>>Oh. For a minute there I thought you had found a way to keep your freedom as an American citizen and avoid all the gestapo tactics.<<
A few seconds going through a metal scanner is gestapo tactics?
Got hyperbole?
In the meantime, all the “I AM CITIZEN AND I KNOW MY RIGHTS!” folk are stuck in Deluth for the summer (and the winter).
Who is free here?
Sorry. You just made it seem like you moved through it all like it was butter and never gave up an ounce of freedom. None of what we have today existed when I was a child. Those freedoms are gone now, never to be experienced by my children. This, and what is sure more to come, is what they will know. The land of the free and the home of the brave is a fairy tale and a joke now. Most Americans can’t even do fireworks in their front yards on Independence Day anymore. “It” does not make me feel patriotic at all. Freedom is not free, and it is certainly NOT synonomous with “safety”. Safety has never conquered anything. Those “few seconds” that you speak of, that we all acquiese to, last an eternity. I’d rather be a free American allowed to travel freely within my own country and have a government with the balls to ensure that it is so. My countrymen did not bring down the twin towers - so profile the living crap out of anyone who might have ever had anything whatsoever to do with it, then, and now. I don’t care who it offends - it’s worth those precious “few seconds” to me. Do you think Bush, et. al., gives up a “few seconds”? Who lost freedom at the hand of modern politics? You, me, and every other American.
Nobody. You aren't free to travel without unnecessary molestation, and they aren't free to travel without the same. You may choose to travel, but that doesn't make you free. People who established these laws can at any time change them, to make them unacceptable even to you.
As an example, AQ is very likely to be already fully capable of carrying out a terrorist act with surgically implanted bombs. Existing equipment and methods will not detect those. Imagine that such a plot is carried out and executed, and the method is discovered. What will happen next? Only one thing can happen next - mandatory full-body X-ray, using full power of a medical X-ray machine. You are not advised to do this often. So what will you do? Will you subject yourself to a certain cancer, or you will finally refuse to fly?
The freedom was lost bit by bit, and the latest installment simply cut it down further. Since Godwin's law was already violated on this thread, I can say that German citizens were also perfectly free to walk streets of their towns - as long as they had their papers with them at all times and had a good story where they are going and why. They weren't free, of course, but neither are US travelers. At this point only driving is free because there is no force in this land [outside of border areas] that can stop you for no reason and ask for your papers. Every other mode of transportation needs a nod from authorities, even if it is just a train ticket clerk. Walking, of course, is completely out of question - try walking along an interstate; you'll be picked up within an hour.
The general trend is clear, and it is not favorable. As the USA continues to surrender its industrial and other power to other nations, the government clearly understands that this can't end well. The debt alone is a huge problem. So they expect troubles, and they are preparing the machinery to keep the population under control. Reduction of mobility of the population is method #1; increasing dependency of the population on the government is method #2; disarming the population is method #3. I guess they are doing all of that.
Quite the patriot you are.