Saturday, February 23, 2008

Amtrak to begin random screening

Schneier calls it right: security theater. No defined threat, only to "make people feel safer". The right to travel really has been destroyed in this country. An excuse that many people had for airport security was if you didn't like it, you could take a train. Well, can you now?

I can't find the released video that Amtrak put out of officers searching a train, but it really shook me to the core--it didn't feel safe to me. It felt like a police state, with the searchers fingering the triggers on their automatic weapons as they searched a peaceful train with no actual threat.

The reality is Amtrak may have actually been a viable replacement for short-haul airplane flights, at least if high-speed rail had been put in more places in the country, but with intrusive searches and stupid policies, now the airlines and Congressmen must be happy to continue their attempt to destroy the rail infrastructure in America.

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