I travel the St. Louis-Boston air route on an almost weekly basis. At times Boston Transportation Security Administration (TSA) stops me. Every time I am being stopped, I end up exhausted, confused and even a bit shaky.
As I get prepared to cross the TSA security checkpoint the rush starts. I tend to feel somehow naked. A sensation I believe might be shared with those who actually did strip naked to show TSA screeners that they were not carrying a bomb, as John Brennan did in 2012. Once all things have gone through a scanner, I am requested to step into the scanner myself. They order me to bring my arms up with my legs spread apart, stepping on the yellow shoe figures that are on the floor. I wait to be Okayed, before getting my okayed things …show more content…
Its goal is to “maintain the security of the traveling public" (TSA, 2013). This is what Foucault would call the causalization of evidence. Based on certain knowledge -the evidence of 9/11-, American citizens consented to certain acts, such as the screening practices of "more than 1.8 million passengers each day at more than 450 airports nationwide" (TSA, 2013). Americans were told this was for their own safety and, therefore, they supported an increase of TSA power of surveillance . Almost without becoming aware that this would happen, some fourteen years back Americans consented to the inaugural moment of the practice of moral technologies by allowing an observer normalizing hierarchy. A surveillance entity that qualifies, classifies and that punishes. Provides visibility with respect to individuals, through which it differentiates and judges (Foucault, 1979). This is surprisingly so in airport security agents because, even when Homeland Security regulates these agents, they have no real enforcing authority. Furthermore, private companies such as Covenant Aviation Security at the San Francisco International Airport perform the security of some airports. Many individuals have been arrested for carrying peanut butter (Watson, 2013), reversal padding a TSA …show more content…
Fifty years later, 9/11 brought exaltation of patriotism and a surprising level of silence of opposing views. It seems the moral void at the time kept most people quiet. “Terror becomes total when it becomes independent of all opposition. It rules supreme when nobody any longer stands in its way” (Arendt, 1953, p. ). The fascist state of mind is a state in which the parliamentary functions of our self cease to work under the pressure of some particularly intense drive (such as greed), or force (such as envy), or anxiety (such as fear of mutilation) (Bollas,1995, p. 197). A “conflict takes place between the old ego of peacetime and the new war-ego of the soldier and it becomes acute as soon as the peace-ego is faced with the danger of being killed” (Freud, 1921, p.
As I get prepared to cross the TSA security checkpoint the rush starts. I tend to feel somehow naked. A sensation I believe might be shared with those who actually did strip naked to show TSA screeners that they were not carrying a bomb, as John Brennan did in 2012. Once all things have gone through a scanner, I am requested to step into the scanner myself. They order me to bring my arms up with my legs spread apart, stepping on the yellow shoe figures that are on the floor. I wait to be Okayed, before getting my okayed things …show more content…
Its goal is to “maintain the security of the traveling public" (TSA, 2013). This is what Foucault would call the causalization of evidence. Based on certain knowledge -the evidence of 9/11-, American citizens consented to certain acts, such as the screening practices of "more than 1.8 million passengers each day at more than 450 airports nationwide" (TSA, 2013). Americans were told this was for their own safety and, therefore, they supported an increase of TSA power of surveillance . Almost without becoming aware that this would happen, some fourteen years back Americans consented to the inaugural moment of the practice of moral technologies by allowing an observer normalizing hierarchy. A surveillance entity that qualifies, classifies and that punishes. Provides visibility with respect to individuals, through which it differentiates and judges (Foucault, 1979). This is surprisingly so in airport security agents because, even when Homeland Security regulates these agents, they have no real enforcing authority. Furthermore, private companies such as Covenant Aviation Security at the San Francisco International Airport perform the security of some airports. Many individuals have been arrested for carrying peanut butter (Watson, 2013), reversal padding a TSA …show more content…
Fifty years later, 9/11 brought exaltation of patriotism and a surprising level of silence of opposing views. It seems the moral void at the time kept most people quiet. “Terror becomes total when it becomes independent of all opposition. It rules supreme when nobody any longer stands in its way” (Arendt, 1953, p. ). The fascist state of mind is a state in which the parliamentary functions of our self cease to work under the pressure of some particularly intense drive (such as greed), or force (such as envy), or anxiety (such as fear of mutilation) (Bollas,1995, p. 197). A “conflict takes place between the old ego of peacetime and the new war-ego of the soldier and it becomes acute as soon as the peace-ego is faced with the danger of being killed” (Freud, 1921, p.