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Comment by sage_joch | Hacker News Reader

There exists no recourse any person alive can do to stand up against the TSA.

Civil disobedience is always an option. The protester at Tiananmen Square changed the world because he realized that there was recourse in doing the right thing.

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Low-barrier civil disobedience people can take with the TSA: Opt-out/in to everything that will make the process take longer. Gum up the works.

Civil disobedience against the "people at the bottom of the org chart" is the height of stupidity and futility. And your childish, short term approach will do absolutely nothing other than antagonise your fellow flyers (many of whom will be in a rush).

Does this attitude only apply in airports, or do you apply the same logic to buses too?

Buuuuuuurn.

And your better suggestion would be?

Also, I think you have pretty low standards for the height of stupidity, and also for being antagonized by minor inconveniences. When I opt out, they just have me stand aside until a screener is free.

There is the off chance that while they are waiting longer and watching their fellow travelers patted down more and more they will realize what a ridiculous show of security theater TSA checkpoints are. There are significantly easier ways to get contraband on board planes then the security checkpoints, and most of them involve weak ground crew security and checks.

The protestor at Tiananmen Square changed nothing. Twenty-five years after the incident, most chinese have no idea it ever occured; If they've heard about it at all, they heard about a minor student riot. The rest of the world has seen that totalitarian tactics do work, and that false promises and imagined enemies are the best ways to control a population.

I disagree. Tiananmen Square is a source of shame for the Chinese ruling party, and many of the people there are indeed aware of it -- moreso every day with the coming of the Internet.

and that may be the biggest success of the action: that the leaders have to live with a little voice inside them, telling them that they did wrong there. Depending on the person it could either make them into a total tyrant or push them more toward a democractic view.

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