“If you don’t like the TSA, don’t fly.”

“Flying is a privilege, not a right. If you don’t like it, don’t fly.” Sound familiar?

I always offer people who use that argument a hundred dollars if they can kindly point me to the rail or bus schedule that will let me plan my overland trip to Berlin or Mumbai.

Obviously, that hundred-dollar bill is still crisp and still mine.

But maybe a reference to this story (and others like it) is the better response.

[The] Transportation Security Administration conducted what it calls  a random “Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response Operation” [VIPR] on Thursday morning at the West Palm Beach Tri-Rail station. … TSA has partnered with local law enforcement to conduct thousands of VIPR missions from coast to coast across the U.S.

For civil-liberties sticklers like me, not all is lost. Travelers who don’t want  to subject themselves and their families to radiation machines and/or assorted crotch gropings by rubber-gloved government agents may still walk, possibly even bike. If I’m not mistaken, that’s still a right, not a privilege. Enjoy.