Paul Craig Roberts on the “terrorist watch list”
July 20, 2008 – 4:13 pm by JohnPaul Craig Roberts violates Godwin’s Rule but still manages to make excellent points in a good column about the ludicrous terrorist watch list and no-fly list maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. That’s real talent. Money quote:
The ACLU says that “putting a million names on a watch list is a guarantee that the list will do more harm than good by interfering with the travel of innocent people and wasting huge amounts of our limited security resources on bureaucratic wheel-spinning.”
It is worse than that. What the “watch list” or “no-fly list” is doing is training Americans to submit to warrantless searches, to abandon their constitutional rights, and to submit to humiliation by thugs and bullies. A Gestapo is being trained to have no qualms about searching and intimidating fellow citizens, using any excuse to delay or arrest them. Americans are being taught to use arbitrary power and to submit to arbitrary power. In the false name of “safety from terrorists,” Americans are being made the least safe people on earth.