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Airport Security

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In this essay, I will attempt to argue that TSA serves as a mechanism for the government to frame the nature of the debate on privacy, in a way that is beneficial to them. To do this I will first argue that airport security and the TSA are objectively ineffective and merely creates the illusion of privacy. Despite not actually protecting us, the system of airplane security, conditions individuals in the general public to be willing to make sacrifices in privacy for a perceived “greater good” in community safety. This viewpoint of individuals sacrificing a little privacy for the well-being of society is the essentially the same “nothing to hide” argument that the government uses to justify mass surveillance and the violation of …show more content…

This is problematic because it is frighteningly easy to make mistakes, and nearly impossible to catch a suspect. In fact, some security experts suspect that the TSA has never once caught a terrorist at a checkpoint. A natural byproduct of a one checkpoint system is massive lines. It is widely accepted both in the intelligence community and popular culture that terrorists seek out crowds because they can inflict the most damage. This is disturbingly ironic; as in an attempt to prevent us against terrorism, the TSA conveniently packs hundreds of travels together in cramped security lines, creating a clear terrorist target. Therefore, technically terrorists don’t even need to get through security in order to make an attack. All of these structural flaws in the American airplane security system or TSA, point to the conclusion, that the massive TSA system merely creates the appearance of protection. In the last paragraph, I have attempted to show how the TSA creates a guise of protection while doing very little to prevent terrorism. However, despite doing very little to protect us, the TSA profoundly impacts the parameters for how the debate around how privacy is defined. In fact, the government uses systems like the TSA to control the narrative around privacy. In the current system of airport security, innocent citizens, are

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