2. -- I would hate existing in a nation where people like Amy do not exist or where, worse, the thugs of The Power have succeeded in cowing them into obedient silence and cheerful submission.
3. -- Assuming Amy reported accurately in her personal journal, she was detained, harassed, mistreated, and arrested ("disorderly conduct") for the crime of reciting The Fourth Amendment as the TSA in Albuquerque prepared to backhand her groin.
Tam and Popehat (H/T to each) write cogent takes on the outrage. But one more angle, if you please:
By the time the following dialogue took place, airport cops had handcuffed the woman (before arresting her and without Mirandizing her) and taken her driving license and other possessions. Officer Friendly and his fellows were just going by the book.
Amy: "I wasn't under arrest. You had no right to take anything from me. What if you(r) book doesn't follow the Constitution, the highest law in the land?"
Cop: "It's not that big a deal.* It's for everyone's safety. We don't want to take the risk. You don't have to fly you know. You give up your rights when you fly."**
A quick review: This woman did not refuse to submit to a privates-probe by the on-duty federal groper. She did not propose to physically resist any part of intimate search by a stranger. All she did was recite the Constitutional basis for her opinion that -- while she might have to be felt up -- she damned sure didn't have to approve of it.
---
* -- If the cop really believed that, we're in even more trouble than we thought because he didn't come up with the Constitutional analysis on his own. He was regurgitating settled policy as handed down by the Inner Party. When O'Brien is authorized to distinguish between trivial rights and important ones, the Constitution becomes a quaint relic of the world before Oceania.
** -- So, as we walk along the street, we are citizens. But a mysterious occurrence takes over when we are aloft, making us, instead, subjects. Not by law, but by decree. See Inner Party, supra.
---
* -- If the cop really believed that, we're in even more trouble than we thought because he didn't come up with the Constitutional analysis on his own. He was regurgitating settled policy as handed down by the Inner Party. When O'Brien is authorized to distinguish between trivial rights and important ones, the Constitution becomes a quaint relic of the world before Oceania.
** -- So, as we walk along the street, we are citizens. But a mysterious occurrence takes over when we are aloft, making us, instead, subjects. Not by law, but by decree. See Inner Party, supra.
