Note: the TSA did, in fact, inspect one of our packages on the say home from Africa, said package containing a 100 lb. (or so) stone sculpture. We were sort of expecting that (since X-rays don't do well with stone) and, in fact, I was very pleased by how well they did it and still kept that packaging around the sculpture intact enough to protect it for the last leg of the journey.
But the underlying and ever-expanding rationale of the TSA, et al., that everything they do is around public safety and therefore there are no constitutional restrictions that apply to them because ANYONE COULD BE A TERRORIST, AND ANYTHING COULD BE A TERROR WEAPON, should be of concern to everyone.
Reshared post from +Les Jenkins
One more reason for me to never fly again. Though I've never used valet parking, it's only a matter of time before they apply it to any car parked at the airport.
In 1972 I mailed some books from Poland back to the U.S. I was fascinated by the Polish postal requirements — said books were wrapped in kraft paper, then sealed with twine and a tamper-proof seal. Then you had to cut little window flaps at various places so postal inspecters could peek at the contents of the package.
I’ve been saying for a couple of decades that we didn’t so much defeat the USSR as replace them (actually things really got going much earlier, with Nixon’s Drug War). Be prepared for more instances of having to “show your papers”. We already have random searches and security checkpoints a hundred miles from the nearest border — it won’t surprise me a bit when they start requiring the equivalent of internal passports for interstate travel.