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I'm a bit cynical, but I don't think that it's anything quite that sinister. The TSA is just another agency that gives budget dollars and a corresponding amoun
by crusso 14y ago
I'm a bit cynical, but I don't think that it's anything quite that sinister. The TSA is just another agency that gives budget dollars and a corresponding amount of power to the bureaucrats and government representatives who run it and a lot of contract dollars to the crony companies that supply it.
Because Americans are so terrified of "terrorism", they don't even have to prove efficacy of their methods in order to continue existing.
It's a whole lot of easy money for a bunch of pigs with their snouts in the trough.
- rhizome 14y agoAs the bankers have well-established over the past few years, money == authority.
- einhverfr 14y agoBut the key thing is there is a difference between de facto functions of an organization (DHS is, de facto, an organization which seeks to control the populace) and the intended functions of an organization (DHS is intended to keep us safe. It does this by seeking to control the populace....). The first is the domain of the structuralists in Anthropology. The second is the domain of the politicians.
- vacri 14y agoI was visiting friends near the Mexican border in Arizona and we passed by a compound with literally hundreds of parked border patrol vehicles. I was amazed and said "In order to staff these, they must have thousands of field agents", to which the reply was "they have nothing of the sort - that compound is simply there for the TV cameras, to show 'how serious' they are about border patrol. Very few of those vehicles ever get driven"
- pyre 14y agoNote: I've never seen anything of the sort near the US-Canada border, but Canadians illegally sneaking into the country isn't as big of an issue (or as large of a political hot-button) as Mexican illegal immigrants.