American Woman: Civil Liberties and the TSA Pat Down

Our government thinks you don't care about the new TSA scans and pat down rules. They think you will allow any intrusion on your civil rights as long as the authorities tell you that it is necessary to "fight terror".

Is it?

Will you?

As a Pagan woman whose tradition has no problem with nudity, per se, I can stand to have this done to me when I travel but I completely reject the idea that my "choices" should be intrusion and radiation or being groped by strangers; all done on the orders of my government when I have done nothing wrong. Nor do I believe that TSA's newest attempt at security theater will make me one wit safer. So I plan to use my voice to protest this obscene violation of my civil rights.

All this makes me wonder: If a socially liberal, nudist beach loving eco-feminist like me feels that way, how must other, more socially conservative (or, if you prefer, modest) women feel about this intrusion? In one of the worst bits of irony to date in the "war on terror" we find our government "defending our freedom" against men who are infamous for the subjugation and abuse of women in every country where they have influence by subjecting women (and men) to sexual abuse here at home.

I keep thinking about these modest women, women who, however different their lives or world views might be from my own, I respect as human beings and might well enjoy knowing. So, here we are today: All women are now told by TSA that that if they don't like it, they don't have to fly. And why? Because patriarchal-minded extremists (both foreign and domestic) gain power from our fear. Really, TSA? Really?

Perhaps you are one of those people who believe that such measures (measures even security conscious Israel does not impose on travelers) are necessary, especially when dealing with foreigners and non-citizens. If you believe that anything goes in this fight, please imagine for a moment that it is you working as an hourly-wage TSA employee, performing sexually intrusive acts on American-born women like these:

* A Catholic lay worker flying out to serve families living in the dangerous and disease-infested camps of Haiti

* A Quaker nurse who chooses to wear modest dress, traveling to her work with AIDS patients in Africa

* A elderly Buddhist nun bringing books and toys to orphans in Nepal

* A Hindu academic traveling to a woman's conference in Switzerland who is traveling with her 12 year old daughter.

* A Muslim pediatrician whose skills are urgently needed to help child refugees after the recent earthquakes, floods and famine in Pakistan.

* A Baptist social worker using her vacation time to bring vital burn medications to the hundreds hurt in the volcanic eruptions in Indonesia.

What have such women ever done to us that we would hurt them so?

These women are fictional, if plausible, examples of people traveling right now and they are offered here to make a point which is that good people are being hurt by this rule. Already one rape survivor has been traumatized by this treatment. As reported in Newsweek:

For women and men who have already been sexually assaulted, the new screening rules—or just the threat of these rules—present a very real danger. They can be triggering events, setting off a post traumatic-stress reaction...“After a sexual assault, it seems that many survivors have difficulty having their bodies touched by other people,” says Shannon Lambert, founder of the Pandora Project, a nonprofit organization that provides support and information to survivors of rape and sexual abuse. This fear of contact even extends to partners and, often, medical professionals. “A lot of survivors do not want to be in positions where they’re vulnerable. They put up defenses so that they can be in control of their body. In cases like this, it seems like some of that control is going away.”

I, for one, agree with those who argue that full frontal nudity does not make us safer and I have to wonder how parents feel about having their children subjected to either unnecessary radiation and/or intrusive handling.

Let me end with two questions:

* Are we as a nation, willing to hand over our dignity and our civil rights to the incompetent and untrustworthy officials at TSA?

* Will you trust that your own naked-as-a-jaybird scans won't end up on the net?

Somewhere the terrorists are laughing.

Sia

Art found here

P.S. This isn't just about women, of course. Noted Humorist Dave Barry didn't find his own patdown very amusing.

Related Articles:

Nudity at Events: Our top 13 reasons why you can't always bear all

Update:

Former Bush Homeland Chief Got Sweetheart Deal Selling Scanners to TSA

Pagans and Privacy: Email and Networking Sites

"In the '20s and '30s it was the role of government. '50s and '60s it was civil rights. The next two decades are going to be privacy. I'm talking about the Internet. I'm talking about cell phones. I'm talking about health records and who's gay and who's not. And moreover, in a country born on the will to be free, what could be more fundamental than this?"
- Aaron Sorkin, The West Wing

Who owns your data? Anyone with sense would say that it is you but Facebook recently tried to claim that they owned it and got trounced by their users in the process. This issue isn't dead; it will rise, zombi-like, again and again until some future court case decides it. (1) I think that Zack Stern said it best when it wrote this in P.C. World:

Social-networking sites can be excellent ways to communicate... But Facebook reminds us that these sites aren't your friends, they aren't tools to solve problems, and they aren't a bunch of kids trying to make something cool. They're cold, unfeeling businesses. Businesses exist to make money. So take a close look at the terms, especially when the services are free. Sometimes, cost-free can be expensive.

