It’s completely apparent that the MSM was only a watchdog with Bush as President because he was someone they detested as President. The exact same policies from Obama are given a complete pass (i.e. extraordinary rendition, TSA, Afghanistan Surge, and more).

Clearly the MSM is all about authoritarian government, except when they don’t like you cause you aren’t their chosen President.

I certainly agree that the MSM was more of a watchdog when Bush was president. Jon Stewart one of the few people who call BS on Obama’s 180 on civil liberties…and he’s not even a real journalist!

While I understand your goal, I find that call for a boycott of flying in general to be a bit ridiculous. Anyone who would boycott flying either has no meaningful trips to fly too, or has far too much free time.

Living where I do (Southern California), it may make sense to drive to NorCal or to Vegas rather than fly, but most other destinations are simply too far away for me to waste time on other travel methods. I work a full-time job, and thus I can’t allocate 30 hours each way of driving to visit my family in Chicago.

Further, I happen to have a job that requires regular air travel. Like most business travelers, no other method gets me where I need to go as quickly or cheaply as flying.

For many people the choice between flying or not flying is a choice between traveling somewhere or not going at all. It’s not a reasonable choice to make. Further, it’s difficult to effect change through a boycott unless you have far more widespread buy-in than you’d be able to arrange.

Choosing to opt-out of security procedures is different. It’s a way to throw sand in the gears of the machine at relatively low cost to yourself. Rather than hurting the airlines (who, let’s face it, will probably get bailed out due like GM due to their union membership anyway), opt-out hurts the TSA by reducing morale and raising internal dissent. And instead of a non-purchase of airline travel (which is difficult to measure as a “why”), every percent of travelers who opt out of the scanners are easily counted and noticed by the TSA.

If you want to protest, a flying boycott is likely to be ineffective at changing the system, if it’s noticed at all. It just doesn’t directly hurt the party at fault. An opt-out towards “enhanced pat-down” will be noticed, and will create internal dissent at the TSA, and thus might actually make a difference.

I wonder if TSA employees are subject to the same rules when traveling off-duty. Are senators and representatives stripped or groped? Supreme Court justices? TSA Chief John Pistole? Michael Chertoff?

Perhaps if the rule-makers also had to live with the rules, things might be different.

Regardless, I’ll offer my standard response as well: The Fourth Amendment prohibits this type of government activity absent probable cause. Period.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Where’s the probable cause?

Balko, as usual, is smarter than me. Although I was coming to the same conclusion, he clearly got there a couple days before I did.

You might be interested in this post Radley Balko wrote recently. He argues that there is a media bias – not a left or right bias per se but a pro-government/pro-authoritarian bias. http://www.theagitator.com/2010/11/19/the-statist-media/