TSA Critics Ring in the Holidays with Their Own Christmas Music Video

December 21, 2011 at 3:23 PM | by Omri | Comments (0)

As we wind down the year in TSA and airport security, we can't help but notice that the agency has made very tiny steps in the direction of sanity. They've gone from generic terrorism alerts to targeted social media alerts. They've gone from defending the intrusive screening of 6-year-olds to not doing that any more. They've gone from delaying scanner safety studies and potentially covering up cancer risks to seeking public comment over the devices. And they've publicly launched investigations of their "few bad apple" agents, who seem to pop up everywhere from Charlotte to Honolulu.

So it's with a tiny tinge of regret that we post this video from the libertarians at Reason.tv, who hate airport security theater the way we hate inflatable pillows (we really hate inflatable pillows). One problem is that the TSA is really trying. It's just that it'd be nice if they'd try a little harder.

A second problem is this video has a heavy-handed political message, delivered with ever-so-slightly too much indignation to be genuinely funny. By way of comparison, see the Japanese comedy show interpretation of TSA searches, which is silly enough to get some laughs. If you're going to make fun of the systematic violation of American civil liberties, done in the context of largely useless security protocols, designed in a way that treats normal travelers as if they were criminal suspects...you really have to own it.

And yet somehow we've reached the point where having someone sing about indefinite TSA detention to the tune of Christmas tune isn't absurd enough to get over sounding preachy. That's probably something people should be talking about, no?

Jaunted

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