I am a Pagan person who works in the wider world. There are places where I can let my spiritual practice be known and places where I cannot, lest I loose my effectiveness in venues where I do good work. For this and other reasons, I value my privacy.

As a private person and as a woman of a certain age, I am frankly mystified by what information young people will give out about themselves without (it seems) thinking too much about it. As Emily Nussbaum notes, their motto seems to be: Say Everything.

Talking to her the night before, I had liked Kitty: She was warm and funny and humble...but reading her Livejournal, I feel thrown off. Some of it makes me wince. Much of it is witty and insightful. Mainly, I feel bizarrely protective of her, someone I’ve met once—she seems so exposed. And that feeling makes me feel very, very old.

...It’s been a long time since there was a true generation gap, perhaps 50 years—you have to go back to the early years of rock and roll, when old people still talked about “jungle rhythms.” Everything associated with that music and its greasy, shaggy culture felt baffling and divisive, from the crude slang to the dirty thoughts it was rumored to trigger in little girls. That musical divide has all but disappeared. But in the past ten years, a new set of values has sneaked in to take its place, erecting another barrier between young and old. And as it did in the fifties, the older generation has responded with a disgusted, dismissive squawk. It goes something like this:

Kids today. They have no sense of shame. They have no sense of privacy. They are show-offs, fame whores, pornographic little loons who post their diaries, their phone numbers, their stupid poetry—for God’s sake, their dirty photos!—online. They have virtual friends instead of real ones. They talk in illiterate instant messages. They are interested only in attention—and yet they have zero attention span, flitting like hummingbirds from one virtual stage to another.

...When I was in high school, you’d have to be a megalomaniac or the most popular kid around to think of yourself as having a fan base. But people 25 and under are just being realistic when they think of themselves that way, says media researcher Danah Boyd, who calls the phenomenon “invisible audiences.” Since their early adolescence, they’ve learned to modulate their voice to address a set of listeners that may shrink or expand at any time: talking to one friend via instant message (who could cut-and-paste the transcript), addressing an e-mail distribution list (archived and accessible years later), arguing with someone on a posting board (anonymous, semi-anonymous, then linked to by a snarky blog). It’s a form of communication that requires a person to be constantly aware that anything you say can and will be used against you, but somehow not to mind.

(This is a useful article, full of cultural insight. Read the whole thing.)

Some differing views on privacy are generational, it's true, but some of this comes down to having healthy boundaries and using common sense. I worry that what some folks choose share about themselves now will someday bite them on the behind.

What Do They Know and Why Do They Want To Know It?

I know, without liking it one bit, that whatever I write in private emails and in on-line groups may be read by people to whom they are not addressed, and they will do so, legally in most cases, and without my permission. Knowing that, I try to use caution and some common sense and I don't post anything I really want kept private. I do not use Facebook, nor will I. I'm careful in other ways, as well.

Charlie Rose recently went to Silicon Valley and did a series of interviews with the movers and shakers there, including Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Information at Google. The bogger at Bleachblog was struck by the same moment that caught my attention, a casual comment made by Mayer about who knows what and why:

....Ms. Mayer said something that astounded me; Some specific credit card company knows with 80% accuracy who is going to get a divorce 2 years before the cardholders themselves... Ms. Mayer explained that the whether a person is to stay married greatly affects their ability to pay off debt and therefore affects their credit rating. I wonder who they could sell this information to. Divorce attorneys/ Counseling Services. I can see it now. You get a free pen in the mail from Dr. Staytogether's counseling service offering help for your pending divorce that you do not know about yet but with 80% accuracy will happen in 1.5 years. Amazing.

Ms. Mayers was referring to information contained in a book titled Super Crunchers. If you want a scary read, put down the Stephen King and read that, and The End of Privacy.

