There have certainly been a widespread public outcry against the use of full body scans or enhanced patdowns (feel ups?) by the TSA to protect us from the terrorist threat of old white women in wheel chairs and infants in diapers.  Has any initiative under the purported need of protecting the public met with such public disapproval?

No matter.  Stewart Baker posts at  Volokh Conspiracy that the government, in its largesse, has heard our cries and, because it’s good and benevolent, is trying to soothe our anguish.

I testified yesterday at a government oversight hearing on TSA.  It was a through-the-looking-glass experience for anyone whose memory extends back to, well, 2007.  That’s because the Republican members mostly lined up to bash whole body imagers and talk about privacy while the Democrats mostly spoke about the importance of air passenger security.  Government Oversight chairman Issa and subcommittee chairman Chaffetz were particularly vocal in scorning TSA’s current approach. This is reminiscent of the “big switch” on privacy in the late Clinton years, when Republicans began attacking the Clinton administration on civil liberties grounds.

When your party doesn’t control the Executive, the playbook says you should attack the administration on almost any basis.  So the switch isn’t a complete surprise.  But attacks like this have consequences, and the most obvious consequence of a successful campaign against TSA will be more reliance on metal detectors, which have no hope of catching any of the bombs al Qaeda has used since 9/11.

Baker’s Dodgson-esque experience likely won’t surprise anyone with an iota of cynicism any more than it did him.  It’s not that politicians lack principles, but that their guiding principle is the side opposite of their adversary, whatever that may be.  But where he goes from there is curious.

Still, there are things TSA could do to improve security and passenger dignity, and they got some attention yesterday.  TSA should spend more time looking for terrorists, and less looking for weapons. 

Why, that sounds remarkably like profiling.

We could see a TSA “known traveler” program in which passengers can volunteer more information in exchange for streamlined screening . . .

Why, that sounds remarkably like trading off the inconvenience of worthless searches for giving up one’s personal information to the government and becoming a trusted traveler.  Here’s the story he told the congressional committee:

Imagine you are among the majority who don’t see what the fuss over travel data is about.  You authorize TSA to access data about you – travel data,say, and perhaps criminal or other records.  When you show up for your flight, your boarding pass has already been coded to show that you’re entitled to use the trusted traveler lane.  Good thing, too, because that line is much shorter.  The TSA official checks your ID and boarding pass as usual, but he waves you into a fast lane, where the most aggravating and time-consuming security procedures have been eliminated – the liquids and laptop inspections, perhaps the shoe inspection too. 

No wonder the trusted traveler line is shorter; it is moving twice as fast.  Every once in a while, though, scanning the boarding pass sets off a beep, and the officer waves you into a standard line for the usual drill.  This is a random event, programmed into the system in advance based on all the data that TSA has.  The line is still a lot faster, because only a few of the trusted travelers end up in the standard inspection, but that random event makes it difficult for terrorists to game the trusted traveler program. The upshot would be faster inspections, less hassle, and more security.  More privacy too, for those who think that giving up a little information is a fair trade for fewer scans and patdowns.

After all, most people would be happy to tell the government anything it wants to know to be on the fast line.  Whatever could there be to hide?  We’re all good, law-abiding citizens.  Hardly terrorists.  We have no secrets, nothing to hide from our own government.  And we really hate the enhanced pat downs.  And we might even avoid having to take off our shoes and walk around barefoot on that dirty, disgusting airport floor.

From the outset of the TSA’s initiation of full body screenings and enhanced pat downs, pretty much everyone under the sun with any knowledge of security said it was an empty, worthless gesture despite the annoyance, intrusiveness, offensiveness felt by the public subject to it.  Should the government, in its benevolence and concern for our feelings, give it up in exchange for, say, the authority to profile combined with gathering as much of our personal information as it wants,

If this was the plan from the outset, it’s worthy of applause as being one of the most ingenious and well-conceived ever employed by the government.  I wouldn’t have thought the government capable of coming up with, and properly executing, such an involved scheme to circumvent the Constitution and get us to not only go along, but to beg them to make it happen.

Baker is quite right, that much of this country would adore the opportunity to beat the lines, the searches, the ugliness, at our airport gates.  Much of this country has no concern for their privacy, and would never see an issue with surrendering what little personal privacy remains for the transitory benefit of being in the fast lane.  And those who bristled at the idea would be begging to land on the potential bad guy watch list.  After all, refusal to play along, to give it up to the government, obviously suggests you have something to hide.

This is really a brilliantly nefarious plan, if plan it is at all.  Personally, I think they just lucked into it as the government could never produce such a coordinated, long term scheme to get the public to willingly surrender itself.  They just see the opening now and can’t help from exploiting it.

After all, wouldn’t any red-blooded American do anything to get through the airport faster?  Anything?