More Evidence on the Turning Tide
I wrote recently about the anti-Obama T-shirts on display at Washington’s Dulles Airport. This week I can report that at the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, there are big cut-outs of Barack and Michelle Obama. But they’re standing by a display of shirts reading “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for McCain and Palin” and another reading “NOPE (with the Obama campaign logo) — keep the change.” The times they are a-changin’.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that out in the real America, the airports of Albuquerque and San Diego, there are no T-shirts on display for or against any politician. It’s like they don’t think Americans care about politicians.
House Votes against “Strip-Search” Machines
Yesterday the House adopted an amendment to the Transportation Security Administration Authorization Act that would prohibit the TSA from using Whole Body-Imaging machines for primary screening at airports and require the TSA to give passengers the option of a pat-down search in place of going through a WBI machine, among other things.
You can read the amendment here, and the roll call vote will soon be up here. Use it to decide whether to cheer or jeer your member of Congress.
More on strip-search machines here, here, and here.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Telecom, Internet & Information Policy
National ID Mission Creep
It’s a given that, once in place, a national ID would be used for additional purposes.
In case you needed proof, on Wednesday, Senator David Vitter (R-LA) offered an amendment to H.R. 627, the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009, requiring the Federal Reserve to impose federal identification standards on the opening of new credit accounts. Among the limited forms of ID credit issuers could accept are REAL ID cards, produced under the moribund national ID law. (Vitter may not realize that REAL ID is in collapse.)
To compound things, his amendment would require credit issuers to run new credit card applicants past terrorist watch-lists. The sense of normalcy, efficiency, and common sense that makes airports so pleasurable to visit today would infect our financial services system. Oh joy.
Filed under: Finance, Banking & Monetary Policy; Telecom, Internet & Information Policy
Limiting the TSA’s Use of “Strip Search Machines”
I wrote here in February about the push and pull over “strip search machines,” also known as “whole-body imaging” and “millimeter wave scanning.”
The question is joined: How do you maintain privacy with a technology that’s fundamentally intrusive? Maybe by using it less. This week, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) introduced a bill to limit the use of whole-body imaging.
H.R. 2027, the Aircraft Passenger Whole-Body Imaging Limitations Act of 2009, would place several limits:
- Whole-body imaging could not be the sole or primary method of screening a passenger, and it could only be used as a follow-up to other methods like metal detection.
- Passengers would have the right to opt for a pat-down search instead of whole-body imaging.
- Passengers subject to whole-body imaging would have to be provided information about the technology and the images it generates, on privacy policies, and the right to have the pat-down search instead.
- Images of passengers generated by whole-body imaging technology could not be stored, transferred, shared, or copied in any form after the passenger has passed through the security system.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Telecom, Internet & Information Policy
One Small Step for Private Airports
The New York Times reports that the nation’s only privately financed commercial airport is set to open in Branson, Missouri.
Unlike government transportation projects such as the Big Dig, this private project has gone well so far: “‘I think it’s some kind of record,’ Jeff Bourk, executive director of the airport, said of the speed of the construction. ‘On other projects I’ve been involved in, there’s a lot more red tape.’”
On the broader issue of America’s airports, the Times notes:
Every one of the 552 airports providing commercial air service in the United States receives some kind of federal money, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, and these airports are owned by public entities, municipalities, transportation districts or airport authorities.
In airports, America embraces socialism, while free enterprise has taken hold abroad. Many major cities around the world have privatized their airports in recent decades, as I discuss here.
The growth in private airports faces a number of hurdles in America. One problem is that government airports receive federal, state, and local subsidies, which makes it hard for private companies to compete. Another problem is the tax-deductibility of state/local (”muni”) bonds, which gives government facilities a financing advantage over private projects.
Thus, two reforms are obvious: end all federal subsidies for state/local infrastructure and repeal the tax deductibility of muni bonds. (Note that the Branson airport found an interesting way around the second problem).
Over time, these two steps would likely create a giant leap forward for privatized infrastructure in America.
Hat tip: Harrison Moar.
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