Linked In:

I know a good many Pagans who use Linked In for the same reasons that my friend Snakemoon and I do: we have a professional presence in the world and since information on our work is already out there, it's up to us to manage this information, the same way we manage any other part of our working life. Linked In is also a great way of finding a job or hiring when you have one to offer.

Tech Love:

I have worked with tech for most of my adult life. I have often worked in tech and I lived surrounded by technophiles in Silicon Valley for over a decade. One could even say I married into tech. (Hi, honey). I say this so you'll know I'm not a luddite. But I am an informed and cautious consumer, and I tell other Pagans this: What you choose to do in these cases is up to you, but allow me to urge caution. Data Mining is an epidemic and it's growing, along with worldwide Internet use and leaps in technology. It's a business and it is not in your best interest to give your Self away. For example, Google (which already has privacy issues with G-mail) has recently leaped ahead in this issue and not in ways I like. Arts Technical writes:

Google's newest advertising strategy, behavioral targeting, has finally arrived. The strategy, referred to as "interest-based" advertising, will go beyond current targeted advertising practices and track your Internet usage habits in order to serve an ad that the search giant hopes is better suited for you. This means that, instead of visiting a music site and simply getting music-related ads, you might visit a music site and getting ads for the newest "Cats Meowing Christmas Carols" album—because Google knows you spend 95 percent of your Internet time at Catster.

That's charming if you love cats, but what about your other interests... hummm?

So...What Are You Reading?

Those of you who shop at Amazon.com know that they do the same sort of thing when they recommend a book for you based on your previous searches. Some people find this useful. I find it creepy and intrusive.

Teeny, tiny, tiny, print

...and by the way, they sell that information to other companies. That's how you got on that mailing list. Read the fine print, folks; it matters.

Sia

Endnotes:


(1) John Svoikla suggests four basic principals for this issue in his article titled What Facebook's Stumble Can Teach Your Company. He goes into some detail (read the whole thing) but these are, in brief:

1. Allow users to own their own content and identify
- Allow? really? look for some court cases on this issue in future.

2. Make all sharing options default to the most conservative setting
- in other words, ask your users to think twice before posting their most intimate details.

3. Create a better infrastructure for anonymity and tracking of content
- among other things, allow the user to remove certain content permanently

4. Don't sneak up on your audience
- be transparent. Let your users know, in clear language, what you are doing and why, and ask for their input.

Related Articles:

The blog that started the uproar at Facebook:
Facebook New Terms of Service: We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Data, Forever.

Think Social Network Blogs Can't Hurt You?
- protecting your health information

For the legally minded among us:
Security vs. Privacy: Reinterpreting the Fourth Amendment

Privacy Concerns: Facebook and Google
- an earlier essay by Yours Truly on this zombie-issue when rose again from the grave in 2008. It has some notes on privacy and G-mail that might be useful and a nifty picture of Maat

Video:

1. Facebook: Federal Human Data Mining Program

2. (humor) Facebook in Reality


Links:

Privacy International

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Electronic Communications Privacy Act

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse

Someone's Soul Is Listening: Pagans, Censorship & Common Sense

"For every problem there is always a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong."
(a line so good, that it is attributed to both Mark Twain and H.L. Menken,
but probably belongs to neither.)

I'm talking 'bout trouble, with a capital T

Censorship issues have sparked heated debate over at Live Journal in the last few months. (1) In brief, LJ intended to clean up a number of sites run by pedophiles, and in the process they deleted sites that contained fan fiction and/or hosted frank conversations among consenting adults. These particular sites had nothing to do with children or abuse of any kind, and some were hosted by or popular with Pagans. A recent c/net article goes into greater detail on this issue and it's aftermath.

LJ's Mea Culpa

What I find most hopeful in this story is that Live Journal learned something useful from their mistakes. This is something that we in the Pagan community don't always do.

Here is an excerpt from the announcement to their users.

Well we really screwed this one up… For reasons we are still trying to figure out what was supposed to be a well planned attempt to clean up a few journals that were violating Live Journal's policies that protect minors turned into a total mess. I can only say I’m sorry, explain what we did wrong and what we are doing to correct these problems and explain what we were trying to do but messed up so completely...

Where Do We Go From Here?

