but not others, will leave them open to discrimination claims by those who do get asked to their receipts.

I do think it was reasonable for the cop to ask to see his receipt, but once it became clear that the goods were not stolen, I don't see why it was necssary to take him into custody.

Lady Jane's Run-In With the TSA

Megan McArdle, aka, Jane Galt had a bit of a run-in with airport security which she was nice enough to blog about. It seems that she wanted to bring home a few travel-sized containers of shampoo and such, but she had a bit of a snag: she hadn't acquired the requisite Ziploc bag, and the screeners made it clear: no baggie, no carry. As Megan noted, shampoo doesn't represent an independent security if it's not in a baggie -- the sole purpose of the Ziploc bag is to make it easier to inspect. Megan offered to put the offending soaps in some other sort of bag, but the screener apparently lacked the discretion or judgment to accept this offer, and so, her shampoo had to be abandoned.

Megan is offended by this rigid application of rules in a context in which they make no sense:

It's not that I particularly mind the loss of a travel size sleek 'n shine shampoo set. But I resent being treated to rule applications so blind that they zip past moronic and straight into The Kafka Zone. And I suspect that they are so moronically applied because we treat the TSA people like morons. How low does one's IQ have to be to indicate that one cannot comprehend the security purpose, and limits, of a Ziploc baggy? Whatever the cutoff, I am sure that this woman was above it. But hey, terrorism! So we create a bunch of silly rules, and then demand that our silly TSA people follow them blindly . . . and we all go merrily down the road to airport hell together.

Megan, we treat TSA screeners like morons because some of them are morons. Oh, not all of them, or even most. But, predictably, some of the people we hire for this (let's face it) really tedious job are going to be morons. Lest any screeners read this and offended, note the word "some." Some will be of ordinary intelligence; some may even be of above-average intelligence. But, predictably, some will be morons. I will say I know one airport screener, and, well, he's a pretty dull fellow. But the rest are probably smarter.

And so, rather than rely upon their discretion, intelligence, and judgment -- which, predictably, will be lacking in some cases -- we give them clear, rigid orders. Some of which, inevitably, will be stupid. But if you start letting them apply the rules in accordance with their understanding of the reason for each particular rule, well, somebody might make a stupid decision and some contraband might get through. Which could, theoretically, lead to trouble. (How much damage somebody could actually do with a pair of scissors in the post-9/11 world is a different issue.)

Moreover, if you allow screeners to apply their independent judgment, you will necessarily have a certain degree of disparity in how passengers are treated. Maybe one screener is smarter than another, more able to discern the purpose behind the Ziploc-bag rule. Maybe one is a jackbooted thug too dumb to land a job as a potbellied small-town Sheriff who applies every rule as rigidly as possible out of sheer sadistic glee. Maybe the guy next to him lacks the energy and just waves everybody by. But whatever the source of the differences, if you allow screeners latitude to exercise judgment, you will get differences.

In differences lie lawsuits. If it so happens that a tall, elfin, good-looking white female blogger is allowed to pass through security unhindered without the proper Ziploc bag, the Muslim fellow who got a different screener will inevitably complain when the screener insists on a proper baggie. Which will lead to a nasty discrimination lawsuit. Remember the flying Imams?

Also, in a purely practical sense, I don't want to be waiting in line behind the person who is rules-lawyering the TSA screener. For that matter, I don't want to be in the line when twenty people ahead of me are doing the rules-lawyering, many of them in a less sensible manner than Ms. McArdle.

Now, those who complain that our current regime is nothing more than "security theater" have a point. I think that the TSA should try to keep bombs, guns, and swords off of airplanes. If, in the post-9/11 world, somebody can hijack an airplane with box cutters or a pair of scissors, then we deserve to lose. But argue that with the idiots making the rules, not the idiots behind the x-ray machine. After all, as Megan observed, they don't have a choice.