Americans have found their limit with the TSA, and it's pulling Post-It Notes out of their bags at security
They can take our privacy, but they'll never take our Post-Its. Since the creation of the Transportation Security Administration in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Americans have endured much in the name of security. We've been through the nude scanners, the aggressive pat-downs even for children and people with disabilities, the endemic incompetence at detecting actual security threats, and so much more.
But being asked to remove all our paper products from our bags at the checkpoint — an actual new rule the TSA tested in Kansas City, Missouri, this week — is a bridge too far.
After initially defending the policy, the TSA backtracked on Wednesday, announcing it shut down the extra paper screenings the day before. As you rejoice in this small victory for common sense, check out The Week's "Confessions of a former TSA officer" for the appalling inside scoop on all the stuff the TSA hasn't rescinded.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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