Freedom peeled away

Once again, in the name of “security,” our rights and freedoms are being stripped away, literally. The TSA now gives travelers, from toddlers to grandmas, two options: get X-rayed or virtually strip-searched and groped by government employees.

A recent (Nov. 18) MSNBC article quotes a Utah woman who was chosen for “an extended pat down” at the Phoenix airport and was “inspected … in view of other passengers … an agent patted up her legs from her ankles and cupped her genitals. Then the agent pulled her elastic skirt band away from her waist and looked down her skirt.”

Strangely, Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano considers these inspections as “discreet.” This is an outrage! We warn our children about improper touching, yet a TSA worker can do so and it’s OK? Where will this end, a full cavity search to visit Granny?

It’s one more grain of sand falling from our eroding society. We are afraid of our own shadows nowadays, all for “our own protection.” Remember, Japanese-American citizens were sent to internment camps, being told it was “for their own protection,” as were the Jews before being sent to walled ghettos and their deaths. Freedom is fragile and easily stripped away.

Mark J. Elliott

Post Falls