This Is What Happens When I Go Reading the News.

OK, now, I am definitely not a political blogger, and I'm not much interested in getting into rants about current events or posting diatribes about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket. But I gotta ask, is it just me, or does this proposed new airline passenger screening system terrify the crap out of anybody else?

Here's a quote from the article:

The system "will provide protections for the flying public," said TSA spokesman Brian Turmail. "Not only should we keep passengers from sitting next to a terrorist, we should keep them from sitting next to wanted ax murderers."

Personally, you know, I don't have all that much of a problem with the idea of sitting next to an axe murderer. I mean, it's not like he's going to whip out his axe and butcher me right there on the plane.

Here's another quote:

The TSA will check each passenger in two steps. The first will match the passenger's name and information against databases of private companies that collect information on people for commercial reasons, such as their shopping habits. This process will generate a numerical score that will indicate the likelihood that the passenger is who he says he is. Passengers will not be informed of their color code or their numerical score.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly thrilled with the idea of the government studying my shopping habits, and I'm even less thrilled with the idea of them making decisions about me based on them. And I'm very, very unthrilled with the idea of being singled out as a security threat based on some computer's analysis of my shopping habits. Personally, I'd much rather take my chances with the axe murderer.

It's increasingly beginning to seem to me that Orwell's only mistake was in being off by a few decades. 'Cause this is seriously double-plus ungood stuff.