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Comment by laureny | Hacker News Reader

> I give up. The terrorists have won.

Or maybe you could recognize that flying is a privilege, not a right, and that you have other options if you want to make a stand in your beliefs, such as picking a different airline, going to your destination by some other means or, you know, not traveling.

These entitled smug conspiracy theorists who act like prima donnas irritate me.

"The terrorists have won" because you had to go through a machine? I think it's time for the OP to step back, take a hard look at their life and wonder if they have their priorities straight. There are much more interesting and worthy things to worry about.

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Comments like yours make my blood boil.

> flying is a privilege, not a right

Is taking a train a privilege, not a right? Driving? A bus? Would you be okay with TSA-like screening procedures before any such sort of transportation? What makes flying so special? People have bombed trains, cars, busses, etc before too.

> "The terrorists have won" because you had to go through a machine? I think it's time for the OP to step back, take a hard look at their life and wonder if they have their priorities straight.

Maybe because our government has taught the citizenry that it's okay to be pre-emptively searched on planes, or stopped and frisked (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_stop-and-frisk_pr...), or other such things. Meanwhile, the rent-a-cops operating these machines are basically given free reign to do whatever power tripping they want, because one wrong move can have you finding yourself detained for a while.

> Is taking a train a privilege, not a right? Driving? A bus?

Yes to all. If you're not quite sure how to determine if something is a privilege, just see if it's mentioned in the Constitution. For example, the "pursuit of happiness" is a US right. Driving a car is not (you need to get a license and that license can be revoked).

Just because you grew up with such conveniences doesn't make them a privilege, although they have the effect of giving a sense of entitlement to people who've lost sight of what's important.

See especially the 9th amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Driving actually is a privilege. Hence the reason it can be taken away from you due to misconduct. People in the US agree with this practice.

Every driver in the US has to pass a driving test in order to be legally allowed on the road. Is air travel somehow different? Maybe all you folks should be boiling your blood over the fact that you have to prove to the government you're capable of driving!

You're right, driving was a bad example. That being said, it's silly to continue adding modes of transport to things that are "privileges, not rights" until people really have no real and significant freedom of movement. Perhaps my example should have been "walking around outside your house".

That's a slippery slope fallacy, let's stay away from these, please.

Here is the deal: flying brings you conveniences and comes with inconveniences. It's entirely up to you which one outweighs the other, but whatever the choice you make, you can't claim that a right is being taken away from you if you are turned away from a flight.

If you really think you have a case, call the ACLU and see them laugh at you.

Okay, but trains are legitimate ground, because the TSA has previously set up in the New York subway (http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/28/travel/tsa-vipr-passenger-trai...). To some extent, stop-and-frisk (as I linked to above) means that there are governments in the country who feel that they can search you while you're walking around, so my bringing them up isn't that silly.

Again I ask, what modes of transport are privileges and how many of them can we take away (not because you are incompetent at controlling them, but because you refused to subject yourself to a search) without completely destroying freedom of movement?

"Picking a different airline" isn't really a solution. The screening happens regardless of which airline you are on.

I think it should be a solution -- given both 1) cockpit doors are now secured, and 2) passengers won't let hijackers take over a flight, the risk of any in-flight incidents is borne by the passengers, and if an airline wants to compete on less invasive scanning, they should be able to do that.

> flying is a privilege, not a right

The government began to make claims about traveling being a "privilege" in the 20th century. The Soviet government used to claim the same thing, so perhaps the US government took a lesson from them.

Traveling is a right, regardless of what power any government exerts to claim otherwise.

> Traveling is a right, regardless of what power any government exerts to claim otherwise.

A right in the US is what's defined in the Constitution. Flying is not one.

> A right in the US is what's defined in the Constitution.

Can you back up this specious claim with hard evidence?

The burden of proof is on the person who's making the claim: if flying is a right, then surely being turned down from flying should be reason enough to call the ACLU and sue the government for discriminating against you, right?

> The burden of proof is on the person who's making the claim

Exactly. Prove your claim.

Here's a pretty important and clear amendment:

> The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The Constitution defines what the government can do, not what the people can do.

And the one before it: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

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