One of the major thinkers on US foreign policy whose pre-9/11 book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire made the concept of ‘blowback’ a key element in understanding why the US is in such a predicament, died on Saturday.

Steve Clemons reflects on his legacy. He says that Johnson started out as an establishment figure and strong supporter of the Vietnam war but later became on of the biggest and most influential critics of the drive towards creating and sustaining the American empire. As Clemons says, “Many of Johnson’s followers and Chal himself think that American democracy is lost, that the republic has been destroyed by an embrace of empire and that the American public is unaware and unconscious of the fix.”

Via Juan Cole, I came across this rap video inspired by John Tyner’s memorable phrase “Don’t touch my junk!”

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Governments use the threats of defending against outside forces (such as terrorists) to pass laws and regulations that are oppressive and the public willingly goes along with them thinking that this will never affect them. But the real goal of governments is to have those laws available to use against its own citizens if they need to. A perfect example of this is the law permitting the government to detain indefinitely without trial any person they merely suspect, without evidence, to be a terrorist. This is an extraordinary power to give the government but people did so because they thought it would only be used against ‘the other’, such as foreigners.

But in the wake of the protests against the TSA’s porno scanners and groping methods, the TSA now says that anyone refusing to submit to either of these two intrusive procedures can be detained indefinitely and questioned until the government decides to release them.

The TSA procedures are not governed by law but are internal polices of the Department of Homeland Security, which has become like the infamous ‘secret police’ in authoritarian countries, given almost unlimited powers to harass its own citizens in the name of national security.

The ACLU has provided information on your rights and what you can do under the law. But it is limited. Only widespread protests and outrage can roll back the national security state.

Of all the absurd things associated with the TSA’s porno scans and groping security measures, the most absurd is that pilots are subjected to the same things. If they wanted to kill everyone on board, why would they even need a bomb or other weapon to hijack a plane? After all, the fact that are given control of the plane, are armed, and are inside the locked cockpit where no one can get at them suggests that they can do whatever damage they want without having to bring anything in from outside.

As a result of the recent outcry, it appears that even the TSA has realized that this is silly and pilots will no longer be subjected to such intrusive screening.

The US establishment media such as the New York Times becomes very coy about using the word torture to describe acts by its own government (such as waterboarding) that it did not hesitate to use when those same acts were used by other governments, preferring convoluted locutions such as ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’.

Simon Owens at TNW Media points to an enterprising person who has decided to help the NYT out of the difficulty of finding new euphemisms by creating a ‘New York Times Torture Euphemism Generator‘.

Now anyone can be as solicitous to the sensitivities of the US government as the New York Times!

John Tyner, the person who opposed having the TSA either porno scan him or grope him has been fielding questions from people who say things like “So if next time a terrorist successfully hides “devices” to kill Americans on a plane, because you seem to think TSA or airport security is over-excessive…What will you say?”

The questioner usually thinks this is a killer argument and that anyone who speaks up for freedom from this kind of government abuse will backpedal when confronted with the question: what if we do as you say and a terrorist exploits this very feature to kill people?

My answer would be: That’s tough. People die tragic deaths all the time. We have to learn to live with this risk just the way we live with the many and much greater risks that we face every day. We cannot avoid all risks to people. It is never a question of zero risk versus maximum risk. Risk lies on a continuum and we have to decide on the level of risk that is acceptable, and not focus on the kind of risk. Why is it worse to die in an airplane crash caused by a terrorist act than an airplane crash caused by pilot fatigue or engine failure? Why is it worse to be killed by a bomb than it is to die in a car crash or be hit by lightning or be killed by a deranged killer on a murder spree?

If we decide, against all reason, that airplane terrorists have to be foiled whatever the cost, then we are doomed because we are at the mercy of whatever crazy scheme they come up with next. For example, the TSA’s porno scanners cannot detect devices that are stored inside body cavities. Suppose yet another stupid suicide terrorist is discovered with a bomb secreted inside his rectum. Does that mean that we should submit to body cavity searches? Why not?

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) speaks out against the absurdity and introduces legislation that would make the TSA subject to the same laws as everybody else.

The goal of terrorists is not to kill people. Their goal is to terrorize people and killing people is just one means to that end. If they can terrorize without even killing, so much the better. And here they seem to have succeeded. By deploying incompetent people to attempt half-baked plans to blow up planes (the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, etc.), they have managed to get this country to spend vast amounts of money to harass perfectly ordinary law-abiding people.

Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg thinks that all these harassing security precautions are pure theater to give the public an impression that the government is doing something and being careful when the methods are totally ineffective. He gives a shocking account of all the deliberately suspicious acts he has committed and all the forbidden things he has managed to get through airport security (many of which were deliberately chosen to arouse suspicion) without setting off alarm bells. He quotes security analyst Bruce Schneier as saying that any half-way intelligent terrorist plot can foil these security devices. “The whole system is designed to catch stupid terrorists…. Counterterrorism in the airport is a show designed to make people feel better. Only two things have made flying safer: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers.”

It turns out that former Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, who has been going around promoting the porno scanners as a so-called expert on this topic by virtue of his former post in government, is the head of a consulting company has as one of its clients the company that makes the porno scanners.

It looks like trouble is brewing over the so-called ‘porno scanners’, the new full-body scanning devices at airports that provide screeners with naked images of people. John Tyner, a resident of Oceanside, California near San Diego, refused to go through the machine or submit to the groping alternative. He was not only not allowed to get on the plane, he is now being investigated by the TSA because you are apparently not allowed to leave the airport if you refuse to be scanned, although he was initially escorted out. He could face a $10,000 fine. He has written about the encounter and posted the video on his blog and has now become something of a folk-hero.

November 24 has been declared National Opt Out day when travelers are being urged to refuse to undergo the full-body scans. Pilot associations are urging opposition, civil liberties groups are taking legal action, and petitions against them are being circulated. There are suspicions that the groping pat downs that are the alternative to those not wanting to submit to the full-body scanners are being used as a way to coerce people to use the porno scanners as the less humiliating option.

The promise that the images will be kept confidential have been shown to be false when the website Gizmodo released 100 images that they had been able to obtain. These images are of lower quality resolution than the new x-ray backscatter machines being used at airports. There are also concerns about the health effects of the radiation. A new site called Fly With Dignity has been started to collect horror stories about the TSA’s actions.

Ivan Eland describes another security measure that even I was not aware of.

Another bizarre security addition that I have recently experienced is the plastic cage. Last week I was flying and was randomly selected for the dreaded “secondary screening” (it sounds ancillary but is just annoying). The security woman put me in the cage (fortunately it had air holes), locked it, and told me that I wasn’t getting out until she swabbed my hands (presumably for potential chemical residues from bomb making).

Art Carden at Forbes calls for the abolition of the TSA. Carden also makes a point that has been known for a long time but which only now is being widely voiced, that the threat from dying in an airplane terrorist attack is far less than the threat of dying on the drive to and from the airport, so why are we so freaked out about airport security? Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, in this interview with Stephen Colbert, gets really worked up over the porno scanners.

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The American people have for a long time ignored blatant abuses by their government of the constitution and basic human and civil rights. They have condoned wars started on false pretences, torture, denial of habeas corpus, indefinite detention without trial or access to lawyers and family, kangaroo courts rigged to produce guilty verdicts, killing of civilians in other countries by predatory drones, murder of American citizens merely on the president’s say so, and so on. Truly horrendous crimes have been greeted with a shrug that ‘they’ probably deserve it and that these actions make us safer.

Could it be that intrusive airport security, of all things, is the issue that awakens people from their stupor and make them finally realize that the national security state is out of control, and that this groping and porno scanning is merely a symptom of a government drunk with coercive power that thinks they can do anything to anyone with impunity? Will people from all over the political spectrum seize this opportunity to join with others and pull on this thread and begin the unraveling of the national security state? Or is it that they are upset because in this case the professional classes are being directly imposed upon and they will become meek and docile again if this particular intrusion is removed and the government goes back to abusing the powerless?

This protest may also fizzle out with the usual sniping based on party labels. Republicans seemed to be just fine with the Bush-Cheney regime violating their rights but now that Obama is in the White House they are starting to grumble. Will the Democrats who protested loudly against Bush-Cheney now meekly support the Obama regime on this issue?

I hold out a slim hope that this is the beginning of a new valuing of personal liberty and privacy and the rule of law.

Another Glenn Greenwald must-read post about how the government is trying to intimidate and harass people who have supported WikiLeaks or Bradley Manning.

We are slowly but surely sliding towards an authoritarian national security state where people exercising their freedoms in ways that the government does not like will be labeled ‘enemies of the state’ and subject to all manner of harsh treatment.