Almost from the beginning, a small group of activists have kept a vigilant eye on the agency. When TSA agents pilfered your luggage, they spoke up. When the blueshirts forced us through inadequately tested scanners, they said something. When agents treated us like prison inmates, they fired up their laptop computers and they wrote.
When the Minnesota Vikings faced off against the Green Bay Packers last weekend in Minneapolis, the big story wasn't that the Vikings defeated the Pack to secure a wildcard berth. It was, strangely, the TSA.
Something has to give. To start with, it's time to say no to these flagrant abuses of our taxpayer dollars and our rights.
With more than 50,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans for relatively routine police matters and federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions, the incidence of botched raids and related casualties is on the rise.
The TSA doesn't want us to see its documented arrogance and incompetence, doesn't want us to know that it's an out-of-control government agency.
2011 will long be remembered as the flip side of 2008, as it hosted a GOP pre-season primary every bit as tough as the famous Clinton/Obama duel, but much sillier.
All in all, it's been a mixed bag of a year, but on the civil liberties front, things were particularly grim.