No one wants LJ to ignore this issue to such an extent that children are hurt. We all know by now that pedophiles use web groups as internet rings to organize, share obscene photos of children, and arrange meetings amongst themselves for purposes of child abuse. If LJ does not address the abuses of their site now, they could be confronted with so much public outrage later on that they resort to draconian measures. I , for one, don't want this to become such an issue that those clever ducks over U.S. Congress think they have to step in and "fix it".

Just the facts, Mame

While I agree with those who were outraged at LJ's overreaction, I would point out that:

1) LJ was trying to protect kids (and, let us be honest, their own bacon) via this process.

2) LJ learned a hard, public lesson about overarching censorship, transparent public policy, and better communication. (A lesson that the current U.S. administration and many Pagan groups, have yet to learn)

3) LJ has apologized for effecting some 500 sites (out of several million) and restored the legitimate sites.

4) LJ now moves forward to serve their users with a bit more caution and, one hopes, greater wisdom.

Pagan Organizers Take Note

Some are born with common sense. Some achieve common sense, and some have common sense thrust upon them. If we do not learn these lessons the easy way, the Goddess will give them to us again, and yet again, and so allow us to learn them the hard way.

It's all fun and games until somebody looses an eye

Most cyber citizens know that censorship and privacy rights will continue to be large issues on the internet. For example, Live Journal continues to be involved in a dispute over pictures of breastfeeding.

Here is an example of a letter sent to one parent, and that parent's response.

How would you settle this?

Deciding what is "tasteful" or what should be available for public and/or underage viewing and what should be censored has never been simple. Thoughtful people will see this as a chance to share points of view and negotiate a solution that works for the good of the majority while keeping the rights of the minority in mind. And this will no doubt upset some people whatever they decide. Other people will simply shout at each other, as they have always done, while accomplishing nothing at all. When I work with Pagan groups, I choose to work with the former types and leave the latter alone.

The problem of freedom in America is that of maintaining a competition of ideas, and you do not achieve that by silencing one brand of idea.
Max Lerner

Nobody ever said that democracy was easy. Nothing worthwhile ever is. Kudos for those who stood up for free speech, and also to those who work to protect against the abuse of children. These two things can coexist. Like wolves and bears, those who work with different, but equally important mandates will confront these issues and they must learn where the boundaries are, and avoid crossing the line. If they don't, someone is bound to get hurt.

The great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who challenge an existing institution of way of life, or say and so things that make people think.
William O. Douglas

If you would like to see some positive work being done on the subject of digital rights, check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance
Henry David Thoreau

In closing, I'd like to put in a word for common sense, and good judgment. Folks, let's be a little bit more careful about the wild-eyed rants, the manipulative and silly "spells", the posted curses (?!) and dogmatic bullying found within the Neopagan web, not to mention the hate speech, malicious rumors and bitter flame wars certain Pagans post so easily, and so thoughtlessly. When you see this sort of thing going on in your digital backyard, speak up, and let it be known that your spiritual practice does not support such behavior. It may not mean much to those who create such trash, bravely hidden as they are behind their screens, but these little bits of negative energy are like so many stones thrown into a pond,. They can have an enormous and harmful effect on those who live in this ecosystem, especially young people and newcomers.

Forget about the FBI, someone's soul is listening.


Sia

Author's Note: For more on this issue, please see an earlier article on Nudity At Festivals

Art: Photo of a young woman breastfeeding from the University of Michigan Health System website.

Endnotes:

(1) According to icon artist, Tyger:

LJ (under pressure from a Christian moral pressure group) has suspended over 500 journals/communities because they promote child abuse. Not so bad you might say, but what you don't know is that it has been a blanket suspension. Along with groups that actually do deserve to be suspended, places like support sites for victims of child abuse have gone. Literature discussion sites have been barred. Slash fiction sites have been cut off and journals for roll playing characters have been deleted. What is more, LJ did not feel that we, the members and users, should be told ! We had to find out from external news groups that Lj has decided to erode our rights to free speech and expression. The sites were suspended because they promoted illegal behavior. What step is next? As one gay LJ user states, I list 'gay marriage' among my interests--that is illegal in my state. With this wording my journal could be deleted, without warning, for the fact that I support equal rights of marriage for all."

Censorship is a slippery slope.

Indeed.