I’m wondering whether the Transportation Security Administration is a valuable part of government.
Not because the bureaucracy does a good job, but instead because it does so many foolish things that it helps convince more people to become libertarians.
Consider these horror stories.
o Confiscating a plastic hammer from a mentally retarded man.
o Detaining a woman for carrying breast milk.
o Hassling a woman for the unexplained red flag of having sequentially numbered checks.
o Demanding that a handicapped 4-year old boy walk through a metal detector without his leg braces.
o Putting an 8-year old cub scout on the no-fly list.
oStopping a teenager from flying because her purse had an image of a gun.
Let’s add a few more examples to this list.
Here’s a story from Reason about the Keystone Cops of the TSA, as they deal with the horrific threat of a belt buckle shaped like…(gasp)…a ray gun.
...If a raygun belt buckle is scary to the TSA, you won’t be surprised to learn that kitty cat key chains also are very frightening. Even when in the hands of famous people.
...Let’s put the private sector in charge, as Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz have argued. And as Steve Chapman explains, there were lots of benefits to the pre-TSA system.
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