Theres no such thing as uniform security in life – flying should be no different

Yesterday’s Mises Daily on the TSA is a good read, especially if you have been following the rights the US government has given its employees to grope and sexually assault any man, woman and child wanting to board an aircraft in most major US airports (at this stage).

The argument by some advocates of such nuttiness is that there is a trade-off between freedom and security, that in order for us to be safe, the state must remove some of our freedoms, like wire-tapping (RICA in SA), or either full x-ray body scanning or patdowns at US airports.

However, this is nonsense, and as Robert Murphy points out:

“…it’s possible that the “efficient” number of terrorist incidents — for the rest of US history — is not zero. In fact, no matter what procedures are implemented, it’s always possible that wily terrorists will still manage to beat the system. In real life, we can never guarantee safety. This is why so many pundits’ discussions of airline travel miss the mark completely: they assume that there is some objective answer of “the right” amount of security, when this is a complex economic question.”

Excluding freedoms for now, there are real costs to the kind of airport security being implemented in the US and elsewhere in the world.

1. It requires capital and resources to construct these backscatter x-ray machines
2. It requires labour resources to staff and operate these machines
3. It takes time for people to cross through these security checkpoints
4. It has psychological implications on innocent people that are treated a priori as criminals

It pushes the cost of flying up for everybody, yet not all people will want or be able to afford a uniform level of security.  Should the South African government write legislation that allows people to only buy a car with minimum security features of seven airbags, traction control, and five seatbelts?  It can, but it will immediately empoverish a large group of people as the price of entry level cars are pushed higher overnight.

What level of airline security would be optimum?  As Murphy points out, the decision is best left to the free market where millions of individuals will weigh the costs and benefits of various levels of security, all making the choices that best suits their needs.

“Only in a truly free market — where different airlines are free to try different approaches to safety — could we approach a sensible solution to these difficult questions. Passengers who don’t mind invasive scanning or sensitive inspections could patronize airlines offering these (cheap) techniques — assuming they were really necessary to achieve adequate safety. On the other hand, passengers who objected to these techniques could pay higher ticket prices in order to fly on airlines that hired teams of bomb-sniffing dogs, or set up very secure prescreening procedures (perhaps with retinal IDing in order to board a flight), or implemented some as-yet-undreamt-of method to keep their flights safe, without resorting to methods that their customers found humiliating.”

In the free market there is no trade off between security and freedom, as individuals are free to choose their desired level of security.

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For some colour of the lunacy of these policies see these two short video clips.  Land of the free? Ja, right!
(Warning: these clips may seriously anger libertarians and lovers of freedom)