YAL’s National Activism Project for this month, “Government Gone Wild: Spring Break with the TSA,” is underway, and I have some additional resources for chapters that haven’t had their event yet, including: infographics, new relevant news stories, and information with supporting evidence to help inform students about their rights and how they’re being violated — because if we don’t know and exercise our rights, we encourage government to go even wilder.
First, there are two infographics about the TSA that can be easily&cheaply made into a large display by using Posterazor (the same free software recommended in the ‘Build Your 5 Rights Display’ guide) to simply print out several 8×11 sheets of paper one at a time, cut off the overlapping parts of the paper, and assembling them together with glue or tape:
Left infographic provided by: OnlineCriminalJusticeDegree.com.
Here are some examples of the many ways government has gone wild, with links to supporting evidence: No knock raids. Warrantless searches and seizures. Murder of non-violent civilians and pets (!). Revenue collection. Domestic drone robots. Police brutality. Nearly 25% of all prisoners in the world are in American jails. All of this is dangerous to our rights and our freedom, which is why we are helping YAL chapters to distribute information to help students know their rights, and to host a film screening of “10 Rules for Dealing with Police.”
The TSA‘s assaults on our liberty, dignity, and Constitution have also gotten worse and worse since its creation following the 9/11 attacks.
Government failed to keep us safe by preventing 9/11, and as usual, its failure was used as an excuse for the government to take more money and power. The TSA:
- is ineffective at keeping us safe. TSA screeners have failed to find 60+% of fake explosives during checkpoint security tests, and failed to keep track of uniforms and passes that lead to restricted areas of airports. Even the TSA’s creator has said it should be shut down!
- violates the Constitution — see: the Bill of Rights (especially the 4th amendment), and/or Article 1 Section 8, which lists the only powers the federal government is supposed to possess.
- abuses our basic human rights, liberties, and dignity — feeling up children and the elderly–seeing us naked with their “full body” scanners (which also bombard us with possibly unsafe amounts of radiation)
(These are just some of the reasons why YAL recently hosted a civil liberties college tour about the war on terrorism, civil liberties, and the Constitution — available for viewing here.)
The TSA doing this at airports is bad enough, but the TSA recently started doing inspections on our highways! All the more reason to participate in YAL’s ‘Government Gone Wild’ event and to speak out to your community and your public servants about abolishing the TSA and restoring the Bill of Rights!
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