Draft of a letter to the Transportation Security Administration

To: The Transportation Security Administration
TSA-ContactCenter@dhs.gov

You have broken into my luggage without cause. Please recall that one characteristic of a free, democratic society, is non-interference. Free citizens in a free state can move freely. They can go where they want, when they want, without interference.

You have robbed me (and countless others) of this fundamental right.

You say that you have done this for my own good, for reasons of security, to protect me and my family from terrorists.

I do not believe you. I do not believe that you can predict which luggage is "dangerous".

My bag was opened twice. I received one notice from you.

I know that the US government pays professional psychologists, educated scientists, and other intellectuals to provide a patina of respectability for these anti-democratic measures. To all such hired guns, I say, SHAME ON YOU!
How arrogant of you to pretend you know what you do not know.

Shame on all of you.

No, I do not believe a word of what you say.

How sad that our country has descended further into anti-freedom.




ADDITIONAL REMARKS

My lock was broken. Some security agents are able to pick locks. My lock was not sturdy and would have been easy to pick. The fact that you chose to cut it suggests a certain aggressiveness.

You say that you are required by law to inspect luggage. But no law can precisely specify which luggage you should inspect. Moreover,non-democratic countries have laws. Nazi Germany had laws. But the laws you refer to were made in the time of hysteria after the atrocities in New York and Washington DC; they are not the wisest of laws.

Either you act randomly or you use some criterion. (And even if you intend to be random, you must have some method.)

I would like to know your criteria for breaking and entering. In all probability the most you can do is target luggage which appears "unusual" according to some questionable standard.

How can you be sure your standards are fair? How can you be sure you are not the victim of recency effects?

I suspect you won't be able to answer my question, and will not even try to do so.

If you claim your inspections are random, I would like to know how you can be sure. How can you rule out the possibility that you respond to indications of a different social class or social background than your own?

I have a right to know more about how my bag was selected.

Was it because my luggage was locked? Was it because my bag was half empty? Half empty because I was taking a short trip and wouldn't buy new luggage just to have a full, smaller bag. In either of the above cases, you see how absurd your methods are. You cannot avoid the fact that any method you choose inevitably ignores the diversity of human nature. You are guilty of what the psychologist and student of the emotions Ekman called the "Othello error". And you are, in addition, enjoying the arrogance of arbitrary power.

It is also true that our country is experiencing hysteria manipulated by the powers that be. You contribute to the paranoia. The government will call upon this mood if it begins another war of aggression in Iran, just as it did so in the past when it waged an aggressive war in Iraq. You are aiding these crimes--even if you do so in a small way.

Reference
Paul Ekman
Telling Lies
WW Norton 2001