By this logic you've just eliminated the point of all security screenings of anyone, anywhere, ever.
Yet most people would agree that it would be foolish not to take some precautions when loading 300 people on a cigar-tube cylinder in the sky.
It's worth noting that in the 1970s people weren't trying to commit mass casualty attacks with planes via the passengers nearly as often. Today, no one expects a conventional hijacking either.
By your logic, the extent to which we protect American ideals and freedoms is a function of what other actors do. Worse, it is the most egregiously abhorrent actors who would drive our direction most.
The problem with this thinking is that it has brought us exactly to where we are today. It is a very slippery slope that can literally destroy the fabric of this country. There is no end to what can be justified under the pretext of security and we have already given up too many freedoms in the name of "security". I will omit the famous Ben Franklin quote regarding freedom and security, but it certainly comes to mind.
Those who would argue that it is necessary to curtail freedoms and rights in exchange for protection, must acknowledge that what they presume to protect would be a wholly different America, and they must be well with this new America. To make that argument would be honest and a simple matter of opinion, but to suggest that we can continue on this course without fundamentally altering this nation is nothing more than illusion.
Your freedoms are hardly being overtly invaded by being security screened when you fly. Whether the security screening is effective or a distraction is a different question (or dangerous, in the case of the X-Ray backscatter).
I'm curious what freedoms you think you've given up in the name of security, that aren't simply complaints about being inconvenienced. Because there's plenty of real problems, but, in the context of this little comment-chain, the issue was airport security.
You mean what's more invasive than being groped and having an image of my genitals taken when I fly? I think that's overt enough and more than mere inconvenience.
Also not sure how you discount being exposed to dangerous radiation as not "overtly invasive". I certainly don't see that as a different question.
But, I actually wasn't focused on airport security as much as the spirit of your response. This idea that we have to meet everything the bad guys do with "more security", which does equal less freedom, rights, and privacy. The PATRIOT Act, of course comes to mind.
Though, it certainly applies to the airport scenario too. Bad guys put a bomb in a shoe? We all take off our shoes now. Bomb in the underwear? We move to backscatter machines that image what's underneath. Where does it stop? It's crazy, and it's a product of the same general reactionary thinking that brought us the "plenty of real problems" you referenced.
Yet most people would agree that it would be foolish not to take some precautions when loading 300 people on a cigar-tube cylinder in the sky.
It's worth noting that in the 1970s people weren't trying to commit mass casualty attacks with planes via the passengers nearly as often. Today, no one expects a conventional hijacking either.