Richard Colvin Reid was not successful in his efforts to light a fuse that, he hoped, would ignite pentaerythritol tetranitrate, a high explosive contained in the lining of his shoe.  But because of him, millions of Americans are required to remove their shoes as they enter the security zone at airports.  Whether bare or stocking-ed, we are constrained to suffer the indignity of going shoeless “for our own protection.”

If this is the measure of safety, we’re in trouble.  From Bruce Schneier (note: the comments to Schneier’s post are a must read):

[L]ast month someone tried to assassinate a Saudi prince by exploding a bomb stuffed in his rectum. He pretended to be a repentant militant, when in fact he was a Trojan horse:

The resulting explosion ripped al-Asiri to shreds but only lightly injured the shocked prince — the target of al-Asiri’s unsuccessful assassination attempt.

While the efficacy of concealing explosives within a body cavity is questionable, the same could be said for a shoe bomb but it didn’t give the TSA much pause.  Safety first. 

As lawyers, we look at the validity of arguments taken to the logical extreme.  This certainly provides an opportunity to do just that, as logic dictates that if we are to be reactive to every potential threat to airline travel, itself a delivery mechanism that has already been used, the next step will be as extreme as it gets. 

Many contend that the system in place in airports is designed primarily to create an atmosphere of safety rather than assure actual safety, given that anyone bent toward terrorism would be inclined to find the next new way to secrete a weapon to defeat the existing security measures.  Others suggest that it’s all designed to keep Americans afraid, and thus retain control over their thinking and facilitate their willingness to allow the government to engage in ever more intrusive means of investigation. 

Either way, it’s the sacrifice of freedom on the alter of security.  As Ben Franklin informs, we then deserve neither.

The illusion was revealed before Congress during a hearing on the USA PATRIOT Act last week, under the questioning of Senator Russ Feingold.

Only three of the 763 “sneak-and-peek” requests in fiscal year 2008 involved terrorism cases, according to a July 2009 report from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Sixty-five percent were drug cases.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) quizzed Assistant Attorney General David Kris about the discrepancy at a hearing on the PATRIOT Act Wednesday. One might expect Kris to argue that there is a connection between drug trafficking and terrorism or that the administration is otherwise justified to use the authority by virtue of some other connection to terrorism.

He didn’t even try. “This authority here on the sneak-and-peek side, on the criminal side, is not meant for intelligence. It’s for criminal cases. So I guess it’s not surprising to me that it applies in drug cases,” Kris said.

Way back when we were fighting the war against terrorism, and the Department of Justice put together everything on its wishlist for a onetime shot at gaining investigative weapons that had been routinely rejected by Congress as improper, unduly intrusive and flagrantly unconstitutional, the answer to all questions was terrorism.  The mere utterance of the word made representatives, senators and citizens melt.  No one, except the Gentleman from Wisconsin, would be so unAmerican as to deny the need to safeguard the American people from terrorists.

But that was when we were naive.  That was when we retained an expectation of privacy, when we believed that Americans had a right to free movement, when we wore our shoes from the moment we put them on our feet until we were firmly planted in our very narrow airplane seat.  That was when we needed a darn good reason to give away our birthright.

No one argues the point anymore.  No one refuses to show identification in order to use the prepaid ticket to fly from one American city to another, as if we were under no duty to identify ourselves to any government agent having done nothing to justify their demand for such.  No one refuses to remove their shoes.

And the Department of Justice no longer needs to pretend that any of this relates to our safety from terrorists.  Don’t blame the Attorney General or Congress for fooling us or giving away our freedom.  They could never have done so without our willingness to obey.

Now bend over.  You’re holding up the line.

H/T Radley Balko