16. November 2011 by admin.

I’ve been travelling a lot in the past month: it’s why I haven’t been able write a post for a while.  (It’s not just the travelling, it’s the load of things I have to do when I get there.)  But I’ve been thinking about airport security, and the people who say that it violates their Fourth Amendment rights.

I can’t say that I’ve had a genuinely bad airport security experience.  I’ve never been groped or had my things maliciously searched, and I’ve never had an encounter with airport security staff–anywhere–that wasn’t completely professional.  On the other hand, it isn’t necessarily a pleasant experience.

Anyhow, the Fourth Amendment states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

OK: does airport security, as it’s currently practiced, constitute an ‘unreasonable search’?

While I rail against the government doing lots of things, I can’t rail against the principle of airport security.  Besides terrorists, there are other things that people might bring on airliners that are troublesome.  Everyone wants to get to their destination safely, and airport security is part of making that happen.   Perhaps it could be done better, smarter, or less obtrusively, but from where we’re starting, I’m not sure there are practical alternatives.

So there’s an obvious public interest involved, making airport searches reasonable.

But going further:

• A US airliner is private property.  If there were no TSA, wouldn’t airlines still have the right to search you before flying, to make sure you weren’t carrying anything dangerous?  (Indeed, isn’t that what the airlines did before 11 September?)
• I’ve traveled to other countries, and I’m not sure they have laws similar to our Fourth Amendment.  If I object to being searched in the US on Fourth Amendment grounds, does that objection go away when I travel from a place without a Fourth Amendment?

Yesterday morning, at the subway station on my way to work, the police had set up a random search table, with a TSA guy in his electric-blue shirt brandishing some kind of detection instrument.  I expected to be stopped: there were four cops and one TSA guy, and they looked like they needed something to do.  But they let me pass.

Searching people before they get on airplanes is unpleasant, but reasonable.

Searching people before a subway ride?  That’s worrisome.

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9. July 2009 by admin.

I’m on vacation this week in the Berkshires, staying in a comfy bed-and-breakfast in western Massachusetts.

One of my colleagues asked me, “Why go there?”  It’s an escape from the heat of the city (although it’s been a cool summer so far); the people are friendly; and there are places and things to do that interest me and my wife.

So this past weekend, I rented a car for the trip.  I told the guy where I was going, and he asked me if I’d like to rent a GPS box for the trip.

Thirty years ago, if you had asked me what sort of gizmo I’d like to have in my car, I would have salivated at the thought of a device that established my location and displayed it on a map.

Alas, now that one can buy a GPS box for $200-$300, I don’t want one.  I still think the idea is cool, and I will watch the GPS display if I’m riding in someone else’s car.

I always thought that a basic element of driving is knowing where you are, and where you want to go.  I don’t like it when someone tells me to follow them; I want to know the way myself.

So when I travel by car to a place I’m not familiar with, part of the exercise is to get out the maps and understand the route.   And it works: I’ve never gotten lost.

OK, in fairness, I can’t quite say that: I’ve sometimes lost track of where I was exactly, but I knew I was heading in the right direction, and eventually came to a spot that I did recognize where I could continue onward.  I’ve never had to backtrack in such cases.

And last night, I did, indeed, go around in circles, but that was because the place I was visiting advertised itself as being located on one road, but was actually on an adjacent road.

But neither of those cases really counts as ‘lost.’  Navigation is part of the joy of driving, and I don’t want to give that up, least of all to a made-in-China, value-engineered, plastic turd.

Except that I’m sure that most people who buy GPS boxes do it for exactly that reason: to save themselves the trouble of thought.

Posted in Travel, Life Goes On | No Comments »

24. August 2008 by admin.

I’ve been incommunicado this week on vacation in the Berkshires, in western Massachusetts.  My wife introduced me to Tanglewood in 2000, before we got married, and we’ve gone there every summer since then, except for last year.  It’s a peaceful place, with rolling hills, interesting museums, and pleasant driving.

We stayed at Vacation Village in the Berkshires.  It’s a development of low-rise apartments in the mountains.  The place was described as having a ‘mountain view,’ but only by technicality: it looked out on the driveway and the buildings on the other side of the street.  It was neat and clean, but the place is apparently run by MBAs: you’re charged $20 to have the maid fix up your room, $50 if you leave a mess, and $150 if you stay beyond the 10:00 am check-out time.  Evidently, the concept of actual hospitality seems to elude them.

There was wireless Internet access in the lobby, but when I tried to sign on to harderworld.com to write a post, it didn’t work.  So I gave up: after all, I’m on vacation.

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